UKH

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-52864454

I'll leave people to make up their own minds.  Also, look at the pictures before the air ambulance had arrived.  Multiply these scenes across all beauty spots......

Are these the people who would normally be in Benidorm or is it always as crowded as this on hot weekend days at Durdle Door?

This forum loves a bit of us vs them bad news porn doesn't it? I feel like during the coronavirus pandemic there's been a surge in miserable internet folk who feed off doom and gloom like ticks. 

For me this has been one of the most disappointing and upsetting secondary effects of the pandemic.

Its not just this forum though, in fact there's less on here than other social media. Some of the FB pages and news outlet comments have been terrifying.

It's like that most sunny, warm, weekends. The Lulworth Estate makes a fortune from the huge car park at the top of the cliffs, plus the fast food outlets there. And, it's going to get worse around the coast and in our National Parks as these people can't go to their usual resorts of Benidorm, Magaluf or Ibiza. So, be prepared for a summer of discontent.

What pisses me off is that if, god forbid, there are subsequent waves of Covid 19 then a lot of the fault will rest not only(possibly) with the government for lifting restrictions too soon but equally-or more so with the "covidiots"..

By their thoughtless, selfish actions the responsibly minded majority will again and for goodness knows how long be subjected to further restrictions on their lives.

Many people(me included) are reasonably looking forward to a decent holiday or getting back to work or visiting friends and family when this is all over but I worry that we will be thwarted by the actions of a mindless few.

This sentence would be much improved by the removal of 'these' and the examples at the end.

By improved I mean less judgemental and prejudiced sounding.

It's just been announced on local radio that Durdle Door is now closed for the forseeable future. 

Because of the crowds or to investigate the injuries (or prevent more)?

Am I miserable because I dont want to be locked down again, possibly worse next time? Am I miserable because I dont want the economy to freefall any more? Am I miserable that I dont want a second wave? Am I miserable that people, stupid, selfish people are given an inch and take a light year? Am I miserable that I want this virus to f*ck right off but that idiots think going to one of the most crowded beaches in the world is a good idea right now? Am I miserable that I don't want more people dying, especially front line workers?

The answer to all those is yes and so you can take your condescending post and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Could you add am I miserable because I'm getting wound up about things out with my control to that list? There's an awful lot of that going about right now.

Sense seems only to be as common as the examples set by those who make the rules, as well as the mainstream media sources people choose to read, view and be influenced by, during lockdown.

Hmm. I wonder if you supported going climbing during lockdown or believe Cummings was right too. It's important to us all to show control and to be measured now,  not send us back to where we started, or worse.

Massive leap there. Nothing I've said suggests that.

I agree. Let's extend that control and measured response to not leaping to judgement and reviling those not acting the way we think they should.

I agree with you to some extent. There are still significant measures in place to control transmission, but if people don’t maintain the 2m separation the risk of a second wave, if one is to come, is greatly increased when it doesn’t need to be. It’s very frustrating - lives and livelihoods are at stake. 

So, you want the economy to recover, the virus to disappear, no second peak but no lockdown... How do you expect all of these things to happen at once? 

Given your incredibly sensitive disposition and aggressive reply I have to ask why you shared the news article in the first instance? Apparently the only acceptable response for you is a pat on the back while we all scoff at the stupid commoners. 

It feels like class shaming at its most grotesque. A lot of people aren't sat infront of BBC news hitting refresh. They're told they can go to the beach. They don't have a vast collection of guidebooks and knowledge of secret coves. They don't have the resources to have sat and read about the virus as much as others and moan online. They go to the beach, except so did a bunch of other people.

On Monday morning they might have to commute on public transport to work and keep the country running, so that more privileged people can stay safe at home. The beach is still safer than that.

​

I have a reasonably strong suspicion that when the pubs reopen, there will be a significant number of people who stay local for their jollies rather than travel to the revered beauty spots.  Might mean fewer BBQ related fires and not quite so many empty bottle heaps on National Parks.  I also still think that as the restrictions roll on and the frustration/misery continues, there is a very real risk of riots still.  There is a lot of anger out there, and if restrictions get increased again it will most likely go pop.  Hoping for quiet times ahead.

Seconded

I think you’re jumping to conclusions about who is going to the beach as well.

I have zero beach or secret cove guidebooks.  Bing have OS maps free online, Google have high quality arial photos free online, Geograph has practically every square meter of the country photographed from the most interesting angles with great local commentary.  OpenStreetMap covers for free many paths not on the OS maps in coastal areas.  It’s not a cost barrier to finding a quieter beach it’s one of being willing to put the effort in.  
 

