Local news
Sep. 17th, 2020 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustHealth minister Matt Hancock has just confirmed new lockdown restrictions for the north east of England. From tomorrow we are not allowed to socialise with people outside our own household. We can still go to the pub and enjoy a solitary drink, and I won't pretend that 10 o'clock closing time is going to cramp my style unduly. I do wonder what my student neighbours will make of it, but we'll find out soon enough.
The Guardian headline describes this as affecting "nearly 2 million people", and I don't know how that compares to the other 'local' lockdowns. What strikes me is that, unlike the essentially urban centres of the northwest, it covers a huge area. A hundred miles from the Tweed to the Tees, Berwick to (to pick a random example) Barnard Castle, and fifty or so west to east, Haltwhistle to Hartlepool, say. Rural - sometimes very rural - areas are treated the same way as student cities: I wonder what they think of it? (I also notice that Middlesbrough, which I thought was on the watch list, doesn't seem to be included: perhaps it has separate arrangements?)
Meanwhile, the local local news is that someone went down the street this morning and helped themselves to the milk from the doorsteps: not just a pint here and there but methodically and in quantity (well, yes, inasfar as doorstep deliveries do amount to a quantity noweadays). This is the second time it has happened to us (previously, also on a Thursday, three weeks ago) but suddenly the WhatsApp group is full of similar reports.
The Guardian headline describes this as affecting "nearly 2 million people", and I don't know how that compares to the other 'local' lockdowns. What strikes me is that, unlike the essentially urban centres of the northwest, it covers a huge area. A hundred miles from the Tweed to the Tees, Berwick to (to pick a random example) Barnard Castle, and fifty or so west to east, Haltwhistle to Hartlepool, say. Rural - sometimes very rural - areas are treated the same way as student cities: I wonder what they think of it? (I also notice that Middlesbrough, which I thought was on the watch list, doesn't seem to be included: perhaps it has separate arrangements?)
Meanwhile, the local local news is that someone went down the street this morning and helped themselves to the milk from the doorsteps: not just a pint here and there but methodically and in quantity (well, yes, inasfar as doorstep deliveries do amount to a quantity noweadays). This is the second time it has happened to us (previously, also on a Thursday, three weeks ago) but suddenly the WhatsApp group is full of similar reports.
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Date: 2020-09-17 04:04 pm (UTC)