Who do Leeds and indeed the rest of football think they are ?

[goats]

Who said anything about mass gatherings, you ****ing moron? I certainly didn't.

"This virus is nasty, a whole new wave could emerge....."

So what are we, as a society, supposed to do? Lock ourselves away forever in case things get worse? That's just not going to happen.

In my opinion, it's far better to begin a controlled return to some sort of normality as soon as possible rather than just hiding away living in constant fear. That's what's happening in numerous countries around the world and it's already happening here too. The city centre now looks very different to how it was a few weeks ago and a good percentage of the population are acting very differently too, which is hardly surprising after nine weeks of inactivity.

I don't understand the opposition to football resuming behind closed doors. If the players or staff don't want to be involved, they won't have to. And if people aren't interested in it, they won't have to pay attention. So what's the problem?

How does the city centre look different?

[The Lone Gunman]

How does the city centre look different?

I walk up Queen Street most days of the week on the way home from work. The most obvious difference is the amount of people who are out and about. During the first two or three weeks of the lockdown, you could walk from one end of Queen Street to the other in mid-afternoon and see maybe five or six other people in total. The numbers began increasing steadily from about week four onward to the point where this week there have been a couple of hundred people on occasions.

Until recently, Sainsburys had somebody on the door limiting the number of people entering at any one time. They don't now. The same is true at Poundland, where one of the two shops was open and a security guard was limiting numbers. Now the second shop has reopened and there's nobody on the door of either store.

The M&S food hall has been open throughout, but no other items have been available for sale and numbers inside the shop have been limited. They started selling clothes and home items about three or four weeks ago and yesterday there was nobody on the door. It was the busiest that I've seen it in the food hall for months, including pre-lockdown.

Boots had one side door open and were operating a one in, one out system a few weeks back. Now the main doors are wide open and unmanned. Same story with Superdrug.

KFC and Pizza Hut were doing deliveries only until this week, so the only people you'd see there were Deliveroo riders. Now they are both doing counter collections for the public and KFC has some sort of machine system in operation for placing orders (I haven't actually been in there, so I don't know how it works, but the doors are open again).

The fruit seller opposite Tesco has been back in business this week for the first time since the lockdown began. The cycle shop at the station end on the other side of the road is also open again now (I think it reopened last week).

The banks have been open but very quiet until the last couple of weeks. They now seem to have more staff and more customers. Specsavers is also open to some degree - not sure how that's working but I've seen customers in there for the first time this week.

[goats]

I walk up Queen Street most days of the week on the way home from work. The most obvious difference is the amount of people who are out and about. During the first two or three weeks of the lockdown, you could walk from one end of Queen Street to the other in mid-afternoon and see maybe five or six other people in total. The numbers began increasing steadily from about week four onward to the point where this week there have been a couple of hundred people on occasions.

Until recently, Sainsburys had somebody on the door limiting the number of people entering at any one time. They don't now. The same is true at Poundland, where one of the two shops was open and a security guard was limiting numbers. Now the second shop has reopened and there's nobody on the door of either store.

The M&S food hall has been open throughout, but no other items have been available for sale and numbers inside the shop have been limited. They started selling clothes and home items about three or four weeks ago and yesterday there was nobody on the door. It was the busiest that I've seen it in the food hall for months, including pre-lockdown.

Boots had one side door open and were operating a one in, one out system a few weeks back. Now the main doors are wide open and unmanned. Same story with Superdrug.

KFC and Pizza Hut were doing deliveries only until this week, so the only people you'd see there were Deliveroo riders. Now they are both doing counter collections for the public and KFC has some sort of machine system in operation for placing orders (I haven't actually been in there, so I don't know how it works, but the doors are open again).

The fruit seller opposite Tesco has been back in business this week for the first time since the lockdown began. The cycle shop at the station end on the other side of the road is also open again now (I think it reopened last week).

The banks have been open but very quiet until the last couple of weeks. They now seem to have more staff and more customers. Specsavers is also open to some degree - not sure how that's working but I've seen customers in there for the first time this week.

Cheers I did pop in during initial lockdown weeks to go to m&s for essential cheese scones for my old dear, to balance it out I also popped into Poundland to grab a load of crisps for the kids. It was deserted, maybe two people in m&s. Def got busier the last time I went in and quite a few people had realised it was a good place to shop as it was so quiet. You could also park on Charles street right outside which was great. A bloke I know who runs his own insurance Co said it was so dead initially he was getting hassled by the homeless quite aggressively, I guess they were getting desperate with no shoppers about.
No doubt most stuff will be open again in a few weeks and rightly so.....