The bigger part of this news story is that it turns out my dad was wrong - “if your mates jump off a cliff, would you?”.  What kind of numpty jumps off any of those cliffs?

The economy will recover and virus spread reduced by a sensible approach of careful restrictions being eased and getting people back to work, by folks showing some level of self-control (civic duty seems to be the phrase of the week), maintaining distance, and not gathering on a beach by the thousands, cheek to cheek.

Sensitive? My reaction was to your condescension.  I shared it because its a forum where we discuss things.  Where on earth has class been mentioned in this.  Stupid and selfish is classless. 

Where on earth has class been mentioned? My mother was a pub barmaid and father a fitter/mechanical engineer and I grew up in a north Derbyshire mining village; make you feel better?  Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder.

And so going to the beach/beauty spot/Matlock Bath whilst thousands are still being infected and hundreds dying is the sensible thing to do?  To then spread elsewhere amongst those who have no option but to travel to work?

Strange bit of logic you have here.

So, the crowded beach definitely looks bad, but do we have a clear idea of how big a risk this is? how does 10000 people with some level of social distancing on a beach compare with 400 people in a pub or 200 on a tube train for instance? We have been told that outside is basically ok, so while this is an unnecessary risk, is it a significant risk? 
Edit: much lower risk rather than basically ok, but same question. 

Before the helicopters arrived...

And having the knowledge and skills to access and use those resources. Realistically, what proportion of the population can do that? It's a knowledge barrier as much as an effort one.

Like I said, it looks bad. I wouldn’t want to be at a beach that crowded even without COVID. But my question still stands. Population density on that beach is far lower than in a vertical drinking establishment or a tube train / platform and it’s not a closed environment. What is the level of risk? The fact that we’ve had this virus for 3 months now, and fairly well informed people don’t have an inkling is part of the problem. 

I am going to be a contrarian here. Of course lockdown has worked in some countries, and maybe it would have done here if it had been implemented firmly enough and early enough. 

But from the outset it was always riddled with compromises and confusion, and  was always going to be problematic - the UK is not Wuhan, or New Zealand, and in a melting pot like London you only have to ask 'please do this' and there will be 20 different interest groups doing 'that'. Once we had our obese, grinning, blustering bore of a PM , in the last of his glory days before his fall from grace, bragging about shaking hands with everyone in hospital, and smirking when asked whether he was going to visit his mother on mother's day, it NEVER had any credibility or hope that it was really going to work. The 'population' - and I include myself In this - were given no idea how serious things were going to get.

And people aren't stupid. The 'teenage scum' who say they don't care about it because it's about old people - they're right and everyone tut tutting about them is wrong.  Fit and healthy people up to the age of 60 or 70 are not at very much increased risk from CV - and they should know it. It is STILL the case that most in that age range could have the disease and not really notice. Those that know that - and anecdotally, that seems an increasing proportion of the population- are going to vote with their feet. How many people do YOU know who've died? My folks and uncles and aunts are all gone now from old age, so personally I only know one, thank goodness - a serious smoker with seriously compromised health

To pretend they're still in control, the government is actually doing things to reflect the reality of lockdown falling apart rather than dealing with it. The easing of restrictions is being implemented because that is what people are doing anyway. Van Tam - like all his colleagues - is deeply compromised by having to appear on a platform with a government that a) does not care about what is actually happening, only how it can be presented to the electorate, and b) hasn't the capability to implement anything effectively anyway, even if they could agree what it was. Pi$$ up and breweries don't even come close - I wouldn't trust most of he Cabinet to tie their shoelaces without their minders.

So, it is my considered view that lockdown cannot be made to work in the UK in the current circumstances and climate - the only thing that might change that is if there were a change to the disease so it started to become a threat to the wider population (horrifically, this isn't out of the question - the virus doesn't care.) Track and trace - forget it. It's a classic example of throwing money at a problem in the despairing hope that something will stick and have a positive effect, and if it doesn't they will be able to whine 'we did our best.' (Read Roy Lilley on the subject: 'I guess we are doing what we can do with what we've got.  Persuading ourselves it's a lot. Never has there been so fragile a policy called upon to deliver so tough a job.')

So it is the responsibility of management, sorry government, to say - well this is the reality, A, our objective is to get back to normal asap while minimising excess deaths, B, how do we get from A to B by doing the possible rather than the impossible? A proper debate really needs to start now.

