thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Sky News Editor Barricades Door With Bench Following Son's Biscuit Request

LOADING ERROR LOADING
We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
Almost a week after her son interrupted a live interview to politely ask for two biscuits, Sky News foreign affairs editor Deborah Haynes has upped the security levels in her home office. (Well, she did used to be defence editor.)
Advertisement
During an appearance on Sky News on Tuesday morning, presenter Kay Burley asked Haynes why there was a bench blocking the door behind her, to which Haynes grinned and replied: “Potentially there is a small child on the other side of that door, currently playing with cars. I can hear him.
“I did tell him not to come in, but just in case, I thought I’d put a bench there because he did make an impromptu appearance last week.”
HuffPost UK Deborah Haynes
Advertisement
"Any particular reason there's a bench next to the door?"
After our Foreign Affairs Editor @haynesdeborah's son went viral last week with his biscuit negotiating skills, we asked if he'll try the same trick this morning with breakfast. JJ#KayBurley pic.twitter.com/ZHzRVdGnky — Kay Burley (@KayBurley) July 7, 2020
Haynes is, of course, referring to the incident last Wednesday when her young son walked in during a live report on the new security law in Hong Kong to ask for not one but two biscuits.
“Hold on that’s my son arriving, really embarrassing,” Haynes said at the time.
“Can I have two biscuits,” her son asked, to which Haynes replied: “Yes, you can have two biscuits, really sorry about that.”
Sky presenter Mark Austin swiftly ended his colleague’s segment, saying: “We’ll leave Deborah Haynes in full flow there with some family duties… but that’s what happens during lockdown.”
The young boy was later praised for his negotiating skills, especially so close to dinner time.
On the same day, another youngster interrupted a live BBC News interview, striking up a conversation with the newsreader.
Dr Clare Wenham from the London School of Economics (LSE) was being interviewed about the Covid-19 pandemic at home when her daughter Scarlett appeared – talking loudly and even climbing on top of the expert’s desk.
“Mummy, where do you want this picture?” Scarlett went on to ask her mother, brandishing a frame that appeared to depict a unicorn, which she’d picked up from a shelf behind Dr Wenham.
In response, presenter Christian Fraser commented: “Scarlett, I think it looks better on the lower shelf… and it’s a lovely unicorn.”
Overhearing the newsreader, Scarlett then asked: “Mummy, what’s his name?”
“My name is Christian,” replied Fraser. Scarlett responded: “Christian, I’m just deciding where it can go and where mummy wants it to go.”
“I think just on that shelf is great, thank you,” said Dr Wenham – before turning back to the camera and adding “I’m so sorry”.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--7 Things You Should Know About Face Masks

HuffPost is part of Verizon Media .
Click ' I agree ' to allow Verizon Media and our partners to @ @ @ @ @ to access your device and use your data ( including location ) to understand your @ @ @ @ @ measure personalised ads .
We will also provide you with personalised ads on partner products @ @ @ @ @ we use your data in our Privacy Centre .
Once you confirm your privacy choices @ @ @ @ @ changes at any time by visiting your Privacy dashboard .
Click 'Learn more ' to @ @ @ @ @ Media and our partners collect and use data .

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Face covers are mandatory on public transport, in shops, and in many indoor settings, so it’s a good idea to get up to speed on why we’re wearing them and how we can do so as comfortably as possible.
From knowing how to fit one properly, to tips and tricks for avoiding fogging up your glasses, here are seven things you should know.
Advertisement
bortonia via Getty Images
1. Wearing a face cover protects other people.
Face covers protect other people from your germs. As Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, explained: “Wearing a face covering is an added precaution that may have some benefit in reducing the likelihood that a person with the infection passes it on.”
And Paul Edelstein, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “The evidence for the benefit of wearing face coverings in protecting others from infection is becoming clearer all the time.”
Advertisement
Studies from cruise ships suggest that figure could be even higher. Almost three quarters (72%) of people on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship who had Covid-19 were thought to have been asymptomatic, according to a preliminary study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. There is also some evidence emerging to suggest face covers can even help protect the wearer, but this depends very much on how well they fit and the material they’re made from.
2. It has to cover your nose and mouth to work properly.
You’ve probably spotted people wearing face masks and covers over their mouths, but not their noses – this doesn’t offer much protection. You have to cover your nose and mouth, as you can you expel droplets carrying the virus from both of them.
Having a face mask that fits properly is key to keeping your germs to yourself. University of Edinburgh researchers tested the effectiveness of seven types of mask – including medical-grade masks, homemade masks and face shields – to see how well they stopped the wearer’s germs from escaping.
Wearing a face mask or other covering over the mouth and nose was found to reduce the forward distance of your breath – which can carry the virus – by more than 90%. But having gaps at the back and sides of your mask could be problematic because strong jets of air can escape if masks are ill-fitting – so wearers (and those around them) need to be cautious.
Advertisement
3. It’s not a replacement for social distancing.
It’s really important to remember that wearing a face mask or face cover is not a replacement for social distancing, nor is it a replacement for regular hand-washing (remember the 20-second rule), both of which remain the most important actions for stopping Covid-19 in its tracks.
Advertisement
4. There are ways to stop your ears from hurting.
Face masks and covers can make the backs of your ears sore, especially if you’ve been wearing them for some time.
Nurses and other healthcare professionals have been finding workarounds for this discomfort by attaching the ear loops of their face masks to hair styles and fastening buttons onto baseball caps or headbands to attach the ear loops to.
It might also be helpful to buy face covers with ribbon ties rather than elasticated ear loops, if you’re struggling with sore ears.
5. Face masks with front valves may not protect others.
Some types of respirator mask come with a valve on the front designed to filter out harmful particles – while these protect the wearer, they don’t protect other people from the wearer’s germs, according to experts. As the San Francisco Department of Public Health explains: “The ones with the valves or openings on the front are not safe, and may actually propel your germs further.”
Advertisement
Dr Ali Raja, executive vice chair of the department of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, told Healthline: “The virus can be transmitted through the valves, which offer no filtration at all. Any mask with a one-way valve is only going to protect the person wearing it. It won’t protect anyone around that person from potential exposure to virus particles they exhale.”
6. There’s a hack to stop your glasses steaming up while wearing masks.
If you’re sick of your glasses steaming up when wearing a face cover, try inserting a paper clip into the lining of the mask around the nose area so the mask fits flush to the top of your nose.
This particular hack was shared by Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary health care services at the University of Oxford. If that doesn’t work, keep your glasses on top of your face mask or invest in an anti-fog spray to keep your lenses clear.
Mask steaming up your glasses? Fix here. pic.twitter.com/Yn3wf7remH — Trisha Greenhalgh 😷 #BlackLivesMatter (@trishgreenhalgh) July 4, 2020
7. You don’t have to buy a face mask or cover.
If cash is tight and you’d rather not invest in a face cover, you can make one quite easily at home without having to fork out for materials. You can use a handkerchief, bandana, old t-shirt or even a sock. Some of them require sewing skills, but most are pretty foolproof.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Harry Styles Fans Can Now Go To Bed With Him As He Teams Up With Calm App For Bedtime Story

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Make the most of your time indoors with a daily dose of celebrity news and guides to the best shows. Sign up to the entertainment newsletter.
Ever dreamt of nodding off with Harry Styles whispering in your ear? Well now you can (kinda).
The former One Directioner has lent his dulcet tones to sleeping aid app Calm, in the shape of a bedtime story.
Advertisement
Harry Styles Dia Dipasupil via Getty Images
Calm teased the release of the story with a clip on social media, along with the hashtag #DreamWithHarry.
It didn’t contain much other than Harry saying, “Hello, I’m Harry Styles” in his distinctive soothing voice, but that was still enough to drive his fans absolutely wild.
Advertisement
THIS IS IT. HARRY IS SAVING 2020. — 𝓬𝓪𝓼. 🌸 (@cxrneliastyles) July 6, 2020
"hello, i'm harry styles" me, certainly not sounding calm: yeS, HELLO, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE — 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚 ◟̽◞̽ PINNED TWEET (@larrycaring) July 6, 2020
I ALREADY CAN'T HANDLE A 2 SECOND CLIP, I WON'T BE ABLE TO FUNCTION AFTER THE FULL CLIP — ayesha #1 🍒 stan (@kiwisugar18) July 6, 2020
*screams internally cuz i need to be calm* pic.twitter.com/KphzSXE3uM — anita💚 (@gaaayvodka) July 6, 2020
Advertisement
The firm had earlier teased its collaboration with Harry by posting a watermelon emoji, a reference to his current hit, Watermelon Sugar.
Harry has become the latest famous face to collaborate with the company, which produces meditation products.
Other stars to work with Calm include Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern, Saturdays singer Frankie Bridge and comedian Stephen Fry.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Envy can be ugly, here's how to redirect it – with Comparison Coach Lucy Sheridan

Envy can be ugly, here's how to redirect it – with Comparison Coach Lucy Sheridan
We all feel envy sometimes, even if we’d rather not admit it. But comparing yourself to others – often without knowing the full story of how hard so-and-so worked to get to where they are today – only leaves you feeling bad about yourself. But the green-eyed monster isn’t all bad. There’s a way to channel negative feelings into something more positive: envy can encourage you to push for that next career move or start planning that once-in-a-lifetime trip you’re always dreaming of. We explore all this and more with Lucy Sheridan, the world’s only comparison coach, on our latest #AIMYU podcast episode.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Boris Johnson Accused Of 'Re-Writing History' Over Covid-19 Care Home Deaths

