Cover Page, 30 April 2020, Issue 231 Welcome to our latest edition. We hope you enjoy its articles, features and puzzles. The Shaw Sheet would like to introduce new writers either on an occasional or regular basis. So have you got some spare time at the moment? If so contact the editors at johnW@shawsheet.com for
26 April 2020 Sage Penetrated Cummings at the gate. By John Watson Every profession has its holy of holies and, for the medical profession, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is about as holy as you can get. It gives its advice in secret. Membership, until published by The Guardian recently, could only be
30 April 2020 Wanted Dead or alive? By Neil Tidmarsh On March 27, Alba Maruri, a seventy-four year old woman hospitalised with Covid-19 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, was pronounced dead. Relatives were informed and a week later they received ashes in a cremation urn. On April 23, however, her sister had a telephone call from the
30 April 2020 The Grim Reaper ‘An unimaginable tragedy’. By Lynda Goetz The coronavirus outbreak prompts me to return to a subject I addressed just over a year ago in The Shaw Sheet in Being Mortal and earlier than that in A 21st Century Death. It is quite clear that, in the West at least,
30 April 2020 In for a Tenner Restarting the Museums J.R.Thomas Like a motorist trying to start a disused car, the government is starting to crank the engine of the stalled British economy. Not so much charging the battery or cleaning the spark plugs as encouraging the building trade back to work, allowing reopening of
30 April 2020 Leadership in the time of Covid-19. By Richard Pooley When I came back from the UK to my village in south-west France on 14 March, the first person to speak to me was Valerie, owner of one of the two boulangeries. “Your Prime Minister is crazy, completely crazy!” I reminded her that
30 April 2020 Boris The man for the job? By Robert Kilconner Newspaper columnists should make you think and certainly that was the achievement of whoever it was who recently said that Boris Johnson was the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. Alas, I have forgotten who they were, or where
30 April 2020 What did you do in the Great (Covid-19) War? Lockdown Man* By Frank O’Nomics * Lockdown man should not be confused with Piltdown Man – but he may be equally bogus. Let’s start by sharing one of the numerous ‘jokes’ sent to me across one of the myriad of Whatsapp groups that
30 April 2020 El Virus Corona A View from Spain by Santiago Aldea del Fresno Like most other countries, at the beginning of the year Spain was aware of a viral infection in China but we were not too worried because China is a long way away, the virus had been reported in December 2019
30 April 2020 Diary of a Corbynista Capacity and Delivery by Don Urquhart 23 April Corbynista received two types of response to Downing Street Press Briefing Bingo (DSPBB). Clearly a number of utterances had been left out: “unbelievable” (Hancock delivers time after time); “rolling out”; “driving hard”; “challenges”. There must be many more. We are
