‘Opinions are like assholes’, said everybody’s favourite hardnose ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan; ‘everybody has one, but they think each other’s stink’. You said it Harry, and boy, has the Coronavirus emergency proved your point.
Since the government’s first daily briefing, senior figures and their top medical advisors have gone to great lengths to explain the strategy underlying the response to Covid-19.
Still, this hasn’t prevented a huge number of trumpeter’s lips from pursing and farting out an opinion, most of them probably ill-informed, many of them politically motivated. The government hasn’t done this but should have, it’s done this and shouldn’t have. This was done too early, this was done too late. Suddenly there are armchair experts everywhere.
Take columnist Peter Hitchens, who’s gone on record as stating that the approach to tackling C-19 is disproportionate to the threat it presents, and endangers civil liberties. ‘Anyone not angry at the lockdown has something wrong with them’, he pontificates. Well maybe so Hitch, but tell that to families devastated by the loss of a loved one.
Take commentator Tom Harwood. When asked what his credentials were to opine about the pandemic on Sky News, Harwood responded ‘BA (Hons) Politics, Durham’. A leading light in the field, then.
Then there are the outright gobshites. Ex-footy thug and jailbird Joey Barton springs to mind. Quoted in bogroll substitute ‘The Independent’, Joey the Jerk slammed the government for its ‘horrendous leadership’ during the crisis. ‘We needed strong governance and got a bunch of space cadets from Eton’, burbled the Scouse shitehouse. ‘Well it’s great to get a view from one of the world’s leading epidemiologists’, said absolutely nobody anywhere.
Naturally circumstances are ideal for axe-grinders to weigh in. How about Julie Heselwood, a Labour (never!) councillor from Leeds? This halfwit claimed that the PM’s stay in ICU was a con, a stunt designed to ‘change the narrative’ and deflect criticism away from the government’s handling of the crisis. Not so much an expert as a loony lefty then. What about… oh well, you’ll have gotten the idea, I’m sure…
Hands up if you’re sick of all the verbal diarrhoea being spewed forth by individuals who probably know as much as I do about how to tackle C-19, which is to say practically fuck all. In an ideal world, where resources are unlimited and Mystic Meg provides the authorities with unfailingly accurate predictions, the UK would be perfectly placed to deal with the epidemic.
But we don’t live in an ideal world. C-19 is novel, and struck with the speed and power of a hurricane. In a situation that is so fluid and dynamic, it’s inevitable that mistakes and misjudgements will be made. Professor Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine hit the nail on the head for me when he recently stated that ‘anyone who tells you that he knows what’s going to happen in the next six months is wrong’. So I’d say that in the circumstances, the government has played the best hand that it could in managing the hellish task of balancing the threat to life with the imperative of allowing life to go on.
Never mind though, there’s always some mouthy cunt who knows better ready to go on the telly or vent his spleen on the keyboard, as often as not with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Well, here’s a thought for all the know-alls out there.
Experts aren’t always right, and governments can abuse trust, but in this sort of emergency, they’re MUCH more likely to get things right than you. Epidemiology is a serious business, so is government in a crisis, so let the people who do these things for a living get on with their jobs and stop nipping their heads all day.
Most of all, stop looking for someone to blame for every setback. Do that, and you’re much less likely to end up looking and sounding like the man in the pub.
Nominated by Ron Knee
Good un Ron, like the use of the bard Harry Callaghan!☺
I like armchair experts they make me laugh,
Full of their own importance, always right,
Impressed with their own intellect, hate to be corrected!
We all know one, guy who tells you your using the wrong tool, bloke down the road mithering when your working in the garden etc
I always try to take the opposite of what they say even if I agree and push them into a meltdown.
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Thanks Miserable.
I’m not trying to maintain that in this situation, the authorities have got everything right, or are above criticism. I’m just fed up with cunts like Piers Morgan, or Groaniad columnists, who shout off their gobs all the time as tho they’re the great experts on the situation.
Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but in the end, the authorities have to make decisions, and that’s the difference. If they listened to everyone who thinks that they know better, they’d change tack every five minutes.