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Coronavirus has changed everything. Make sense of it all with the Waugh Zone, our evening politics briefing. Sign up now.
Boris Johnson has been accused of being “cowardly” after he said “too many” care homes failed to follow procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.
Advertisement
Mark Adams, chief executive of charity Community Integrated Care, said the prime minister’s comments were “hugely frustrating”.
“I think we’re almost entering an… alternative reality where the government set the rules, we follow them and they don’t like the results and they then deny setting the rules and blame the people that were trying to do their best,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Tuesday morning.
He added: “I think this at best was clumsy and cowardly.
“I think what we’re getting is history re-written in front of us, when you could list pages and pages of government failure which the system has had to cope with.
“And to get a throwaway comment, almost glibly blaming the social care system and not holding your hand up for starting too late, doing the wrong things, making mistake after mistake, is just frankly unacceptable.”
Advertisement
Johnson said yesterday: “We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have but we’re learning lessons the whole time.”
Almost 20,000 care home residents in England and Wales have died with coronavirus, the majority dying in their care home, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.
Covid-19 accounted for 29% of the deaths of care home residents between March 2 and June 12 and a fifth of all deaths of care home residents this year.
Labour also criticised Johnson’s remarks. Shadow social care minister Liz Kendall said: “There have been 30,000 excess deaths in care homes and at least 20,000 of these caused by Covid-19.
“25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes without any tests whatsoever and frontline care workers were left without vital PPE.
Advertisement
“Staff who have gone the extra mile to care for elderly people, and experienced things the rest of us can only imagine, will be appalled to hear the Prime Minister’s comments.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Nearly One Third Of Brits 'Unsure Or Would Not Use Covid-19 Vaccine'

A woman holds up a placard at a coronavirus anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine, anti-5G and pro-freedom protest in London. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Get the latest on coronavirus. Sign up to the Daily Brief for news, explainers, how-tos, opinion and more.
Nearly one third of Britons definitely will not or are unsure about whether they would take a vaccine for coronavirus, according to a new poll.
Advertisement
Researchers say the results are in response to the dramatic rise in popularity of so-called “anti-vaxx” conspiracy theories widely spread on social media.
A poll of 1,663 people in the UK, conducted by YouGov for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), found 6% of respondents said they would definitely refuse a vaccine, and a further 10% said they would “probably not”. Another 15% said they were not sure.
The survey also found people who relied on social media above traditional media for information were less likely to take a vaccine.
The CCDH said the poll showed there is a credible “threat to the ability of a vaccine to contain Covid-19.”
Advertisement
In a separate report, the CCDH analysed more than 400 anti-vaxx accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram with more than 57 million followers in the US and UK.
These social media accounts were found to be publishing false conspiracy theories including that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had created the coronavirus pandemic and that Covid-19 vaccine tests had caused women to be infertile.
The study concluded the number of followers of these accounts had increased by 7.7 million since the outbreak of coronavirus.
The CCDH said social media companies had “chosen to adopt lenient policies” on anti-vaxx content by promising only to reduce the ease which users can find such false information instead of removing them altogether.
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, said: “Our hope for a return to normal life rests with scientists developing a successful vaccine for coronavirus.
Advertisement
“But social media companies’ irresponsible decision to continue to publish anti-vaccine propaganda means a vaccine may not be effective in containing the virus.
“The price for their greed is a cost paid in lives,” Ahmed said.
“There is simply no responsible justification for publishing lies and conspiracy theories about vaccines.”
Shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens said the poll showed the increasing popularity of anti-vaxx theories could “literally be a question of life and death”.
“This poll lays bare just how dangerous disinformation online can be,” she said.
“The rapid spread of false information about vaccinations could literally be a question of life and death.
“Social media companies must ensure this content has no place on their platforms and ministers must do more to promote the benefits of vaccines and counter the harmful, dangerous myths which surround them before a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.”
Advertisement
A representative from Facebook said: “We are working to stop harmful misinformation from spreading on our platforms and have removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of Covid-19-related misinformation.
“We reduce vaccine misinformation in News Feed, we don’t show it in search results or recommend it to you on Facebook or Instagram, we don’t allow it in ads, and we connect people with authoritative information from recognised health experts.”
A government spokesperson said: “The science is clear – vaccines save lives, which is why we are leading a global effort to find a Covid-19 vaccine.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--US Is 'Right Back Where We Were' On Coronavirus, Former FDA Chief Says

People wear face masks and undergo mandatory temperature checks before entering the pier on Independence Day in Cocoa Beach, Florida NurPhoto via Getty Images
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the US is “right back where we were” when the first peak in coronavirus infections occurred earlier this year and noted concerning distinctions about the new surge.
“We’re right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak,” Gottlieb said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The difference now is that we really had one epicentre of spread when New York was going through its hardship. Now we really have four major epicentres of spread: Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. And Florida looks to be in the worst shape, and Georgia is heating up as well, and that’s concerning.”
Advertisement
His remarks come as many states reported record spikes in cases and hospitalisations, and some reversed reopening plans. On Saturday, Florida recorded 11,458 new cases, surpassing the New York epicentre’s previous one-day high of 11,434, recorded in mid-April. Over the past week, 21 states set new all-time case records, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada and California have reported record numbers of current coronavirus-related hospitalisations, the Washington Post reported. Despite the troubling spikes, Donald Trump has downplayed the situation, saying the virus will “just disappear” and blaming the increases on improved testing. He has also fixated on the falling mortality rate, claiming falsely at a Fourth of July event that 99% of coronavirus cases in the US “are totally harmless.”
GRIM WARNING: “The total number of deaths is going to start going up again,” @ScottGottliebMD tells @margbrennan as #COVID19 epidemics in places such as Florida and Arizona worsen and more Americans are hospitalized pic.twitter.com/lAR6CDu2Zx — Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 5, 2020
“The number of deaths has gone down because the number of infections went down for a period of time and more of the new infections right now are in younger people, and we’re protecting more vulnerable populations like people in nursing homes,” Gottlieb explained.
Advertisement
“But the total number of deaths is going to start going up again as the number of hospitalisations starts to spike again.”
Even as the mortality rate declines due to advances in care and less vulnerable populations being infected, the fast-climbing number of infections will have grim repercussions, he said.
“So if we cut the death rate in half, if we make this half less lethal than it was, but we double the number of infections, we’re going to get more deaths. And I think we’re going to start to see that,” he said.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Halle Berry Apologises Over Transgender Film Role Comments: 'I Should Not Have Considered This Role’

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Halle Berry has apologised after being criticised for speaking about her interest in playing a transgender man in an upcoming film.
The Oscar-winning star said she had been preparing for the role before another project came up, during an Instagram Live.
Advertisement
The actor came under fire after saying she wanted to do a “deep dive” into “that world,” apparently a reference to the transgender community, and repeatedly referred to the character as a woman.
It led to allegations of misgendering, while others said any role involving a trans character should go to a trans actor.
Halle Berry Albert L. Ortega via Getty Images
The 53-year-old Monster’s Ball star has now apologised and said she should not have been considered for the part.
Advertisement
“Over the weekend I had the opportunity to discuss my consideration of an upcoming role as a transgender man and I’d like to apologise for those remarks,” she said.
“As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role and that the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories.
“I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and I will continue to listen, educate and learn from this mistake. I vow to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on-screen, both in front of and behind the camera.”
GLAAD, the LGBT advocacy group, welcomed her apology.
It said: “We are pleased that @halleberry listened to the concerns of transgender people and learned from them. Other powerful people should do the same.”
Advertisement
Halle’s comments come amid a renewed focus on representation in the entertainment industry, while trans rights have also been in the news following JK Rowling’s recent comments about trans people.
She has been criticised widely - including by many of the stars of Harry Potter - for her beliefs on biological sex, though the author has strongly denied allegations of transphobia.
Meanwhile, Netflix’s critically acclaimed documentary Disclosure has been praised for its exploration of trans characters in TV and film.
Useful websites and helplines:


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Trump Has No Election Strategy, Just 'White Grievance,' Says New York Times Reporter

Donald Trump is flailing this campaign because he has no strategy — only a “white grievance” message that is dramatically out of step with America today, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman said Monday.
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Haberman if “stoking racial division” has “now become part of the president’s re-election strategy?”
Advertisement
Haberman responded: “I want to reject two things that you just said ... One is ‘now become,’ and the other is ‘strategy.’ This isn’t a strategy. This is what the president prefers doing and what he wants to talk about — and what he has consistently talked about for several years, in fact, several decades.”
But Trump’s message stands out now because it’s “so out of step with where the rest of the country is in this movement,” Haberman added. She called anti-racism protests that have swept the nation “one of the biggest civil rights movements in decades ... against systemic racism in policing [and] in other areas of American life.”
Trump is instead “choosing to talk about the Confederate flag, he is choosing to demand an apology from the one Black NASCAR driver,” she added.
On Monday, Trump called on NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace to apologise for what the US president falsely described as a “hoax” involving a noose in Wallace’s racetrack garage. The FBI determined last month that the rope had been hanging on the garage door since last year to pull down the door — before Wallace was using the stall — and was not a racist message, but also never said the noose was planted as part of a hoax.
Advertisement
Trump has recently called the message “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate” and anti-racism protesters “angry mobs.”
“He is playing into white grievance politics that did get him elected in 2016 ... he thinks this will help him again. This is a very different election,” Haberman said.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--The Big Picture: Can Cinemas Survive Coronavirus In An On-Demand World?