[J R Hartley]

Cheers I did pop in during initial lockdown weeks to go to m&s for essential cheese scones for my old dear, to balance it out I also popped into Poundland to grab a load of crisps for the kids. It was deserted, maybe two people in m&s. Def got busier the last time I went in and quite a few people had realised it was a good place to shop as it was so quiet. You could also park on Charles street right outside which was great. A bloke I know who runs his own insurance Co said it was so dead initially he was getting hassled by the homeless quite aggressively, I guess they were getting desperate with no shoppers about.
No doubt most stuff will be open again in a few weeks and rightly so.....

Absolutely. We can’t stay in lockdown indefinitely, the cure is going to be more damaging than the virus. Get the boozers and restaurants open again ASAP too. They drive so many other jobs. Most of the magazines we print rely on the hospitality and retail trades for advertising.

I’ve been working so have got a feel for how much business has been affected. There’s people on furlough who just haven’t got a grasp of the serious impact to the economy. We’ve all had letters this week to say redundancy meetings to take place and I’ve still taken calls off furloughed colleagues who think it’s all going to magically turn around on August 1st when the 80% government furlough ends.

[xsnaggle]

Absolutely. We can’t stay in lockdown indefinitely, the cure is going to be more damaging than the virus. Get the boozers and restaurants open again ASAP too. They drive so many other jobs. Most of the magazines we print rely on the hospitality and retail trades for advertising.

I’ve been working so have got a feel for how much business has been affected. There’s people on furlough who just haven’t got a grasp of the serious impact to the economy. We’ve all had letters this week to say redundancy meetings to take place and I’ve still taken calls off furloughed colleagues who think it’s all going to magically turn around on August 1st when the 80% government furlough ends.

I did read somewhere the other day that when workers are getting laid off after the furlough money stops that the unions will not stand for people who have been on furlough being laid off before those that worked through the crisis.
I know your thoughts on it from what you posted on here.

[J R Hartley]

I did read somewhere the other day that when workers are getting laid off after the furlough money stops that the unions will not stand for people who have been on furlough being laid off before those that worked through the crisis.
I know your thoughts on it from what you posted on here.

Any other time I wouldn’t mind being made redundant tbh I’m looking to get out of a dying industry but obviously not ideal time for a career change. However, there’s no way I’ll get redundancy, I’ve already been asked off record for my opinion on who I think should be left go and was difficult to answer as there’s a lot of dead wood and shirkers in the office. The 4 “workers” are still working and probably one other is unlucky to be on furlough but the other 7 you could make a case for all of them to go. Plus, It will cost them too much to make me redundant anyway. Sadly, I think decisions are going to be made on how little it costs the business rather than their skill.

[CCFCC3PO]

Any other time I wouldn’t mind being made redundant tbh I’m looking to get out of a dying industry but obviously not ideal time for a career change. However, there’s no way I’ll get redundancy, I’ve already been asked off record for my opinion on who I think should be left go and was difficult to answer as there’s a lot of dead wood and shirkers in the office. The 4 “workers” are still working and probably one other is unlucky to be on furlough but the other 7 you could make a case for all of them to go. Plus, It will cost them too much to make me redundant anyway. Sadly, I think decisions are going to be made on how little it costs the business rather than their skill.

Three of my neighbours are on furlough - that is 3 in one house.

One is at a builder's merchants. He has refused to go to work, even though his workplace is now open.
His wife is self-employed, so that is pretty much that.
The son works at a factory, but in the office. He refused to work from home so was furloughed.

I am wfh - he knocks my door complaining because the gazebo we have up was blowing around in the wind. Conversation that happened over a safe distance - "You need to take that down" - "I'll do it later" - "It'll get damaged in the wind" - "I can't do it now" - "I'll help" - "Thanks, but it will not be possible to socially distance when doing it. I'll do it after I finish work" - "They won't know will they?" - "Probably not, but I'm getting paid to work for them, not on my garden" - "When do you finish then?" - "If the last week is anything to go by, 8-9 pm".

This on top of a few other comments about how my house could do with a repaint, or the driveway has weeds "Plenty of time to fix that now" type comments.

It's basically been visitor after visitor going to their house, barbecues in the back garden, a fully paid holiday. I agree with furlough, but some people are definitely taking the piss.

Like you say, though, when redundancies happen (as they will at my place) - they will do it the cheapest way possible.