What proportion of the population can use google maps?  I'd always assumed "most" but perhaps I'm best of living in a bubble.  I have noticed in the last decade that most of the young people at work have stopped looking at maps and planning journeys, and have started just putting things into a satnav to the point people think you're odd for not having one.

From googling, clusters of infections from outdoor transmission are rare. If people travel to the beach as households and don't touch stuff brought by other households the day at the beach should not result in an additional cluster of infections.

Clusters spread from outdoors was rare when people were spread out outdoors.  It's not necessarily the case when you have high people density.

It's also a giving a shit thing. Maps and geograph and getting away from the crowds are important to the likes of me and thee but it just won't occur to many.

Undoubtably lower risk than 400 people in a pub, but all the pubs are closed and even when some pubs reopen in July numbers will be limited.

The science is still inconclusive regarding environmental impacts on transmission rates. CV19 is too new, there are too many variables, it's too difficult to put together ethical yet good quality studies examining the issue.

On the other hand, how thick do you have to be to be incapable of grasping that in the middle of the most deadly Global pandemic in living memory you shouldn't go to crowded places. Turn up at the beach/crag/park, see a huge crowd, turn around and go elsewhere. Not rocket science, not a class thing, not dependent on access to information or education. 

Possibly, but for example, 318 outbreaks investigated and just one thought to be outdoor transmission.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1

Pity they did not reduce car parking capacity which would probably be enough to keep the beach very safe.

A dangerous assumption. Risk seems very much tied to exposure. Anecdotal I know, but the last month has seen two friends of friends of 48 and 56 killed by CV19, both fit and healthy. In my own workplace there are about 15 blokes in their 50s, two of whom have already been hospitalised, one on a ventilator for over a week. Neither had underlying health problems.

Yes, it's not a closed environment, but those thousands of people are all using the same pay and display machines (I can't imagine the landowner not providing free parking) in the huge car park at the top of the cliff, then they all use the same gates, handrails and stiles to haul themselves up and down the steep path. Then they were ALL told to leave the beach at the same time - the pics make it clear that they are all nose to tail on the approach paths.

I'd be most surprised if there weren't some covid transmission as a result. 

I have never seen Durdle Door beach that busy, and I've lived 10 miles away for most of the last 30 years.

It's mental - and I bet there are many beaches across the country where this has been repeated, and not reported.

There’s no need for a debate when the answer is simple.

Everyone, except the vulnerable, go about their normal business/work/pleasure and accept that, relatively speaking, a few of them will die from Covid.

Everyone else - the old, the sick and the vulnerable either remain in isolation or continue their lives in the wider world with the knowledge that they have a high risk of dying.

The non vulnerable group is far larger in number than the vulnerable group so let them do whatever they want.

There’s not a chance of any politician being as openly callous as that though, is there?

Good points about touching surfaces.

indeed. We need to work where possible, we need to buy food and exercise if you want to. Beyond that we are now entirely responsible for what happens, the govts. vagueness making this our responsibility now. If and when this is over, it will boil down to looking yourself in the eye and asking whether you tried your best to do the right thing or whether you said “f&£k it” and took the piss. 

Common sense isn't common practice.

Durdle Door on a summer's weekend.

'Everyone else - the old, the sick and the vulnerable either remain in isolation or continue their lives in the wider world with the knowledge that they have a high risk of dying.'

I assume you're being sarcastic. What I don't understand is why we can't really throw our resources - and we seem to have a lot of them - at the vulnerable groups. Really look after them. Make sure they have good food - put together care plans - provide testing as soon as they sneeze - move them to hotels if their own accommodation isn't suitable - do whatever it take to care for them as much as possible. 

I stand by my statement. Many of those people at Durdle Door (and I've been there when it is almost as crowded as that, listened to the foul language, seen the litter left behind) are of the same mindfulness as those causing issues in Harpur Hill, abusing wardens on Dartmoor and in the Yorkshire Dales. If they can't go on their booze fueled holiday to the usual Mediterranean resorts they will inflict their antisocial behaviour on the popular places in the UK.

You're in healthcare though. You haven't been provided with adequate PPE, and you haven't been looked after enough. Staff with health issues - diabetes, obesity, conditions resulting in compromised immune systems, - really shouldn't be working in that environment, they should be furloughed. We probably didn't have the resources to do that initially, we probably do now. 

Only a little sarcastic.

At the moment we’ve got the country trying to emerge from lockdown.