They were once the only way to watch new releases, but cinemas have had their dominance questioned over the past few decades, partly due to the rise of home entertainment systems and streaming platforms.
Although cinema-going attendance has roughly plateaued for adults, with a 0.6% decline between 2011 and 2017, it is younger audiences that present the biggest threat to the survival of cinemas: attendance for 15 to 24-year-olds fell by 20.6% in the same period, according to research by Film Monitor and the BFI.
Advertisement
Arguably, the coronavirus couldn’t have been worse news: the virus has intensified the challenges faced by movie theatres and highlighted other options for movie fans.
In the depths of the lockdown, streaming, most obviously, temporarily replaced the cinema-going experience as movie theatres nationwide, and across the world, have shuttered.
All while cinemas have haemorrhaged money under lockdown, the UK government had been heavily criticised for initially not helping the arts when other industries, such as sports, had received big government payouts.
It took until July for Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to unveil plans to prop the arts industry up with a £1.57 billion support package, which will in part go to sustaining independent cinemas, as they plan to survive on reduced audiences when they open doors towards the end of this month.
Advertisement
Capitalising on the climate of the lockdown, streaming services have relished the opportunity to experiment by entering into new relationships with film studios, drawing out roadmaps for how streaming platforms can work with film creators, potentially cutting out the need for the cinema ‘middle man’.
Trolls World Tour, the Universal release, skipped its theatrical release and opted for a digital video-on-demand release, an unprecedented move which threw into question the classic cinematic release model, which sees films released exclusively at cinemas for a designated time.
The release prompted the company behind Odeon cinemas to condemn Universal, citing a breach of trust between movie theatres and film studios.
Justin Timberlake and singer Mark Foster are both stars of Trolls World Tour, which went straight to streaming platforms on video on demand picture alliance via Getty Images
“AMC believes that with this proposed action to go to the home and theatres simultaneously, Universal is breaking the business model and dealings between our two companies,” read the statement by AMC boss Adam Aron.
Advertisement
“It assumes that we will meekly accept a reshaped view of how studios and exhibitors should interact, with zero concern on Universal’s part as to how its actions affect us.”
“Universal is breaking the business model” - AMC boss Adam Aron, behind the Odeon cinema group
Trolls World Tour has been joined by a not insignificant range of movies previously pegged for theatrical release that have gone straight to streaming services, including Tom Hanks’ latest release Greyhound, as well as The King Of Staten Island and Artemis Foul.
Takings from the Trolls release suggest cutting out cinemas could work financially: the movie took $100 million (£80 million) via its pay-to-view streaming release, meaning individual viewers paid to watch the film on streaming platforms from their homes.
But what does this realisation mean for the future of cinemas, as cinema companies in the UK prepare new social distancing measures ahead of planned re-openings from July?
Advertisement
“There are more efficient ways of getting film content in front of consumers without expecting them to drive to an edge-of-town retail park” - Professor Miskell, Henley Business School
“There are much more efficient ways of getting film content in front of consumers without expecting them to drive to an edge-of-town retail park and wait patiently until the allotted time when their entertainment is ready to begin,” surmises Professor Peter Miskell, a specialist in the business of films at the Henley Business School.
Despite modern means of discovering film such as Netflix, Miskell believes our emotional and fundamental attachment to cinema is here to stay.
Our desire for the cinematic experience goes deeper than statistics around declining cinema attendance might suggest, even if a shift of power further into the hands of the streaming platforms seems inevitable.
Cinemas have closed since the virus, but what does the future look like for an industry already facing steep challenges from digital rivals? Omar Osman via Getty Images
Advertisement
“Cinemas provide a distinct form of consumer experience that cannot easily be replicated at home,” he says. “Part of this is the big screen and surround sound that offers a more immersive experience (though to some extent this can be replicated with ‘home cinema’ technologies).
“There’s also the social aspect, however. The sense of being part of an audience rather than a lone viewer.”
“I miss the sense of enclosed spectacle – of the world outside stopping while I watch a film,” adds David Jenkins, Editor at independent film magazine Little White Lies.
“I can enjoy films viewed at home on my television, and I can see their critical merit, but being at the cinema and seeing them that way still feels wholly superior to me.”
Experts acknowledge that initial predictions made decades ago about the demise of cinemas fell short, and as demand for luxury cinema experiences rises, the future of cinema may be that physical cinemas take many different guises. Some will offer budget experiences with others offering premium seating and food and drink options, for instance, to appeal to different audiences with different amounts to spend.
Advertisement
With cinemas operating at 50% capacity when they reopen as latest predictions suggest, finances are an obvious challenge.
“If you make it all about price and convenience, well, price and convenience will win out,” says Patrick Corcoran, Vice President & Chief Communications Officer, National Association of Theatre Owners.
“But that’s not the only value in movie theatres, and the theatrical window [the period of time where a film is shown exclusively in cinemas and movie theatres, typically 90 days] protects that value. Protects the opportunity for movies to reach audiences in what we think is the best way to see them: with other people, at scale, with the latest in audio visual technology.”
All the while, streaming platforms such as Netflix are increasing the production of their own content, throwing into question the prized and supposedly unique relationship cinemas say they have with film studios.
Netflix and similar streaming platforms have morphed their businesses to become content producers, throwing into question the traditional relationship between studios and cinemas SOPA Images via Getty Images
Advertisement
However, no major blockbuster has yet risked skipping the theatrical release window to go straight to streaming platform, either as viewable for free to subscribers or under video-on-demand. This is significant, urges Professor Miskell.
“These films are not the major blockbusters that studios would have been banking on to generate the lion’s share of their revenues,” he confirms. “These are more like mid-budget Hollywood pictures for which a cinema release might generate some helpful publicity, but they wouldn’t be expected to generate huge box-office receipts.
“I think it’s telling that the vast majority of theatrical releases have been postponed rather than being sent directly to the home” - Patrick Corcoran, Cinema Association
“I think it’s telling that the vast majority of theatrical releases have been postponed rather than being sent directly to the home,” adds Patrick from the Association. “There’s only been three or four that have done that and the vast majority of them are scheduled for later in the year or next year because they need theatres to make money on those titles.”
Patrick asserts that “studios do need to make money too,” and given the perilous position for everyone in the industry under the virus, in some instances, it isn’t possible to delay a release until cinemas open.
Advertisement
Films going straight to streaming isn’t necessarily creative thinking by executives intending on breaking down the relationship between cinemas and film studios - that may be a misconception and sometimes, films just need to get released, he explains.
Good examples are family films, such as Trolls and the new Scooby Doo feature, Scoob. Not only because they provide inspiration for parents trying to quell boredom in their quarantined children, but for financial reasons too.
“When you have kids movies like that there’s a lot of merchandise they’ve contracted with retailers for and they’re stocking their shelves with it, and the movie needed to come out then, it’s a simple thing,” reflects Patrick.
“They don’t want all those Scooby Doo stuffed toys on the doorstep of the loading dock of the movie studio, they want those in the stores - so they needed to go forward.”
Advertisement
But more than just financial, the demise of the traditional studio-cinema relationship has wider repercussions for cinema.
For instance, Patrick cites these “mid-range comedies and dramas and star driven things” as the first to fall by the wayside if the trend for straight to streaming elevates.
Part of the benefit of the traditional theatrical release window is that films have two options to make money: at the cinema, and through merchandise, such as with Trolls. But if films aren’t released at the cinema, there’s less of a desire for merchandise, and DVD sales have obviously dropped dramatically due to streaming, so studios are increasingly making less films reliant on the duality of this commercial setup.
“Now all that money has to essentially be made in theatrical so it becomes harder for them to justify [making the film at all],” he says.
“Studios really should be closely aligned with the major cinema chains” - Professor Maskell, Henley Business School
Advertisement
Is there any way to turn this tide? “The interests of studios like Universal (or Warners, Sony, Columbia etc) really should be closely aligned with the major cinema chains,” asserts Professor Miskell. “Both are at risk if streaming becomes the standard mode of film distribution. Both have a strong interest in maintaining the cinema release model, and therefore cinema audiences and cinema chains.”
As the “mid-range” of Hollywood’s output gradually gets eroded, a factor contributing to the sustainability of cinemas is the fandoms around comic series, action films and niche cult films, all of which have dedicated audiences that will travel to cinemas and pay premium prices for the big screen experience - and that doesn’t look set to change.
Hollywood's traditional film studio-cinema relationship is under strain due to the virus Alexander Shapovalov via Getty Images
“Personally, I think most filmmakers worth their salt make movies to be seen in cinemas,” reckons David from Little White Lies. “I can enjoy films viewed at home on my television, and I can see their critical merit, but being at the cinema and seeing them that way still feels wholly superior to me.”
“I wouldn’t be so bold as to predict the demise of cinema entertainment just yet. The death of cinema has been predicted before, and audiences have proved surprisingly resilient,” reflects Peter.
Advertisement
“In the end it'll all come down to economics” - David, editor, Little White Lies
“In the end it’ll all come down to economics,” reasons David.
“A big Blockbuster built for cinema exhibition will premiere on VOD [video-on-demand] and, if it works and brings in similar dividends to traditional box office projections, then, alas, it seems as if it would be game over for commercial cinemas.”
But what would a world without commercial cinemas even look like?
Most obviously, Hollywood would be an unrecognisable place if there was to be no more movie premieres at cinemas, and no more stars on red carpets, both of which are obvious losses if cinemas are to go extinct.
“There isn’t really an equivalent of the red carpet premiere for a straight-to-streaming release,” reflects Peter. “These events capture the attention of journalists, encourage reviews, comment and many other column inches of ‘earned media’ attention.”
In a post-Covid-19 landscape of eerily half-filled cinemas operating with half-full levels of atmosphere, and anxiety levels over social distancing continuing alongside the virus perhaps until the close of 2021, there’s a long road of negotiations ahead as the Hollywood power magnets muscle for space.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--'We Weren't Out To Shock People': Rock DJ Director Vaughan Arnell On Making Robbie Williams' Outrage

'We Weren't Out To Shock People': Rock DJ Director Vaughan Arnell On Making Robbie Williams' Outrageous Video