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Good nom as usual Ron. You DID forget Piers (I’m a supreme cunt) Morgan in the original post, but I see you recovered that omission! How the fuck he is now writing a column for the daily Mail is beyond me, unless…. It is the fact that Dacre has gone on to better things and left the Editorial content to Geordie Shore (or someone) who is a rank remainer.
8
Yes I see that good ol’ Piers Moron has come in for some flak of late over his increasingly argumentative and confrontational approach. It contributes nothing when he invites guests on to his show then rants and raves and barely lets anyone else get a word in.
Mind you, it was a hoot when he had that utter cunt Terry Christian on recently; two utter gobshites ranting incessantly at each other. A meeting of great conversationalists it was not!
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Yes, they were made for each other!
2
Superb analogy of the current crisis.
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Don’t know if I sound like the bloke in the pub but, right now, I wish I was him. On my own of course, don’t want to mix with any dirty disease carrying cunt.
A self service boozer? I’m an armchair fucking genius!
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It’s my armchair and no other cunt is going to tell me how to sit on it.
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Lol! Nice one SV!
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Very well articulated Ron. I think half the time it is down to lazy journalism. Cant be arsed to go find the person with credible experience, qualifications or both. It’s the same as the devastating story on the news and the swanky reporter asks those distraught “what does this mean to you?”…it means your a lazy cunt. CUNT!
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Well said. Experts all, except the ones working for the government apparently.
Why is it that the Guardian and the Mirror have the cream of the expert crop I wonder?
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Two newspapers I wouldn’t line a cat litter tray with. The guardian, with its misplaced intellectual superiority complex, and the mirror, with its ‘e bah gum, ain’t t’tories evil baby eating bastards’ tone to every story are just giving their readers want they want. Two sides of the same butt plug.
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The Groaniad, followed closely by El Independiente, are in my humble view the two biggest shithouse rags on sale in the UK today.
The Groaniad boasts that it’s ‘free of political bias’; fucking hell, anybody that reads the stuff that it turns out can see that’s it’s a relentless anti-Boris, anti-Brexit grind. The Cuntiad wouldn’t recognise objectivity if a ton of crashed through the roof. Any ‘newspaper’ that prints the one-sided guff from the likes of Little Owen and ‘Pretty’ Polly Toynbee instantly defines itself as bogroll substitute when nothing else is available.
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AND Good Morning Britain (GMB). Sorry to bring up Morgan again!
4
The Mirror used to be a good read – The Perishers , Andy Capp and Garth. Nowadays it really is a piece of shit in espousing left wing views of no substance. One good thing regarding the current crisis is that the media experts will be exposed for the twats that they are.
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Might I just couple The New European with the top shithouse rags (and it’s editor to wipe the punters arses with)
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Even if it was the only thing available Ron I still wouldn’t use the fucking Groaniad.
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@ Admin – that picture looks nothing like me, or my armchair!
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Thats because its Bertie on skype!
Hold your finger on the image to start it, and you can chat to him!
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“Bertie, is your Percy back yet?”
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You’re right Miserable, that is Bertie… spitting fucking image!
Percy’s hiding behind the sofa, Spoons.
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Morning everyone. I keep telling you I’ve got more hair than that cunt. Besides, I’ve moved on to electricity. That cunt’s still got a paraffin lamp!
Still no news of Percy since he flew away to join the wild parakeets. I fear that he’s ended up in Miserable’s illegal pie factory.
😀
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Afternoon Bertie.
Should you not update your avatar?
To: Bertie Blunt His Parrot’s Brown Bread.
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I’m seriously thinking of doing that but I’ve just put an ad in the Stockport Advertiser with an appeal not to return him.
Afternoon Ruff one. Stay safe.
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Looks like he farted and followed though.
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What was that Harry Enfield sketch ‘don’t want to go down the M25…….’
Great mom Ron and very well put together.
Love the Dirty Harry quote😂
Could you imagine him in today’s modern police force!!!!!
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“I know what you’re thinking. Is they a cisgendered white male or a fem-presenting non-binary? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a skoliosexual, the most powerful gender bias in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well do ya, punk?”
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Lol I can just imagine Clint snarling this out!
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Harry Enfield came to me as well.
