Maybe Hungarians are not a bunch of complete and utter selfish idiots like us Brits though who think it's their god-given right to stand touching me and cough all over me giving me whatever they have. We could live our lives fairly normally if people in this country were largely responsible and willing to just do small things for the good of the country beyond COVID. If we were willing to actually give people space, not cram people into places like sardines, wear masks in public especially if you think you may be ill if you think you are ill not go into work (or ideally out in public outside of an emergency), was or anti-bac your hands often, don't cough and sneeze into the air and certainly not into your hand if you might then touch something, public places having better hygiene procedures etc etc. It's all fairly small things that we really wouldn't notice all that much but would benefit the health of the country as a whole, not just for COVID but all the colds, flu and other illness that do the rounds. And would have us better prepared for when/if the actual big one comes
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Most liked posts in thread: Euro Crowds.
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Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...Skyebantam and MallorcaBantam like this.
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Offcomedun Important PlayerQatar 2022 Entrant P.L.22/23 Entrant P.L.23/24 Entrant Supporter Euro2020 Winner Euro 2020 P.L. 20/21 3rd PlaceSkyebantam and Storck like this.
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Offcomedun Important PlayerQatar 2022 Entrant P.L.22/23 Entrant P.L.23/24 Entrant Supporter Euro2020 Winner Euro 2020 P.L. 20/21 3rd Place
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Feels like England are the lepers of Europe.
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If they don't feel safe they can make their own mind up. The average age if a Covid death is 82. Texas, is fully open for business and bodies aren't piling up. We are still in full fear mode here, in Texas they have backed the vaccine and were ridiculed for their stance, now they have been back to normal and no one says a word or points to the doomsday scenarios.
Sages latest predictions have cases running higher than the midwinter peak, and it is unquestioned as being gospel in the middle of the summer. 300k cases per day in a hugely vaccinated population in the middle of summer is just fantasy.
130 guests for the G7 seemed to be just fine, all masks and social distancing for the photos thrown out of the window when business was off the agenda. Why can't the 130 people just take the free lateral flow tests anyway? -
Offcomedun Important PlayerQatar 2022 Entrant P.L.22/23 Entrant P.L.23/24 Entrant Supporter Euro2020 Winner Euro 2020 P.L. 20/21 3rd Place
Both of my kids were due to get married in summer 2020. Plans for these weddings were obviously made long before anyone had heard of Covid. Both have had their weddings postponed twice. One had invited 130 guests and the other 160. Both had to make difficult decisions about who to leave out in order to stay within those numbers. Neither was inviting FB friends.
Split the total number of guests in half (one half each for bride & groom) and it's not difficult for each side to reach 60 or 70 guests. Obviously you invite your parents, siblings and your siblings' partners and their kids, if they have them. Plus grandparents. It's also socially normal to invite aunts, uncles and cousins to weddings (especially if you or your parents have attended theirs or their children's weddings) in addition to your immediate family. And most of those people will have partners.
If you have a large family - my daughter's chap has fourteen aunts and uncles, so that's 28 guests including all their spouses, not counting their kids (ie his cousins, some of whom are more like close friends) - it can be very difficult to know who to invite and who to leave out without offending people. My cousin (who I rarely see) had a strop when told that his daughter wasn't invited to my daughter's wedding, because my daughter had attended her wedding - they are second cousins!
Then you get into friends, from various walks of life - home, school, university etc - most of whom now have partners; some have kids. The trend these days is for couples to invite far more of their own friends than used to be the case. And parents also want to invite some of their best friends, whose kids' weddings they may have attended. That trend has gone down since the days when I had about twenty of my in-laws friends at my wedding (most of whom I'd never seen before) but it's still a thing - proud parents naturally want their best friends to share in the joy of their own kids' weddings.
And so it goes on. It can easily end up with huge numbers, very difficult choices, and you still end up offending people and leaving out some people who you'd like to invite.