By the turn of the millennium, Robbie Williams had well and truly cemented his place as one of the brightest stars on the British music scene.
With his Take That days long behind him, Robbie entered the year 2000 having released two hit albums and scored two solo number one singles, the aptly-titled Millennium and She’s The One, not to mention his first Brit Award win as a solo act.
Advertisement
So when it came to his first output of the new millennium, the chart-topping singer started as he meant to go on, by shocking absolutely everyone.
Rock DJ served as the lead single from singer’s third album, Sing When You’re Winning, and quickly topped the UK charts, bagging him his third number one.
However, it’s the song’s outrageous music video that people probably remember best.
The horrifying/hilarious (delete as applicable) clip sees Robbie entering a roller disco, and quickly trying to bag the attention of the DJ. His dancing, posing and stripping fail him, and he only succeeds in wooing her by – of course – peeling off his skin and chucking his vital organs around (which are promptly eaten by the models circling him on their skates). By the end, all that remains is a dancing Robbie skeleton.
Advertisement
In honour of the clip’s 20th anniversary, HuffPost UK spoke to its director, Vaughan Arnell, for a bit of insight into the creation of a music video that’s still shocking people 20 years after its release.
I actually met Rob when he was still in Take That
“I directed the Back For Good video for Take That. We shot it in the rain, and they all had fur coats on, and Rob just really pounded it out. And then, obviously, there was the split, and I became a fan of his, I really liked him.
“And then we did Angels together, and Let Me Entertain You, which was fantastic, and after that I did the Millennium video too.”
Robbie with the rest of Take That in the Back For Good video Vevo
His team sent me the original treatment for the Rock DJ video when I was on holiday
“It was one of the few videos I’ve done where I didn’t write the treatment. I think Rob was doing a Pepsi ad, and the guys doing the ad [came up with the idea]. So, Rob and the management came to me and said ‘Rob’s seen this idea about him taking his skin off, it was written by two French guys, would you be up for doing it?’. So I looked at it, and I thought it was really exciting.
Advertisement
I did make a couple of changes, though
“I think [the original treatment] was a little bit more French, they had Rob walking into a disco with a poodle or something, and the girls didn’t notice him so he started taking his clothes off, something like that. I thought it was nice, but I changed it to a roller-skating rink, with Rob coming up into the centre.
“There’s a film called Rollerball, where they used to fight going round on rollerskates, so I had rollerskates in my head because of that. I worked on the treatment when I was on holiday – I remember thinking I’d not be able to do the video, because I couldn’t get back in time, but they said they’d wait for me – and I literally got off the plane and went straight into all the prep on it.”
It was daunting, because it was such a technical operation
“But they had the money, which was brilliant, so we could afford to do it properly. It was daunting, though, because all of that skin had to be body-formed on him, all the prosthetics. So he had to have his whole body put in a plaster cast, and then his head too. I think his head was in plaster for something like six minutes, with straws and stuff coming out. And he was actually encased in plaster all that time. Most people freak out doing that, but they said he was amazing.
“I think it was a four or five day shoot, and he was in prosthetics for nearly four to five hours every morning.”
Advertisement
The biggest challenge was just the sum of all the challenges
“It was such a monster, you had prosthetics, you had really amazing hair and make-up, you had teams of prosthetic artists, and then a giant set that was 360 – normally on a set you point one way or the other, but this was 360 degrees.
“Then we had an artist who probably had to get up at four o’clock every morning, come to the set for five-thirty, and be in make-up for five hours, and then go on to perform at 11 o’clock at night for three days running. And he had to keep his energy up the whole time, so when he does rip his buttocks off, or he’s eyeing up the DJ, or whatever, you keep the energy going and keep the fun.”
Robbie makes a dramatic entrance in the Rock DJ video, before things take a turn Vevo
On the last night of the shoot, Robbie went out in the prosthetics, covered in fake blood
“When you put Rob in the prosthetics, you’d just burst out laughing because he looked so good – and then he’d put a pair of Ray Bans on or something, there was always a gag with it.
“If you watch the ‘making of’ video, on the last night, he went to a garage and asked for 20 Marlboro and a box of batteries, fucking covered, dripping in blood. And the guy just served him, really fucking calmly. And he taps his body, sort of looking for his wallet like ‘sorry, I’ve got no money’, and then he runs out.
Advertisement
“And then he’s outside a pub, smoking, and you see a police car going towards the garage, and then they put the camera through the window of a pub, and he goes in and has a drink, standing at the bar. It was so funny! He was really good at carrying it off.”
And the funny thing was, the prosthetics only came down to his calf muscles
“If you look at his feet, he’s got normal Robbie feet, but from the calf muscles up, he’s the peeled Robster.”
It took the prosthetics team four to five hours to get Robbie looking like this Vevo
My biggest memory from set is riding on the back of a golf trolley, spraying everybody with red paint and throwing rubber organs in people’s faces
“That’s how I’ll always remember that. Basically, we had a golf trolley going around Robbie – this is going to sound so sick – but I was on the back, with two or three buckets of red gel and bits of prosthetic rubber, and I was throwing them at the girls, and they were grabbing them and ripping them and chewing them.
Advertisement
“And they were rollerskating, so you had to be careful not to get anything in their eye or anything like that.”
It was all a bit of a laugh – we weren’t going out to shock people
“This was a time before things ‘went viral’, and you ran a fine line of what was outrageous and what was show-able, because the main outlets were still terrestrial television. So you couldn’t really fuck with people too much. Like now, you can do whatever you want, and the more outrageous it is, the more clicks it’s going to get. But this was a fine line.
“So you had the record company going ‘we just don’t want it to look like a peeled rabbit, it’s not going to look bloody, is it?’. And you have to sort of say ‘don’t worry, it won’t’, but in the back of your head you knew it was going to look like a peeled rabbit.
“But you knew with Robbie, whatever we do, we try and do in the best possible taste. So it wasn’t going to be like a realistic horror movie, it was going to be Robbie singing Rock DJ covered in blood, with a wink in the eye. It was almost done with a little bit of irony, tongue-in-cheek style.
“When he rips his bum cheeks off we had little blood splats on the camera and stuff like that… he could have have ripped anything off, but we decided it should be bum cheeks, it was just funny. And if you listen to the track, the track’s quite up and dance-y. So the video was done more for entertainment than shock.”
Advertisement
"He could have have ripped anything off, but we decided it should be bum cheeks" Vevo
His team were loving it
“I’m really sad to say one of his managers passed away a few years ago, but his two managers at that time, David and Tim, they were like really proper big old-school managers, like naughty schoolboys. And the more controversy that they could create with Robbie, or the more fun they could have winding people up, [the better]. They would just sit and chuckle, rubbing their hands together.
“So the team were really up for it, everybody was. When you’re shooting, and you look around and people are smiling, it’s really exciting.”
The tiger on his pants was my idea
“And now I think he’s got loads of them! Nowadays, they’d probably try and do product placement, and he’d have Calvins on, but when you see he’s got a tiger on his pants, instead of it just being trendy... you keep have to keep pulling the rug out all the time, so people don’t take it too seriously.”
Vaughan says the tiger design was his way of "pulling the rug out" to stop people taking the video "too seriously" Vevo
Advertisement
It turned out none of the models could rollerskate
“When we did the casting, the first thing we asked was ‘can you rollerskate?’. Every fucking girl said yes, and then I remember, I literally got off the plane, they’d built half the set, and then I got there, and the girls came out, and none of them could rollerskate. They were all falling over each other everywhere, it was like a car crash on the M1, it was so bad.
“But Arlene Phillips choreographed the video – she was fantastic, and so nice. And she looked at me, and she said ‘don’t worry Vaughn, it’ll be fine’. And so we had to grade them, based on their skating.
“And then I remember on the golf trolley, we had a bar that the girls could hold onto, that you couldn’t see on camera. So we could just drag a lot of them around. But every time we said ‘cut’, they’d all fall over again.
“And if you look at the video, there were bumps on the floor… so, even though it looked like a roller disco, it wasn’t as sophisticated as it looked. But we got away with it.”
The Rock DJ video was never shown in full on music channels at the time, due to its graphic content Vevo
Advertisement
I think Robbie and I were wanted for cannibalism in Papa New Guinea or something
“It was really weird, the way they spun things with the press, which was quite funny. I think it was the front cover of The Sun and things, so it’s like… fuck, I didn’t think we’d do this, didn’t think we’d get that.”
And then winning a Brit Award for Best British Video was amazing
“I think Rob’s won about 20, hasn’t he? I remember going round there, he used to keep his Brit Awards on the fridge. Like bottles of milk all lined up. And then I think he gave them away to people, he gave one to Wayne Rooney, when he broke his foot just before the World Cup.”
Only Robbie could have pulled off the Rock DJ video
“I think it worked because it was Robbie, and Robbie was such a household name, I couldn’t see many people [pulling it off]… maybe Justin Timberlake, but I think only Robbie could have done that video, in a way. Freddie Mercury would have done it just as well as Rob. But I couldn’t see Paul McCartney doing it.”
By the end of the video, Robbie is replaced by a CGI skeleton Vevo
I feel really lucky to be able to work with an artist throughout their career
“It’s always great fun working with Robbie, whatever you do. One minute, he’s ripping his skin off, and the next minute, he’s saying he’s got Nicole Kidman for the [Somethin’ Stupid] video, and it’s like ‘fucking hell’. So it’s a rollercoaster, it’s amazing.
Advertisement
“Normally, I [try and come up with] something he’d enjoy doing, or something he’d see the fun in. He’s done so many videos now, so you just think ‘what would Rob really like to do?’. And he always likes a challenge... we did the Feel video, where he’s a cowboy. That fucking bloke, he couldn’t even ride a horse before we did that video – he got on the horse, and within seconds he’s doing galloping shots, and then at the end, he got the horse to rear. Everybody was so gobsmacked.
“He’s always really good at becoming an expert in something within an hour, it’s really annoying. I always like to try and think of things he can’t do, but I swear to god, if he did a video where he was tightrope-walking, he’d pull it off.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--How To Tell If Your Relationship With Exercise Is Actually Toxic