‘You don’t want to do it like that. You want to do it like this’
And Cuntan displays a worrying knowledge of woke bullshit. Oh, and Dirty Harry, which isn’t worrying.
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Know your enemy Cuntstable!!
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YES!! Clint Eastwood AND Philip Glenister together, – Dirty Harry and DCI Gene Hunt! The only problem might be the language bridge.
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It’s all about making the media relevant, to keep the ‘news’ programs filled they have to find any cunt they can to pass an opinion.
Everything is focussed on negativity, haven’t enough of this, what about Mrs So and so didn’t get something, for fuck sake we live in the real world where Shit happens.
Now I am no expert but here is my opinion, most of it is going OK, yes people are dying but that was inevitable, stop comparing countries, testing, not testing…. once the chinky flu is under control, that is when the real problems will start!
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Spot on, Sick. As far as our beloved meeja is concerned, it’s ever a case of ‘good news is no news’.
It’s only a good story if they can throw their scare words like ‘panic’, ‘chaos’, ‘meltdown’, ‘horror’ and the like into the mix.
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I’ve noticed death toll figures “soar” (to such and such) being used lately as well, Ron. Simply because figures have “increased” to, doesn’t have the required imminent-disaster ring to it…
Good nonimation btw.
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You’ve made the mistake of paying attention to the news. I’ve not watched the national news in years and I now fast forward through the local news, at the first hint of anything CV, to the weather. I even let the radio news wash over me so I don’t hear it.
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Correct. Dump the haunted fishtank or at the very least send back your licence with a covering letter.
The best propaganda mouthpiece ever.
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Mogs, all we hear is Radio Ga Ga news on the BBC.
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Once a day, just to see what the status of the lockdown, then off. Until they actually know what’s going on, it’s a waste of time, and a depressing one at that.
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As much as Hitchens is a pompous old twit. He has a point. Although overstated.
Unfortunately people die. Whether that be from cancer, car accident or Corona.
Initially a heavy lockdown response was sensible to pre-empt a huge disaster. However thankfully that never came to pass. So it is vitally important freedoms are restored as soon as possible.
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I found out last night that an old friend of mine died. He had been in and out of hospital for alcohol related organ failure. For the last thirty years he’s been drinking himself to death, could inhale a can of bow in one gulp, and had a full size fridge next to his armchair in the living room, so he didn’t have to walk to the kitchen. 50 and gone. I hope he wasn’t coughing at the time, or he will end up being a statistic.
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I have a hard time seeing anything that will disrupt the relentlessly advancing state https://reason.com/2020/05/01/past-crises-have-ratcheted-up-leviathan-the-covid-19-pandemic-will-too/
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Where do they get the data to make such informed opinions? In the last couple of days, there have been many headlines stating that the death toll from Covid could be 50% higher than stated. Then there all the headlines about how badly we are doing compared to this country and that country. How are they collecting that data? Are we recording anyone who dies who tested positive for chinkyflu as a casualty, or are we without any shadow of a doubt only recording deaths that were caused by Covid alone? And how is the cause of death being ascertained? Is it through post mortem, the only reliable way to diagnose the cause of death, or are they just bagging them up and adding them to the stats? If that is the case, surely the figures could be lower than reported too, as misdiagnosed casualties are included?
As for our performance against other countries, China’s figures have pretty much been disregarded as bollocks, but are other countries counting their casualties under the same circumstances as ours? If a person dies of a heart attack and is also suffering from Covid, he could be included or excluded, depending on how you wish to interpret it.
China’s guilt in being the start of this pandemic is probably beyond doubt. But where others see conspiracies, all I see is clueless incompetence, and any cover ups will be to divert blame or attention from those who should have handled the crisis better, be that the governments, the organisations and the individuals who are tasked to respond to these events.
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That looks a comfy armchair.
I wouldn’t mind one of those plump leather armchairs that massage at the press of a button.
Also, a little poof to rest my feet on.
A cup of tea, plate of biscuits, whilst reading a broadsheet newspaper pretending to be intellectual but secretly reading a Viz magazine hidden from view.
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“Also, a little poof to rest my feet on.”
How about Owen Jones? – you can’t get them much more little than that.
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Warwick Davies?
Hes a little poof.
