Spikecollie

This is great and it shows young people engaging and sending a really constructive message: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-51781573

Religion, common sense and science! Contraception, abortion (even for morbid maternal clinical reasons - I lived in Ireland for a long time) - vaccination. A veritable battle against "les cultes"

Swebby - help! The ABC (alcohol blood count) in your body/bloodstream would never get to 70%. Your liver (a healthy one - and given other factors) can process one unit of alcohol per hour). Way before you ever got near the levels you aspire to you would have alcohol poisoning and die...(fair summary, Swebby?)

That was my understanding too. I was just wondering how you could home-make it. Thanks for the scientific profile...

Anti-baterical=kills bacteria. High alcohol content is needed to stop viruses. Anti-bacterial handwipes are still useful, just not for viruses...

Sadly, yes. There are many more elsewhere - forgotten people, forgotten suffering.

There was a very interesting article on BFTMTV about the psychology of hoarding, and that's what it is. It is a mechanism of exercising control (that Iknew) but it is particularly true for intimate items like toilet rolls and sanitary products. Food is secondary to intimate bodily needs. I understand - but please let's relax, take deep breaths and leave some toilet rolls for everyone - I don't buy newspapers, so don't even go there...

Totally agree about the dried out "poulet". I sanitised my hands after the supermarket. Who knows who has been buying the t-rolls here - some bleedin' a'holes! It's Ambazac for the Universe's sake and Limoges is only 30 mins away but I am not driving there for bog rolls! I have to admit that if I drank alcohol, I would be tempted, but since I don't I bought chocolate instead and had a few bits after an extremely wet run with the doglet. All my footwear is sodden now and my boots haven't dried despite three days by the heat. I think this ghastly weather (here at least) is making people buy too much toilet roll!!!

Will it make us think more about the horrific inequalities in our so called civilised world? Maybe it will take something much, much worse... I despair just thinking about my fellow human beings who have no defence, protection or governance against this. We are so fortunate in our so called developed societies to have relatively advanced medical and social care. Just think about living in a makeshift dwelling with no running water or sanitation and no medical facilities and getting ill. A daily reality that is about to get worse...

Statistics baulk at the comparison of "apples and pears" so please don't do that. It's like comparing the frequency of road dearhs to those in air crashes...

Got the ingredients, may need some more rubbing alcohol but a project for tomorrow. I make all sorts - will check the alcohol content and report back when made!

Interesting response from government I have just read here. Pharmacies have been authorised to produce their own alcohol hand gels - all must sell for a pre-determined price of 3€ per 100 ml no matter where they are sold. I wonder how you make it - apparently vodka doesn't work according to a BBC article I read earlier today as it needs at least 60% alcohol. Anyone got a recipe? I've made soap...

I see your point, Dan. Those folks from the religious gathering up north went everywhere afterwards. I think the government have kind of conceded that it is a losing game and when I was watching the TV with one of my clients this morning (sometimes that's what I do when they just want company!) they were talking about a "jeu perdu" (a lost game). We really, anywhere, can't test everyone and when people disperse unoticed it is almost impossible. I'm just annoyed today because I couldn't make a normal, ordinary purchase of toilet roll

What the hell else can they do here? Test everyone? It's almost at epidemic proportions in some small areas and some of them are not exactly metropolitan.

Yes! Contributions toward the fight against cancer too. There are more "fights against" in this world than fights against each other. Your comment "every country doing there own thing gets us nowhere" is so telling. That's why we need solid European collaboration and indeed a much stronger United Nations. This isolationsim of countries has to stop - a situation like this shows us that no country is, can be or can work alone...

Ahem! I dropped into to my local Lidl just an hour ago on my way back from work to pick up a few bits and bobs for the weekend and next week, including - toilet paper - guess what, no flippin' toilet paper. I went across to SuperU guess what, no fliipin' toilet paper. Hardly any soap and certainly no hand gels. I have one more call to make in a few minutes to a woman in the village so I'll drop into the local shop and see if they have any toilet paper. I have twelve rolls left and I'll go back to Lidl on Monday and buy kitchen roll, which they had lots of, in the event of there being no toilet paper again.

In Val-de-Marne a bit away from the centre of Paris itself and close to Créteil where there have been other cases nearby. Still worrying for folks up there though.

A second case confirmed on RATP, the Paris transport network - the first was a ticket agent, this new one is a bus driver.

Exactly what I have been saying to others who have cancer patient relatives. It's about managing their expectations and also their emotions as they want to be free of one disease but we don't want them to walk into another. It's a very difficult "tightrope" in my experience with my family. Is was also implying that we shouldn't ignore other illnesses just because this one is at the forefront for now.

I think there is a balance with parents. When my Dad was in the terminal stages of bowel cancer he continued driving with his morphine syringe driver in place until he could drive no more. If you try to stop your Dad from going about his commercial and other business he may either rebel and tell you where to go (!)/ignore you, or do as he is told and get very depressed. He sounds an independent man, I'd let him make his own decisions - but you know him better than I do.

Oh crikey, when I had that really horrid throat infection a few weeks ago my doctor said 'flu was completely rife and it still is. It's not an epidemic any more but it is circulating, nasty and deadly. He said it can manifest in many ways too and that if you are fit and healthy and have some resistance to the strain, you may well, as I did, just get a severe sore throat and elevated temperature for a week. Viruses and individual bodies interact very differently.

Let's not go there with "pseudo-science", Mattwolves. Most so called predictions are interpreted coincidences. Let's leave it there - I'm happy for people to believe what they wish but this is not the time or the place...

Same with my Mum in law who has just finished chemo for Lymphoma. Her hubby has had severe asthma all his life. My husband and the rest of his family are trying to be brave and just encourage them to stay in if the virus spreads widely. Problem is, Mum is very indeoendent and driving to the supermarket was one of the first things she did to reassert that independence after recovering from treatment - she's a Sainsbury's unstoppable and older folks are very resistant to anything that reliquishes their independence. Dad refused home help while Mum was ill because he wanted to cope himself...

I was only thinking this myself while walking with doglet earlier. Someone suggested that we might wake up and find it snowing, having been so absorbed with COVID-19 not to have checked the models/forecasts! Seriously, there are many many threats out there and the real bugbear of our world is cancer. It is indiscriminate and does kill babies, children and those in their prime of life. It is too easy to get bound up with the real and present danger and to forget that the other bogeymen will still be there when we get out of this. Keep giving to, working with and thinking of cancer charities. I have lost three family members to the wretched thing and have one in current remission.

The French Deputy (MP) for Haut-Rhin is in intensive care with severe respiratory problems due to COVID-19. He was in Parliament last week for questions but not this week.