Getty Images/HuffPost How you view the gym or fitness can affect your overall mental health.
When we talk about diet culture and oppressive, unattainable body standards, the conversation often centres around food. But really, diet culture reaches far beyond what we eat. Obsessing about achieving or maintaining a certain body type can also wreak havoc on our relationships with exercise ― and often, mainstream fitness culture often encourages this unhealthy mindset.
Because most fitness programmes are built around the explicit or implicit promise of weight loss or “improved body composition” (which — eye roll — is code for fat loss), many people only think of exercise as a way to change or control the way their body looks.
Advertisement
That’s why it’s crucial to examine your relationship with exercise, determine if it’s unhealthy and, if it is, change the way you think about working out.
First, let’s talk about toxic fitness culture.
Ilya Parker, a North Carolina-based physical therapist assistant, certified medical exercise specialist, gave the following examples of toxic fitness culture:
The promotion of fitness for the sole purpose of weight loss.
The belief that “fit” has a look.
Personal trainers unwilling or unable to modify exercises that support your unique body.
The belief that you’re not working hard enough if you haven’t achieved thinness.
Personal trainers who aren’t registered dieticians giving diet advice.
Unsolicited dieting advice in general.
Personal trainers who don’t believe you when you say need to stop and who encourage you to push through pain.
The belief that beating your body up makes for a good workout.
The belief that your body has to get smaller or toned when you engage in fitness, and, if it doesn’t, that you’re doing something wrong.
Thinking diet and exercise are the only ways for someone to take care of themselves.
Cultivating fitness spaces that aren’t accessible or affirming to a diverse group of bodies.
You’ve likely seen some of these in action, and you might even hold some as beliefs. The thing is, using exercise as a way to control your body isn’t actually healthy, nor is it possible for most people to achieve “ideal” bodies (thin, muscular, cisgendered, usually white) that toxic fitness culture promotes.
Certain exercise-related mental health issues are mentioned in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5), usually in relation to eating disorders. Anorexia athletica is a disorder characterised by obligatory exercise, in which a person arranges their life around workouts and consistently pushes limits to maximise time spent exercising. Exercise bulimia is a disorder in which a person frequently binges and then compensates with long bouts of exercise.
But beyond these disorders is a huge grey area of exercise behaviour that, while it might fly under the radar, isn’t mentally or physically healthy. Below are some questions to ask yourself if you suspect that your relationship with exercise might be unhealthy or disordered.
Roberto Westbrook via Getty Images
What would happen if I didn’t exercise for a week?
Preoccupation is one sign of an unhealthy relationship with exercise, said Sand Chang, a licensed psychologist based in Oakland, California. Making regular movement a habit is one thing, but constantly thinking about when your next workout will be is another.
Advertisement
Chang suggested asking yourself: “What would happen if I didn’t exercise for a week? A month? What feelings come up in even imagining this?” Going a week or two without exercise won’t negatively impact your health; if the idea of doing so makes you uncomfortable, it’s likely that your motivation for exercise isn’t actually healthy.
Am I flexible about when and how I exercise?
Kristy Fassio, a licensed mental health counsellor based in Kent, Washington, looks for inflexibility as a sign of a disordered relationship with exercise.
“It becomes an issue when a day off can’t be taken without shame or a barrage of excuses, when rest is not prioritised, or when their physical health is actually in jeopardy because they have not taken enough rest,” Fassio said.
Scheduling workouts ahead of time might be necessary for some people, but being unable to move or cancel those workouts without shame is a problem. And, the “no days off” mindset isn’t good for mental or physical health — the amount of rest needed between workouts varies from person to person, but you should build rest days into your schedule and skip workouts if you’re too tired, stressed or sore.
Am I only exercising as a way to control my body?
Do you view exercise as a way to control the way your body looks, or as a way to stop it from changing?
Advertisement
“This is not a healthy mindset,” Chang said. “I encourage people to move their bodies in ways that feel joyful, not for the purposes of changing their bodies.”
That might sound ludicrous to you, since our culture often paints exercise as a “no pain, no gain” endeavour that requires serious discipline. But ask yourself what you actually hope to “gain” from an exercise routine you don’t enjoy. Even if your body does change in the short-term, long-term weight loss is nearly impossible. And changing the way your body looks likely won’t change your life the way fitness culture tells you it will.
“The root problem is body shame, and no amount of weight loss or ‘fitness’ will make that go away,” Chang said.
Do I only count certain types of movement as “exercise”?
We’ve been using the word “exercise” pretty liberally thus far, but it’s worth asking what exactly that word means to you. Usually, our society thinks of exercise as a form of movement with a goal attached. But really, any kind of movement is exercise.
“What if we disconnect movement from changing our bodies and use it for stress relief, having fun, stretching, getting out into nature, rehabilitating an injury, trying something new, even just connecting to our precious bodies?” Fassio said.
Advertisement
That’s not to say that all fitness goals are inherently bad. Maybe you want to get stronger for health reasons, or get faster because you truly love racing. But if your view of exercise is so narrow that only certain, more intense types of movement fit into it, try and expand your perspective.
Is exercise a form of stress relief for me, or is it another source of stress?
Movement is one way to relieve stress, but it shouldn’t be your only coping mechanism. While phrases like “running is my therapy” might be well intentioned and based in a little bit of truth, it’s worth repeating that running is not, in fact, therapy.
As Fassio and Chang have both explained above, being inflexible with how often you exercise or unwilling to take time off is a sign of a disordered relationship with exercise. And ultimately, this kind of thinking will add stress, not relieve it.
Does exercise even feel good?
Another question Chang recommended asking yourself: “How might exercise be motivated by an idea of what I’m supposed to be rather than what my body is actually telling me it needs?”
In other words: Are you engaging in a certain type of movement because you like it and it feels good, or are you only doing it because you think it’s “good exercise”? Exercise doesn’t need to be totally comfortable all the time — it’s OK to push yourself in ways that feel good to you — but there’s no reason to consistently engage in workouts you hate.
Advertisement
Many experts use the terms “mindful movement” or “joyful movement” to describe a relationship with exercise that centres your own needs instead of focusing on outside rules or restrictions. Figure out what types of movement you actually like (the answer will be different for everyone), and do those things only when it feels good.
Drazen_ via Getty Images
The right therapist can help you work through your relationship with exercise and start shifting your mindset.
The truth is, only you can know whether your perspective on exercise is healthy or not.
“In my opinion, mindful movement is deeply connected to knowing what our body wants to do and what it needs to do,” Fassio said.
But while listening to your body is ultimately freeing and empowering, it can be tough to do when you’re used to pushing your body to its limits and ignoring your internal cues.
Advertisement
Finding a therapist who works from a weight inclusive or Health At Every Size perspective is a good starting point for beginning a mindful relationship with movement, Fassio said. The same goes for fitness instructors and personal trainers — if they’re going to be guiding your exercise practice, make sure their approach is empowering to you.
At the end of the day, you have autonomy over your own body and can decide what’s best for it. But if exercise is starting to create more problems than it solves for you, it might be time to ask yourself the tough questions and be prepared to change your thinking.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--I Let My Two Young Kids Plan My 39th Birthday. Here's How It Went.

Victoria Richards Party time
We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
What do you dream of doing on your birthday? Is it waking up to a soggy half-bowl of Cheerios and having coffee spilled over your bedsheets at 6am? It is, isn’t it? Knew it.
Advertisement
Okay, so it might not be entirely the way I dreamed of turning 39, but I found my initial resentment at not getting a proper lie-in eased substantially by the beaming faces of my two young children, whose dastardly plan it was to, “Wake Mummy up with breakfast in bed!”
And when I was dragged downstairs – all of 11 minutes after hurriedly choking down my luxurious breakfast, I found the door to the living room barred shut and a sign on it which read, “Party Time – 39 Today!”
This was the idea, you see: to let my kids plan out my birthday, start to finish. Because in lockdown, frankly, I wasn’t going to be doing anything else. And it gave them such pleasure to have ‘grown-up responsibility’ that I couldn’t resist. I was also very curious to see what they’d come up with – what they figured out, independently, I’d enjoy.
Anyway, it went a bit like this...
Advertisement
When I opened the door to ‘the party zone’ (the living room), Spotify was blaring out Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ song – courtesy of Google Home, who my children (aged three and eight) seem to have wrapped around their little fingers.
They know how to stealthily add things (sweets, chocolate, ingredients for slime) to the shopping list, how to check the weather, and how to entice our automated helper to give them the answers to Year 3 English homework, such as, “What is a fronted adverbial?” (A good job, too; for I haven’t a clue).
In preparation for my big day, my kids had been hard at work. In fact, my daughter confessed she’d woken up at 5am and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep – because she was “too excited”.
On the table, I found presents and balloons and a birthday banner. Once I’d opened all my cards, my kids dragged up little stools and carefully arranged them for me on the mantlepiece.
Victoria Richards Cards
We couldn’t do much in a regular day during lockdown – what with homeschooling to carry out, and the nursery run to do. But I was well prepared that the main event would carry on in the evening. Oh, the excitement.
Advertisement
As soon as 5pm hit, my kids unveiled their plan. They giggled with sheer, unbridled excitement as they informed me we were going to have to call for a “pizza BROUGHT BY A DELIVERY DRIVER” and have “popcorn AND ice-cream, for dessert.” What a treat!
The venue: My living room
The food: Takeaway pizza, popcorn, ice-cream
The film: Jumanji (the original)
Note: I don’t where the idea to watch Jumanji came from (as in, the original, 1995 version) but my daughter was adamant that it was to be that one, not the one from 2017. Not even the latest, 2019 version. Nope – the one we watched featured a young Robin Williams, and an even younger Kirstin Dunst. I may have been turning 39, but it was exactly like being 14, again.
Victoria Richards Pizza time
Spoiler alert: we loved Jumanji. We all loved Jumanji. We yelped at the sudden appearance of a lion, and screamed when there was a stampede, and sighed when poor Peter found himself changed into a monkey.
We also rushed en masse at the poor Papa John’s pizza delivery driver as soon as he pressed the doorbell, and the kids found it the height of excitement to have their very own takeaway pizza box for the first time.
Advertisement
Even the three-year-old enjoyed himself, though admittedly he was a little scared of the giant bugs that featured in the film, and did take himself off to bed at 7.30pm (we had to pause while I ushered him into his pyjamas and gave him a cuddle).
It may not have been high-octane excitement or entertainment, and perhaps I’ll get the chance to celebrate in a slightly more grown-up way now bars, pubs and restaurants are reopening – but I consider myself extremely lucky to have had two heart-melting homemade cards, some ‘birthday cake’ flavour ice-cream, and – most importantly – two very happy children.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Why We Envy People We Haven't Seen Since School

