I did read it, but the man himself apparently said it was him. Perhaps the journalist who said it wasn't him was protecting his source. I don't really give a toss, it was all made up whether by 1 or 2 people.
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It makes all the difference if you're believing The Mail's telling of the story that this guy was the one behind the second trip story but doubted everything else printed by the left-wing rags. It's a personal thing about what you're perceiving to be true - not a media is right/wrong thing, xsnaggle.
I only tended to believe it because he says it himself, its not someone accusing him of lying. Why would he lie about lying?
But I just found this from the Evening standard 15 hrs ago.
"A man who claimed to have seen Dominic Cummings in Durham for a second time in April has admitted that he made it up, according to reports.
Tim Matthews said he altered figures on the popular Strava running app to make it look like he had seen Mr Cummings in Durham on April 19, after the PM's aide had returned to London from his first trip.
His claim was reported in the Guardian earlier this week.
But he told the Mail on Sunday: "I made that up afterwards, a few days ago in fact. I modified it for a little bit of comedy value.
"I undid it later, I’m sorry. A bit of comedy value even if it was really inappropriate."
He added: "The only thing that I can definitively say is that at some point during the last few months when I was out running, I had occasion to think to myself, 'That’s Dominic Cummings'.
"What I can’t tell you is any sort of timeframe other than in the last few months."
Mr Matthews is one of two people who originally claimed to have seen Mr Cummings on April 19.
Yes, i got that bit. :-)
I'm not saying that he's lying - you're saying that his lies were the ones picked up by the media when he doesn't say that anywhere. He says he made it up but I don't recall reading anywhere whom he told his pack of lies to. I know there were a few people on Twitter who made some shit up too - but we can't attribute those lies to The Guardian and The Mirror, can we?
The key thing that you've mentioned several times is how you wanted the papers to be better at verifying their facts - if this guy isn't their source then it's not relevant to the story and The Mail are making it look worse by planting that seed of doubt - which you have been watering for the last several hours.
The guy lied about seeing Cummings - but to whom and when? If it wasn't to the people who printed that Cummings made a second trip then it's not relevant in our discussion about the media spin on Cummings.
"I made that up afterwards, a few days ago in fact. I modified it for a little bit of comedy value."
He made up the story after the Guardian broke the news. How is that relevant?
But his claim was reported in the guardian so he must have told somebody? That somebody must have either worked for them or told them, and he says he later added to the story. Its all a load of bollox. I don't know to whom he told it but he must have told someone and now that he has admitted he made it up I'd imagine the person he told isn't in a hurry to admit it.
I think they said he wasn't the first source of the alleged second trip, not that he wasn't a source at all. I really don't care one way or the other its just more media shite.
We had a preview of what cutting of public services and withdrawal of financial support could lead to with Grenfell Tower, now we have the same thing with consequences that are so much more harrowing because of the numbers involved;-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...to-coronavirus
I was going to say that even if the man who said he had seen Cummings the first time was a pathological liar, the fact Cummings admitted that what he had described in this instance did happen should really render any argument pointless, but we live in Bannonworld now where self confession counts for nothing and can be excused and pardoned if it's the right person doing the confessing.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...wsApp_AppShare
I didn't see this article when it was published three weeks ago, but it's good at least to see that Leanne Wood's "fear" did not materialise.
I'm not sure how some people can say the people in this part of the world have been worse than anywhere else in observing the rules when so few are travelling extensively enough to make comparisons. I've seen people who are not keeping to the two metre rule, but far more who are - then again, I've not travelled further than Aberdare, some seven miles away, for nearly three months now so I'm one of those not seeing what things are like elsewhere.
I can remember reading on here years ago about how many people there are with some sort of disability or infirmity in the valleys and thinking they were making sweeping generalisations, but, having lived up here for more than two years now, I can see what they meant.
