In the Year of the Rat.

[bunn]

 So, our government has just closed all the cafes and pubs officially, and are setting up universal basic income (!!!), nope apparently they stepped back from that, and are just going for 80% paying wages. Still, that's quite a major departure.

This feels really weird : we run two small businesses from our house, and suddenly... everyone is closed apart from us, grocers and huge megabusinesses?  We only sell online and all the stuff is in the house anyway, so the only reason to close the Shop on the Borderlands would be if the postal service shut down.  The website hosting / maintenance side of things would keep on trucking through even that, though I do wonder how many of our customers there will be still standing on the other side of this. We shall see.

(Actually, the village pub is sort of still open, barely.  You can take a jug down there and they will fill it with beer to take away.  Some of the other pubs & cafes are doing takeaway food.) 

Can still walk the dogs, at a safe distance from humanity, though apparently in France even that is now forbidden. Yikes. Imagine the yodelling if Rosie had to go walkless.  Well, if it comes, then no doubt they will adjust; at least we have a garden.  In the meanwhile, I may make a trip to a nice quiet spot tomorrow.

In other news, I popped these three tiny paintings onto Redbubble, here, this afternoon, and someone just bought six cards of them, which was nice.

Comments

[narya_flame]

Have they actually decided to go for UBI, then? I read that they're paying 80% of wages for those who've been laid off. I wasn't clear on what the status is for zero hours workers, I missed most of the detail as I was on a work call.

Those paintings are beautiful and made me smile :)

[bunn]

Oh, maybe I am wrong. The news I saw said UBI, but I can't remember where I first saw it now, it may well be that someone misread.

[narya_flame]

UBI may yet come. I hope it does, if only to prove that it can work - but I think it would offer security and certainty to people currently feeling this the hardest.

[sir_guinglain]

No UBI, alas - we freelancers are being told to apply for universal credit with all that entails. I suspect the outcry at the income support scheme, which is discriminatory against the self-employed, will lead to reform to bring us into it.

[marycatelli]

Dog was barking at me and not heeding the owner's rebukes when I walked today.

I observed that the dog was into social distancing.