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Listen to our weekly podcast Am I Making You Uncomfortable? about women’s health, bodies and private lives. Available on Spotify, Apple, Audioboom and wherever you listen to your podcasts.
“I don’t really envy my close friends,” says Claire*. “It’s very much that wider circle of people that I don’t really see in real life.”
Advertisement
Her comments will no doubt resonate with anyone who’s spent evenings scrolling through the Instagram account of an old school friend (guilty), envied the career progression of a near-stranger (guilty), or simply marvelled at how their boyfriend’s sister’s friend looks effortless at all times (well, you get the picture).
Envy is something we all experience from time to time – as unpleasant as that is to admit – which is why we wanted to tackle the topic in an episode of Am I Making You Uncomfortable? (#AIMYU), HuffPost UK’s weekly podcast on women’s health, bodies and private lives.
When we asked listeners to admit what makes them envious, a common theme emerged: we tend to envy people we barely know or have lost touch with, rather than our immediate social circle. So, what’s going on?
Advertisement
“The fact that we don’t know as much about people we barely know makes envying them easier, because we are making a lot of stuff up,” explains psychotherapist Lucy Beresford. “We might recall they were popular at school, for example, so when we discover later in life that something has gone right for them, we construct a narrative that suits our existing knowledge, to decide they have a great or perfect life. This apparent perfection triggers our envy.”
With people we know well, we are better able to modify our response towards their successes, adds Beresford, as we have “more of a 360 awareness of the life of a close friend”. This might include knowing what struggles they’ve gone through to get that house or baby, or seeing first-hand how hard they’ve worked for that promotion.
HbrH via Getty Images
Think about the person in your life who sparks the most envy. Are they the same age, gender or profession as you are? We tend to envy people we share some similarities with, says Beresford.
“It is easier to dismiss the life of another person if it differs wildly from your own because in our head it is as though they are a different ‘tribe’,” she explains. “Far more unsettling is comparing yourself to someone similar to you, because it invites the anxiety ‘that could have been me.’”
Advertisement
It’s perhaps because of this that some of us are tempted to track the apparent life progress of old school friends to see how we compare. After all, we know they’ve broadly had the same start to us in life – educationally at least.
“School is relentlessly competitive, educationally but also socially,” says Beresford. “House points, sports day, being chosen for the school play, or who snogged who, all set up scenarios where we are forced to measure ourselves against people we know pretty well.
“We forget to shake off this comparison, and instead stay in the comfort zone of this benchmark in our adult years.”
While our parents’ generation attended the occasional school reunion, social media makes it “scarily easy” to track people we haven’t seen in a while, be that classmates, former colleagues or old flames.
“And as well as factual information, like whether they are still an accountant or did they ever marry that boy from the year above, we can actually see what they are doing,” says Beresford. “The visual images of glamorous holidays or stylish parties (okay, not in lockdown…), the beautifully turned out children or the flashy car, fuel our envy by providing a powerful snapshot of a life, which we then use to fill in the blanks about their life as a whole.”
We’ve heard a gazillion times that social media isn’t an accurate reflection of reality, yet that logic isn’t always at the forefront of our minds when confronted with these emotionally provocative images.
Advertisement
“Comparison culture definitely affects my life and social media is a huge part of that, particularly Instagram,” says Shannon*, another #AIMYU listener.
“It’s where you see all these beautiful people and your peers, and obviously it’s a highlight reel, we all know that, but it doesn’t stop you feeling incredibly envious when you see someone who is on a beach with a cocktail or looking amazing with their abs – and you don’t feel amazing.”
So, how do you fight these feelings of envy if they’ve started to have a negative impact on your wellbeing?
If your feelings of envy tend to be directed at people you watch from afar, comparison coach Lucy Sheridan recommends connecting with the real relationships in your life that remind you of who you are and how you are good enough.
“Have those conversations with people that do really get you, rather than feeling like you’re looking out [...] trying to see what’s going on in strangers’ lives,” she advises on the #AIMYU episode.
Advertisement
Although envy is an uncomfortable emotion to recognise, we shouldn’t shy away from acknowledging it altogether, adds Sheridan. By recognising it proactively, envy can help us realise what we want in life – then make a plan to get it.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--I’m A Porn Star. Coronavirus Has Changed My Industry Forever

@honeygoldxx Courtesy of the author
My working life, along with everybody else’s in the adult industry, has changed a lot due to the pandemic. As a porn star, my job is to perform, often on a set – but with production being brought to a standstill, there are many out there who haven’t been able to earn any money.
There are, of course, other means of providing entertainment and earning an income for performers like me. There are countless cam sites always flooded with new models to donate to and, of course, the phenomenon of OnlyFans, where I can create my own content exclusive for paying fans. But the issue I’ve seen is that many performers might have only just kickstarted their career but all of a sudden they’re out of work, with no dedicated fanbase to provide them the opportunity to successfully earn a living on their own. And that’s not to mention many more involved in the industry – such as directors and camera operators – who don’t perform in the first place. I don’t envy them at all.
Advertisement
But for me, the biggest struggle through this pandemic hasn’t been monetary – it’s been the way isolation affects my mental health. I do everything I can to stay on top of it, although with everything that’s going on in the world at the moment, some days are not easy at all. I aim to stick to a good routine of exercise, healthy eating and enough sleep. For me, personally, I know this routine is what’s best for my mental health. Without it, and a support system of friends and loved ones to reach out to, it’s easy to slip into a dark spiral which, through cruel irony, drains me of the effort and energy I need to stay happy. I’ve been in the industry long enough that I don’t necessarily need to be happy to shoot a scene in which I appear happy. It’s a job after all, and more often than not some acting needs to take place.
“A lot of my peers are being weighed down by awful bouts of anxiety, and I’ve seen what this can do to people on set.”
Poor mental health, for me mainly means depression, but there are all kinds of ways people are being affected by this lockdown. A lot of my peers are being weighed down by awful bouts of anxiety, and I’ve seen what this can do to people on set. Trouble ‘getting it up’ has always been a pretty common issue in porn, and with erectile dysfunction being regularly associated with anxiety, it’s no surprise that sales of Viagra and natural supplements have reportedly sky-rocketed since lockdown began.
Advertisement
Along with a good routine, I find staying busy in general is best for my mental health, which is why I’m putting a great deal of energy into focusing on my OnlyFans. In a way, it feels like the new ‘camming’ – you can be very flexible whilst reaping the full benefits of your income, something the porn industry doesn’t really allow you to do. To put it simply, when you do porn you’re really not working for yourself. In fact, sometimes it can feel like you’re working for everyone but yourself. But with OnlyFans, you can choose exactly what you want to post; how frequently you post; how frequently you interact with your fans; even how much you want to charge for a subscription or individual photosets. The sheer fact that I’m able to make my own rules and structure them around my life, rather than structure my life around my job, makes it a much more satisfying way of earning a living. Many might be surprised to hear this, but I’m actually earning more through OnlyFans than I ever did from shooting porn.
I don’t think this is solely due to Covid-19 either – it just seems to be the way the industry is headed. As performers, we’re too often reduced to categories – White, Black, Asian, Latina, and so forth – but you don’t often see many categories for multi-racial individuals like me. In the past, I’ve been told that I look ‘too light to be Black’, but ‘too dark to be Asian’, and I’ve missed out on a lot of opportunities because directors have told me that I’m too difficult to ‘cast’ in certain roles, just because of my ethnicity.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the porn industry will continue to grow once the pandemic is over – but I can certainly see myself, and many others, leaning heavily towards more independent work.”
I haven’t been able to accept this ugly reality quite as easily as many of my multiracial colleagues. I have Black, Chinese, Cherokee, Mongolian and Irish ancestry, but I don’t want to be put into a box of being Asian or Black – I want to be judged on my performance alone. With things like OnlyFans, it’s kind of like you’re browsing performers, instead of categories, and my ethnicity never needs to enter the discussion. If someone likes me and the energy I bring to my performance, then hopefully they will subscribe. I understand the need for categories in porn – sometimes you just wanna watch blowjob video – but when it starts affecting a performers’ opportunities on the basis of race? That’s never a good thing.
Advertisement
Either way, there’s no doubt in my mind that the porn industry will continue to grow once the pandemic is over, but I can certainly see myself, and many others, leaning heavily towards more independent work. The industry, as it stood before the lockdown, didn’t offer a whole lot of freedom to many performers, and a lot of my earnings needed to be reinvested into things like agency fees, hair, make-up, wardrobe – not to mention things everyone has to worry about like taxes and rent.
If us performers are given the opportunity to earn a living without having to worry about these industry-specific things, we’re going to take it.
Honey Gold is a porn star and model. Follow her on Instagram at @honeygoldxx