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Hey Warwick Davis is prime example of heterosexual manhood. He nearly fucked Princess Leia with his fuzzy cock.
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I thought it a French noun hence poufet, to check I googled and got an advertisement for “poufs and stools”. Jeezus
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Just one problem – if we got rid of armchair experts how would BBC TV and Wireless 4 fill up their schedules?
Wireless 4 from the Shipping Forecast in the morning to the midnight news – and beyond World Service till the next shipping forecast in the morning exists only for Covid 19 – just picture it – no Corona Island Discs, no Today programme full of self-important wankers, no Wimmins Covid Hour, no arsewipe David Aaronovitch with his fucking “Briefing Room” (ugh what a title that – fair whinnies with self aggrandisement)
I really don’t know what they will do when this virus loses it’s grip. They must be dreading the day when an antidote is availble – they won’t be able to smack their lips when they announce how many people died today “sadly” as they like to add with faux empathy.
Broadcasting encourages these cunts – only yesterday ex Blairite porker “Dame” Louise Casey (ex “homeless zsar, ex “respect” zsar – till she told an audience of senior police officers to “piss off”) appeared on Today boasting hwo she had gone to the government at the start of the Covid crisis “and I said, do you need any help?”. That old cunt knows only how to crawl to the right people.
Unkle Terry should be allowed to deal with the armchair experts.
7
Just like when Lily Allen cried at Labour’s back of a fag packet manifesto I cried at that brilliant nom.
Well done Ron.
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NHS workers must be sick to death of ‘armchair experts.’
Come back DCI Gene and Nurse Cunty. We miss you. I hope you’re both well.
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Hear hear. Gene’s been on recently but no sign of Nurse in ages. Come back both.
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Piers Moron sums up this nom. Absolute loud mouth twat. He moans the government won’t come on to his GMB crap so he can ‘hold the government to account’.
Because you make a 5 minute statement then answer it yourself you fucking 3 chinned plank.
Why does no one ever shouts him down is a mystery to me.
5
Here’s that Guru of Gobshites Terry Christian having a go. A meeting of great minds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOagvfIpD38
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Terry christian sucks donkey bell ends.
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Susanna Reid just squeaks ineffectually.
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Apparently vitamins C and D with zinc fight it off and combined with quinine is both a preventative and a cure.
That came from the experts.
Tried to post the link, but it was flagged as spam.
4
Excellent nom, Ron, I think I love you.
You’re right, Bertie, we/I’m sick of armchair experts. You meet lots in my line of work. A couple on here, two cheeks of the same arse. Lots of the real experts are dead. Two ambulance collegues in Yorkshire and another in Scotland, announced today. Shame they didn’t have an ‘Expert’ like Ron described so eloquantly, on speed dial, the poor cunts might still be alive..
(Been keeping quiet since I had my wrists slapped by Admin, and, rightly so, too).
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Good to see you back DCI.
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Dont take it to heart DCI,
You take care of yourself mate.
👍👍
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Glad to see you back,DCI.
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Welcome back DCI!
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Great to hear from you DCI!
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Heart warming sentiments, gents, and much appreciated.
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The problem with the Government’s experts is that they are the GOVERNMENT’S experts and one of the commandments of the Church of the Sainted NH of the S is that thou shalt not contradict the doctrine of the annointed experts……….. even if it’s another group of experts – they’re just heretics.
It was about a month ago or more that a group of medical scientists from the University of Oxford, using a different predictive model and methodology to the Government’s group of medical scientists from Imperial College London.
They said that it was possible, due to the belated 6 week response from China, the infection rate and high instances of asymptomatic cases that up to 50% of the UK population could have been exposed. Obviously that couldn’t have been proven at the time because of the Government’s woeful response regarding testing and we still don’t know the infection % of our population.
In the metro area of LA for instance (California has a strangely low case level of Covid-19), thousands of people were tested and around a 3rd were found to have the anti-bodies and were not even aware they’d contracted it.
I know that the scientific method is self-correcting by nature but even when a retestable hypothesis ascends to the level of a theory, the science is still neve settled and consensus or not, dissenting voices should always be heard, if perhaps not listened to.