For a start, I feel much younger in some ways than I did when I lived in Cardiff and this can only be because, relative to many I live close to, I am younger. Also, I see far more older people with walking aids of some sort than I used to in Cardiff and, as remarked in the article, there seem to be more people up here with respiratory problems of some sort or another - I'd favour a combination of a relatively old population, many with some sort of chronic disability or illness, and a dense population in terms of the ammount of people living close to each other in terraced houses as a more likely cause of the problems with the virus in the valleys over poor observation of the guidelines/law.
Another Professor Tim finding.
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/...missed-expert/
Me confused.
Are you still going on? We've done it all.
I'm calling it an 'alleged' second trip because it never happened.
Shouldn't there be a spike in deaths around now because of the VE day shenanigans and the sunny weather around that time? Not trying to be a smartarse, trying to look for a positive if there hasn't been a spike
There are so many different ways of looking at what's being said/written about death rate andthe R rate. I asked some time ago what the difference would be if they excluded Care homes from it. Now. There are so many different ways of looking at what's being said/written about death rate and the R rate. I asked some time ago what the difference would be if they excluded Care homes from it. Now apparently it would be significantly lower. Given that care homes can be fairly tightly monitored (Even though the government and the operators failed to do it originally) will the government use the lower figure? Another point is the average age of mortality. As they have told older people all the time to be more careful because they are at greater risk, and if these people listen (not that they do apparently if you witness comments by TOBW and TLG) then that should help to keep it down too. Because now the bundle all deaths together we don't know on a day to day basis how many of the current deaths are care home related.
And care home deaths raise another question for me. Deaths in hospital are deaths of people who had the symptoms bad enough to be taken in, the deteriorated and died. That is straight forward enough. Now if a person was in a care home and had a similar level of symptoms they would be taken to hospital.
But Covid 19 is an officially "Notifiable Disease" which means that if it is present or reasonably thought to be present then the certifying doctor must put it on the death certificate. So an older person with serious life threatening condition dies in his/her bed and the staff tell the doctor the symptoms. If he forms the opinion that Covid 19 was present he is obliged to put it on the death certificate even if those symptoms were never severe enough for the person to have been taken to hospital, and the persons underlying conditions were life threatening anyway. So how will we ever know the true numbers odfdeaths actually attributable to the disease?
Another point about average mortality rates and the current figure being higher than average has been referred to. It was said by I think one of the clinicians on the daily briefing that we might have to wait a full year to know the full difference in average deaths, and the reason he gave was this: So very many of the people who have died are old or had severe underlying conditions that were life threatening anyway that we will have to see if, following the above average death rate now, there is a below average death rate in the following months. He said this would indicate that the people who died from this may well have died within the 12 month period anyway and it only hastened their demise. It seems a bit of a callous way of looking at it but I see his point.
My last point was a question asked by a member of the public on one of the briefings at the weekend. If we have been self isolating for 10 weeks, and to be fair most have been keeping to the rules or at least taking reasonable precautions how come there are still several thousand new cases appearing every day given that we are told the incubation period is 7 - 21 days depending what you read? JYT was asked and he said hey didn't know. The new cases are not coming from a particular sector of society or from particular 'essential' occupations os where are they coming from? It really is weird.
End of eulogy!! :hide:
Re children returning to school today. An interesting quote from an 11 year old: His classmate Ruby, also 11, quite likes the extra space, with desks in rows facing the front instead of pushed together. “It could be better because sometimes people can be annoying.”
(source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52872670)
What a radical idea - desks in rows facing the front! Obviously not modern education thinking to suggest that a return to the system pre-1970's might be a good model for the future, post-Covid.
I think it's being mentioned more and more by people who know more about these things than me that the chances of catching the virus while outdoors are a great deal less than indoors. The impression I'm getting is that scientific opinion has swing more behind this line of thinking than it was at the end of March and I noticed that yesterday what's her name Harries was sounding like she was more concerned about people from more than one household travelling to the beach in the same car or exchanging plates or cutlery while eating than she was about the dangers of being on the beach itself.