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--I've Seen Over 50 Doctors And No One Knows What's Wrong With Me

Courtesy of Caroline Shifke "Like most things in life, illness doesn’t exist in black and white, but in the million shades between."
I wish I could tell you what’s wrong with me.
Since January 2014, I’ve seen over 50 doctors and undergone countless tests ranging from simple blood draws to spending five hours in a sweat chamber covered in purple powder. Based on hundreds of thousands of dollars of tests, appointments and treatments, I have received 26 potential diagnoses. All are partially true. None is entirely true.
If you ask the chief of neurology at Lenox Hill, I have autoimmune limbic encephalitis. If you ask the experts at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, I have central sensitisation syndrome, possibly triggered by Lyme disease. If you ask my internist, an infectious disease specialist at New York-Presbyterian, I have an autoimmune condition that is outside the current realm of medical knowledge. If you ask me, I’d say I have an amalgamation of all the above — and that the name honestly doesn’t really matter to me anymore.
Advertisement
For a long time, the search for a diagnosis was the most important part of my life. Having a diagnosis would have confined an amorphous array of unmanageable symptoms into a definable enemy that I could study, measure for size, and destroy.
It would also have made going to parties a lot easier.
“Having a diagnosis would have confined an amorphous array of unmanageable symptoms into a definable enemy that I could study, measure for size, and destroy.”
If you tell someone you’re sick, they want to know what you’re sick with. The diagnosis informs their behaviour. Should they be worried? If so, how worried? Are you contagious? Is it fatal? Is it something that could happen to them too? And people are naturally curious. Few things pique our interest more than guarded, mysterious language. If someone says, “I have a cold,” we say, “Oh that’s too bad. Drink lots of fluids and feel better soon!” and then we move on. But if someone tells us, “I’m going through some health issues at the moment,” we have a million follow-up questions — though, we’ve been trained not to ask these questions as we’ve relegated health to the realm of the private, not to be inquired into without enormous caution.
Without a diagnosis, I had no easy answer to the question “What’s wrong?” If I said something vague but accurate, like, “I have a strange neurological illness,” then I would seem intentionally coy. If I listed all my symptoms, it would seem like I was complaining. If I boiled it down to one symptom, like migraines or fatigue, I would be underselling the severity and setting false expectations about how well I was. Without a diagnosis, I was a little kid who runs home after a day at the beach and proudly unfurls sticky fingers to reveal pebbles, broken shells, a crab’s leg, dried seaweed pods and sea glass. What are you supposed to do with that strange, incoherent display except smile limply?
Advertisement
Without a diagnosis, I had no story to tell to others, or to myself. It was lonely, confusing and scary. I felt like I was walking down a pitch-black street alone at night, with nothing but the glow of my cellphone to light my feet and an imagination to fill the darkness with monsters. Each negative test that ruled out a horrible disease added some light, but that brightness only served to make the darkness beyond even thicker, more impenetrable.
“If I listed all my symptoms, I would seem like I was complaining. If I boiled it down to one symptom, like migraines or fatigue, I would be underselling the severity and setting false expectations about how well I was.”
Searching for an answer consumed my parents and me until, eventually, I ended up at the Mayo Clinic’s Pain Rehabilitation Center. The driving theory of the program is that the most important thing about a chronic illness is not its name but rather its management. The quest for a diagnosis became secondary to a more important goal: living a good life that accommodates, but doesn’t focus on, my illness. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what we called my disease. What mattered was learning to live with it.
Therein lies the difference between something acute and something chronic. If you have an acute illness, the most important thing is to figure out how to make it go away. If you have a chronic illness, the most important thing is to figure out how to live every day in the vast grey expanse between sick and cured.
But people usually want to know what’s wrong, and how can you fix it, and are you better now? The narrative of illness that we embrace in our culture leaves little room for chronicity. We think of illness as a battle to be won or lost, with disease something you fight until you achieve victory, or die trying. We treat illness like war, and naming the disease is the equivalent of meeting the maxim: “Know thy enemy as you know thyself.”
Advertisement
For some, the language of battle might be important. When the stakes are life or death, the terminology of war empowers the survivor and absolves the dead.
But the metaphor of battle has a secondary consequence. It suggests that illness is transient, that it is a major event that one can either heroically overcome or die fighting. No battle lasts forever without a winner or a loser. It follows that no illness lasts forever. The language of war doesn’t do justice to the daily slog of chronicity.
“We struggle to embrace chronic narratives because they’re scary and uncomfortable.”
I understand the desire to put illness in terms of winning and losing battles. It’s comforting to think that with enough grit, enough firepower and medication and doctors and energy and sheer force of will, we can overcome anything that dares try to stop us. But the problem with this myth is the implication that those who continue to struggle daily, those who do not “win,” are simply not strong enough. We are not trying hard enough. And it allows the world to take another half-step away, siphoning off a little extra empathy to hand to those who will not squander it.
We struggle to embrace chronic narratives because they’re scary and uncomfortable. There’s something fundamentally disturbing about the notion that, even with all the best doctors, even if you do everything right, even if you exercise and eat organic and take your vitamins, even then, pain and illness could still be your daily companion. It’s uncomfortable to sit with the knowledge of unending suffering. It’s part of the reason why our news cycle is so short and getting shorter — we are good at feeling energetic bursts of sympathy, but we don’t often practice the prolonged empathy required of understanding something chronic, be it illness, structural racism, hunger, poverty or war.
Advertisement
But, like most things in life, illness doesn’t exist in black and white, but in the million shades between. There are many stories of people who become sick, find a diagnosis, undergo treatment and recover. And there are just as many stories of people who, like me, don’t have a precise diagnosis, a real prognosis, or an ultimate cure.
I wish I could tell you what’s wrong with me. But, even more than that, I wish that having a name and a clear-cut answer wasn’t held at such a premium in our discussions about and understanding of health. If we change the language we use to discuss illness, it might become easier for us to embrace new narratives, like that of the journey from sickness not to health, but to acceptance.
This article first appeared on HuffPost Personal.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Rishi Sunak To Unveil £2bn Youth Unemployment Scheme In Coronavirus Recovery Package

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Coronavirus has changed everything. Make sense of it all with the Waugh Zone, our evening politics briefing. Sign up now.
A £2bn scheme to ease youth unemployment by subsidising work placements is to form the centrepiece of chancellor Rishi Sunak’s new coronavirus recovery package.
Advertisement
A three-point plan to boost the ailing economy by helping job creation will include a plan to help pay for six-month placements for some young people facing long-term unemployment.
Sunak will set out the measures in his summer economic update in the House of Commons on Thursday, as he faces pressure to assist those who are most at risk from a financial crisis.
The Treasury acknowledged that young people are more likely to be furloughed under the job retention scheme which is being wound up and is due to end in October.
So a “kickstart scheme” hoped by the Treasury to create hundreds of thousands of jobs will be unveiled for 16 to 24-year-olds claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term employment.
Advertisement
Government funding would cover 100% of the minimum wage for 25 hours a week, with bosses able to top up wages.
Ahead of the announcement, Sunak said: “Young people bear the brunt of most economic crises, but they are at particular risk this time because they work in the sectors disproportionately hit by the pandemic.
“We also know that youth unemployment has a long-term impact on jobs and wages and we don’t want to see that happen to this generation.
“So we’ve got a bold plan to protect, support and create jobs – a plan for jobs.”
But Lib Dem leadership candidate Layla Moran said the package “will sadly be too little too late for many of the corona class of 2020”.
“Eighteen-year-olds could be left being paid just £161 a week under this scheme, which in some parts of the country would barely cover rent and transport costs,” she added.
Advertisement
Undated handout photo issued by HM Treasury showing Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak preparing the Economic Update he will present to Parliament tomorrow. PA
However, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Frances O’Grady, welcomed the measure as a “good first step” to prevent mass youth unemployment.
“But we’ll be checking the small print to ensure every job provides proper training and a bridge to steady employment,” she added.
Among the job measures already announced are a £111 million scheme for firms in England to get a £1,000 bonus if they offer unpaid traineeships.
Sunak will also detail a £3 billion green package with grants for homeowners and public buildings to improve energy efficiency.
Advertisement
It will include £2 billion for households to insulate their homes and make them more energy-efficient, but campaigners said the funding pales in comparison to the economic and environmental crises.
There has also been speculation that Sunak will raise the threshold for stamp duty payment for property sales where it applies in England and Northern Ireland from £125,000 to £500,000.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Why Is Boris Johnson Refusing To Say Sorry For His Care Home Blame Game?