The experts at the WHO said there was no human-human transmission but then contradicted themselves by admitting that there was. The Government’s experts said that Covid-19 cells can be projected for 2ms but then also said that the cells can hang in the air for up to 3 hours………. almost eliminating the point of the 2m rule and yet those very same experts who were so certain the virus was very transmissable at 2ms are now saying that they’re looking at downgrading the 2m rule to 1m during the phased opening of the economy because apparently it’s not very transmissable over 2m.
I’ve also read of medical scientists saying the virus has a very low level of mutation so their may not be the need for an annual vaccine like the flu but the next day a completely different medical scientist says the virus has a high level of mutation, that annual compulsory vaccines will be needed and we may have to continue social distancing and OCD levels of hygeine ad infinitum.
It’s almost as though the actual experts are just winging it (although I’ll admit the inconsistency in reporting is largely the fault of the Government and the media.
The
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I’m not quite sure how the word “The” got in there at the end. I was doing so well too.
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I saw your appended definite article after your erudite exposition and was quite looking forward to what’s coming next. Do continue.
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……….cat sat on the mat. That was pretty much it.
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I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, mice are in lockdown too.
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To paraphrase the big mama in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, “Moggieeeeeeeee! Get dat mouse, boy!” 😀
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Private Eye was excellent this week. Death Rigby, Robert Pestilence and Laura Koronaberg!
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Yet again an excellent nomination by Ron.
They always put me in mind of this Harry Enfield character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH56UOjDQ4A
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Fuck me ive just been reading the ST and this Covid-19 is about as ‘ist’ as it gets.
Only the Chînkś could have invented a virus that hates minorities to this degree.
I wrote earlier / yesterday that it was racist, attacking those who class themselves as BAME and that 70% of all those who died in ICU were male, well fuckadoodledoo it now transpires it hates fatties too.
Apparently a disproportionate amount of obese people are carking it over and above those of a ‘normal’ weight.
So it’s racist, sexist and now fattist.
I wonder what’s next……..?
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I reckon it’s heading for the ‘Gays’, egged on by the church
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It was always going to be agist, so no surprise there!
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I think that should have been ‘ageist.’
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In the style of Cathy Newman………….. “So what you’re saying is………The chinks hate Kenan Thompson from Kenan & Kel?
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Using the logic of the Left , it’s impossible to be racist towards the Chinese because for the Left, racism = prejudice AND power.
The Han Chinese are the dominant ethnicity in the CCP, and the most numerous ethnic group on the planet (18% of all humans are Han Chinese). They wield enormous power , enough to convince the WHO and EU to go avoid criticising their regime, to buy up half of Africa and build a transcontinental transport link, while spending a quarter trillion dollars on defence.
Of the Europeans and Chinese, who has the greater power?
0
The same percentiles will be deceased at the end of this fiasco. The same anomolous percentile will exist, and we will all move to the next staged show on the road to perdition.
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I find the Parker Knoll a very well made and comfortable chair unlike the tat from IKEA.
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However if one worked for a furniture manufacturer specialising in the production of armchairs one would need a good knowledge of fraying rates, spring distortion diagrams and other scientific stuff relating to armchairs. Therefore one would be an “armchair expert” not an uninformed opinionated cunt like the majority of newspaper commentators who are just cunts.
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You are a spineless sheep.
No one needs to be an expert on freedom to speak up as it is clapped away.
Sell Panic
Sell Vaccine
Love the State.
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You put it so much more eloquently and succinctly than I did or could. Evil genius.
You even wedged an insult in there too. Doubley evil genius.
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I have a theory about armchairs!!
Nooo, I have a FACT – IKEA armchairs are made in Romania.
When LD ends, we should have ceremonial bonfires…
Signed Norm Armchair (Mr.)
3
If anybody still thinks that professor neil ferguson is an expert in anything other than bullshit and lego then we’ll have the lockdown forever
3
I listen to these people and while they may have a point about the government”s approach, i would rather not take the risk as i’m one of the 1.5 million slosers who has and underlying health condition.
I watch the occasional COBR briefing but not really bothered about the rest, especially the constant happy clappy nonsense; adverts etc. ‘We just want to let you know….’, ‘together, we’ll pull through’.
Yawn, go away.
0