You will probably say that in a pandemic couples should trim their expectations. But that's hard. A wedding is a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event. It's a very special day and, of course, there is an element of showing off about it. It's a showpiece rite of passage and people of all cultures have always made a big deal of it. And, also, the nature of weddings in this country has changed pretty drastically. In the old days it was distinctly frowned upon, if not outright taboo, for couples to live together out of wedlock. A wedding was a statement of civil and religious long term commitment and a rite of passage from leaving home to living elsewhere with your spouse. Nowadays, unless you are ultra-religious, which most aren't, nobody gives a toss about that. Most couples live together before getting married and (like both my kids) buy property together - so their long term commitment to each other isn't in doubt. In these circumstances the actual wedding ceremony (ie the committment pledging) becomes less important than the dressing up and the big piss-up party afterwards. The big 'do' actually becomes the main purpose of doing it - it's the celebration rather than the ceremony that matters. If you're already living together in a shared financial commitment, what's the point of having a damp squib wedding with a small fraction of the people you'd like to invite?
Plus, all these plans were made before the pandemic and are very difficult to change without incurring big financial penalties. You can't get cancellation insurance now, so people are simply rolling over the plans they made for last year to avoid being penalised. Available venues are like hen's teeth because of the backlog, so switching to a smaller event, even if you are reluctantly prepared to go ahead with a half-hearted event with many of your nearest and dearest absent, is extremely difficult in current circumstances. My daughter's venue re-booked her from last May to this June, but when it was postponed the second time they were told that the next Saturday available is in June 2023, so they have had to re-book for a Thursday next year - this will exclude a number of their close friends who are teachers who can't get weekday time off during term time.
The whole thing is a logistical nightmare. Even though the numbers restrictions have been lifted I feel for those going ahead immediately. Who wants a wedding do without singing or dancing? -
And it really doesn't matter if there will be a small number of deaths, we could be using this as a chance to actually make the country and the world as a whole healthier. The average person wastes way more of the year than needed being ill even if it's just a cold and the way modern society is it doesn't help. You get a cold, you goto work, you potentially spread it to people you come across on your way, especially if you use public transport so are like sardines in a can and you potentially leave your germs on anything you are near or touch, ready to be passed on. You get to work and the same thing as you are too close to people, you are touching things with germs on your hands and the likes. Just having a cold makes you less productive which is bad for business but you then have it go through your whole workforce that's a problem. And away from work its just as bad, you go to the pub, cinema, club, sporting event or even shopping you risk spreading it if we just go back to pre-covid.
If we can just take simple precautions which really wouldn't have a major impact on our way of lives but reduces the spread of any illness it would benefit everyone. And would save some peoples lives who get something and due to other conditions they die from it when they perhaps didn't need to get ill in the first place if we were just more responsible as a society. As I keep saying as well this is not the big pandemic we have been warned about, the big one is one that has the same kind of contagious level as COVID but has a much higher fatality rate so against getting being more responsible and less concerned on self-interest would see us less likely to be caught coldStop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand... -
And the thing is if someone wants to invite 130 people I don't have a problem with that but we have had over a year knowing the situation in the world. If you want 130 guests shouldn't people have been making plans to be able to have all these people in a socially distanced manner. Packing 130 people into a small church shouldn't have been an option even if 'freedom day' had happenedStop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand... -
Offcomedun Important PlayerQatar 2022 Entrant P.L.22/23 Entrant P.L.23/24 Entrant Supporter Euro2020 Winner Euro 2020 P.L. 20/21 3rd Place
It's also a rite of passage for parents of the couple who want to show off their kids to their friends, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Just because you don't see your old uni friends etc doesn't mean you are typical. I'm still in regular contact with several people I shared a student house at 79 Cecil Avenue with from 1981-84. I visit them and they me, sometimes more than once a year. Those people have known my kids since they were born - they're not strangers.
Both my kids live in London and many of their uni friends, and several from school, also live in London and they meet up regularly. It would be inconceivable for those people not to be invited to their weddings.
I don't think you have a clue about the logistics of rearranging weddings in the current circumstances. Making arrangements to hold a wedding in a socially distanced manner when you don't know whether it will even be able to go ahead is next to impossible. How many people will be allowed? Will suitable venues be available (answer - highly unlikely)? Can we get a registrar? (ditto)? Will we lose thousands of pounds if we cancel our existing venue, caterers, DJ, band, whatever (almost certainly)?
Most people have simply rolled over their last year's arrangements to this year because they were allowed to do so with minimal financial penalty. Once you start cancelling and rearranging you hit lost deposits and no end of logistical issues.
As I said, nobody really needs to get married these days. The point of the wedding is to have a big celebration ceremony and party. If you have to cut it to the bone or do it without dancing etc it becomes virtually pointless.