LOADING ERROR LOADING
You’re reading The Waugh Zone, our daily politics briefing. Sign up now to get it by email in the evening.
Slap for carers?
“Never apologise, never explain” is a political credo that is often (wrongly) attributed to Benjamin Disraeli. In the wake of his incendiary remarks about care homes and Covid, self-described One Nation Tory Boris Johnson seems to have adapted at least half of the aphorism.
Advertisement
The backlash over the PM”s remark on Monday – “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have” – was certainly swift and strong today. But instead of expressing any regret, Johnson ordered No.10 to simply clarify his remarks.
Unfortunately, “never apologise, but do try to explain away your blunders” doesn’t quite trip off the tongue. Worse still, it seems to compound the anger. The whole episode has fed the Jeremy Clarkson/Piers Morgan critique of him as an uncaring incompetent.
The PM’s official spokesman was asked repeatedly today if he would say sorry for the remark. Repeatedly, he failed to do so (if you want to see just how a civil servant sticks like superglue to a line-to-take, read my transcript). Instead, we were told that in effect everyone had misinterpreted Johnson’s words.
Here is the full exchange between Lobby journalists and the PM's official spokesman.
Read in all its glory: pic.twitter.com/A77dZRsuFk — Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) July 7, 2020
Advertisement
What he had been doing was pointing out that “nobody knew the correct procedures to put in place at the time, because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known”, the spokesman said. The line was road-tested by business secretary Alok Sharma and renewed later in the Commons by health secretary Matt Hancock.
The big problem of course is that Johnson’s words – the ones that actually left his mouth, as opposed to the ones deployed by his dutiful Downing Street mouthpiece – didn’t mention anything about asymptomatic transmission or “correct” procedures.
I had a chat this afternoon with Mark Adams, the care home chief whose withering criticism of the PM went viral after his Today programme appearance on Tuesday. Adams rightly pointed to the logical flaw in the No.10 defence: “If you were saying that nobody knew the rules because they’re asymptomatic, why would you say some have failed [to follow procedures]?”
Adams went further, saying it was a “Trumpian” tactic to claim you’d said something other than what you’d actually said. He also made a wider point, which was that actions speak louder than words, especially on coronavirus. “If they can get the funding sorted out, the testing sorted out, and help us on PPE, they can keep their apology. Obviously if they want to throw that in as well it would be great.”
To the layman, it seems blindingly obvious that the PM should today have expressed some regret for the impact of his words, a mea culpa for the phrasing. After all, appearing to replace his Thursday night “clap for carers” with a Monday lunchtime “slap for carers” was terrible politics on any level.
Advertisement
Surely a heartfelt apology would have defused the row, instead of letting it fester more than 24 hours? Won’t he have to do it in PMQs on Wednesday anyway, or will he assume the public will care more about the Chancellor’s statement?
What’s curious about all this is the sheer political risk the PM is taking with the pensioner vote that backed him in large numbers at the 2019 election. Even if he thinks that low-paid care home staff are not likely to support him, their residents and their relatives really can’t be dismissed. Private care home owners and businesses have also been seen as natural Tory supporters in the past.
So, why the “sorry not sorry” approach?
Dominic Cummings: I regret nothing. JONATHAN BRADY via Getty Images
Well, maybe Johnson has seen this Columbia University study. It suggests that when a prominent figure apologises for a controversial statement, the public are either unaffected or become more likely to desire that the public figure be punished. For a PM who has studiously avoided any admission of liability on coronavirus mistakes, in the hope that a public inquiry will spread the blame, that would fit.
And maybe that’s the real explanation. Johnson really does think that too many care homes failed to act responsibly, it’s just that he has blurted it out prematurely. His difficulty is that those care homes that did unilaterally operate their own drastic lockdowns (some told staff to live on site and stay on site) did so despite, not because of, government guidance.
Advertisement
Johnson has apologised in the past for things that he clearly didn’t think were his fault (his trip to Liverpool as Spectator editor was for a leader article he didn’t write, his regret over Islamophobia was for incidents that took place under Theresa May). The bitter irony is that he is now refusing to apologise for something that is nobody’s fault but his.
There is another factor perhaps at work. “Never apologise, partially explain” seems to be the mantra of the PM’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings. He famously refused to express any regret for his own (triple) breaches of lockdown guidance. It was in that Cummings rose garden press conference that he also planted the first seeds of doubt that others (Public Health England? Sage?) would one day be made to account for errors in the pandemic, whereas he personally had “argued for lockdown”.
Johnson still has time. It took him nearly two weeks to apologise for giving the false impression that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was working for the UK government in Iran. If he can use PMQs to express his regret, even if that means disowning his own words, he may claw back some understanding for a ‘misspeak’. If he doesn’t, the narrative of a man who always runs away from responsibility is sure to grow.
Quote Of The Day
“They said they thought the car was stolen. That was their excuse. These are the issues the black community are suffering from.”
– Doreen Lawrence reveals she was stopped by police on her way home from studying, soon after her son Stephen’s death.
Advertisement
Tuesday Cheat Sheet
The OECD warned that one in seven Brits could be unemployed by the end of the year as the world economy struggles to recover from lockdown.
Mel Stride, the Tory chair of the Commons Treasury committee, urged the government to ditch plans to treat coronavirus tests as a taxable benefit in kind.
Rishi Sunak will announce a £2bn plan to give £5,000 energy saving home insulation vouchers to hundreds of thousands of homeowners. The poorest will get up to £10,000.
Tory chairwoman Amanda Milling confirmed the party conference had been cancelled and replaced by a virtual event. “If guidelines allow, we hope we can include some elements of the traditional Party Conference we all know and love,” she told members.
Retail chains ASOS, Next and Zalando have dropped the fast-fashion brand Boohoo amid claims that it has mistreated workers at its UK garment factories.
Advertisement
At least four pubs in England that reopened their doors for the first time on Saturday have been forced to close again after customers or staff tested positive for Covid-19.
Donald Trump’s White House has formally informed Congress the US is withdrawing from the World Health Organisation.
What I’m Reading


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-07-07--Charity Chief Attacks Johnson’s 'Trumpian' Response To Care Home Row

LOADING ERROR LOADING
Coronavirus has changed everything. Make sense of it all with the Waugh Zone, our evening politics briefing. Sign up now.
A charity chief who went viral for his attack on Boris Johnson’s “cowardly” criticism of care homes has hit out at Downing Street’s “Trumpian” response and refusal to apologise.
Advertisement
Mark Adams, chief executive of Community Integrated Care (CIC), spoke out after No.10 tried to suggest the prime minister was not apportioning blame when he said “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have”.
Adams, who first let rip his fury on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, told HuffPost UK that the government’s move to clarify Johnson’s remarks felt like an attempt to “bluff” his way through the row.
The charity boss, who oversees a workforce of 6,500 staff helping people with dementia and learning difficulties, blasted a string of government failures in the pandemic.
Its failed tracing app, money wasted on antibody tests and abortive attempts to get protective equipment from abroad were all proof of the shortcomings, as well as inadequate testing and care home guidance, he said.
Advertisement
And he warned that unless more funding and routine testing was made available, the UK would face more deaths in the likely second and subsequent waves of the pandemic.
The PM’s spokesperson repeatedly refused to apologise for his remarks about care homes made on Monday, insisting instead that he was pointing out “nobody knew the correct procedures to put in place at the time, because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known”.
Adams told HuffPost UK the PM’s words were pretty clear, and it was no surprise that many in the care sector felt he was blaming them.
“Yesterday, he said it’s become clear that some care providers failed because they failed to follow procedures. If you were saying that nobody knew the rules because they’re asymptomatic, why would you say some have failed? And why would you say it’s because they failed to follow procedures?
“The reality is, he dug himself into a hole, he went off piste and effectively got back to the office and everyone said ‘you’re going to have to bluff your way out of this’. And they are trying to do just that. It was either clumsy and cowardly or it was an insight as to what the prime minister truly thinks, and I’m not sure what’s worse.
Advertisement
“But ultimately if they are thinking that blame sits with the care sector, when they have that whole litany of failure, then I think that you know you get your own house in order before you start throwing rocks.”
Mark Adams, CEO of Community Integrated Care. HuffPost UK
He added that the No.10 response echoed Donald Trump’s denial of statements he himself had made, which were easily provable.
“I think we’ve had numerous examples of kind of Trumpian revisions of history. I mean it’s normally been other ministers standing up at five o’clock patting themselves on the back for a job well done.” he said.
“I mean, you know, people celebrating the hundred revisions to public health guidance, it is not great. People saying well we gave £3.2 billion to frontline social care but in reality, only a third of that has got through to frontline providers.”
Advertisement
Johnson is sure to face fresh calls from Labour’s Keir Starmer to make a public apology in prime minister’s question time on Wednesday, and Adams said that he would at least gain some “respect” for doing so.
“The biggest issue here is we’ve had 1.6 million people that work in social care so often feeling like they’re the Cinderella of the health and social care system, really feeling a very low level of self esteem, because people keep talking them down.
“And through this crisis they’ve suddenly been recognized for what they are incredibly important key workers, making brave decisions about the continuity of care for those in charge.
“And just as they’re starting to feel that they can hold their head up high the prime minister potentially points the finger with an accusation about many deaths being attributed to them. So even if charitably the prime minister didn’t intend to do this, I think the thing he should do is to say, if he was misinterpreted and in any way misconstrued, he gives a heartfelt apology.”
But Adams said that that government action was more important than any expression of regret by Johnson.
Advertisement
“If they can get the funding sorted out, the testing sorted out, and help us on PPE, they can keep their apology. Obviously if they want to throw that in as well it would be great.”
The care boss’s remarks earlier on the BBC had gone viral on social media, but he said that the most gratifying reaction was from relatives who had got in touch to thank him for his passion. “This wasn’t a vanity project. This was just something that needed to be said,” he said, adding he considered himself to be “apolitical”.
Adams said that although routine testing of care home staff and residents was finally underway, more frequent tests were needed. The government should also not just focus on the 450,000 people in care or nursing homes but the 850,000 people who receive care in sheltered housing or other support at home.
“There’s been so many fundamental errors. On the one hand you watch Matt Hancock stand up and talk about a shiny new badge and talk about a ring of steel. And the reality is that the government was just concentrating on the NHS until the death toll got too high, and then they were playing catch up. And we’ve seen the consequences.
“What this crisis has shown us is that we have not got a system when it comes to social care. We have a patchwork quilt stitched together, which just about survived in the good times. And as soon as you have a crisis it rips apart.”