The vast majority of the population will be exposed to the virus and will only suffer minor symptoms.

Yes some will die and some will suffer long term damage but most will not.

The people who will die in large numbers - the vulnerable - could be allowed out, if they want to take the risk, if social distancing can be maintained. This is, as I understand it, the government plan announced today. It’s possible that many of these people will die but they can’t be kept locked up for ever.

People in care homes are especially vulnerable due to them living in close proximity to other people in the form of fellow residents and staff. Only daily testing provides some security and even that isn’t foolproof. So we can keep this people locked up, to enjoy what might be their final few months alive, in isolation.

Or we accept that care homes need a huge overhaul and as you suggest through all our resources at them.

Given that most care homes are privately owned and combined with years of neglect by various governments It’s hard to see this happening.

Maybe if most people resumed their normal lives all those billions going into the furlough scheme could be redirected to the NHS and care sector to provide the care that our old people deserve.

'Given that most care homes are privately owned and combined with years of neglect by various governments It’s hard to see this happening.

Maybe if most people resumed their normal lives all those billions going into the furlough scheme could be redirected to the NHS and care sector to provide the care that our old people deserve.'

Exactly. With a will, the public/private sector thing needn't be a problem - Sunak can sort it! He has done with furloughed private sector staff.

It would be wonderful to see this happen. Getting most people back to work might improve the chance of it actually happening.

That is just plain wrong.

A whole swathe of countries* have got the rate of infection down to near zero so you die of old age long before you get infected.

*Greece, Norway, Denmark, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, NZ, Aus - too many to remember.

I've tended to follow this line of thinking with these posts, and so far found it easy to debunk posts like the OP by just looking at webcam images of largely empty beaches.  I've posted links and screenshots in several other threads.

I tried it with this one, went to Magicseaweed.com (a good source for webcams pointed at beaches), picked one at random - Bournemouth - expecting the same again.  Oh shit.  Nope: https://magicseaweed.com/Bournemouth-Surf-Report/12/

Just for posterity, I'll attach a screenshot of how it looks right now..

Why is it wrong?
That the majority of the population won’t be exposed to the virus?

That the vast majority of those exposed won’t suffer only minor symptoms?

Those doing deep water soloing? Just along the coast, at Winspit, for instance.

Or those doing 'coasteering'; Durdle has regular, commercial groups doing exactly that.

And I bet that if you walk a few hundred metres along the beach, away from the Zug zags, it will be much clearer. Just like it always is. People are lazy, and can't be bothered to walk a little bit to get away from crowds.

That's what struck me about the BBC article. The three people voluntarily jumped 70 FEET into the sea

Can you imagine what happens if you jump 70 feet into water?

What on earth did they think they were voluntarily doing?

Darwin awards

Do they do it when there’s sand visible between the cliffs and the water though?  I know the area is popular for that sort of thing but all the cliffs near the helicopters look like very obviously poor choices for lobbing in...

I’ve done it from about 40 foot long ago into a river abroad.  It’s great fun.  I do check out the water first swimming down in it, and I watch the locals for a while to suss it out first.

My guess is pissed.  I often (well, as often as I can which isn’t as much as I’d like) go swimming and diving off the top and Low Force.  On one of my visits a group of pissed up lads were drinking on the far side.  I avoided diving in lest they try and copy me.  One of them then lobbed off onto rocks about 30 cm below the water.  It was one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.

You may be right.  Also there may actually be people who actually crave being in a crowd, dunno. 
(I sometimes wonder if naturally gregarious, sociable people are even quite the same species as me, but I've spent enough time working on festival sites and the like to know that I'm the weird one.)

I've resisted the urge to condemn people generally, but was genuinely shocked by a bit of a scene in Sheffield last night.  Endcliffe Park at about 8pm was looking a little bit like one of the quieter corners of one of those festival sites.  Somewhere you can just about see the main stage but it looks about the size of your thumbnail.

There was a bit of a traffic jam (first one I've seen in three months) as people were arriving by car, struggling to park, and driving like the selfish dickheads I'm trying (but failing) to resist the urge to characterise them as.  I'd guess there were about a thousand people or so on the large playing field, in groups ranging from three or four up to a couple of dozen.  Groups spaced apart, but with no sign of 'social distancing' within them.  It's entirely possible, very likely actually, that the smaller groups were co-habiting 'households' of course.  They were mostly young, late teens, early twenties, student aged if not actual students and there are lots of large shared houses in this area.

Lots of the people arriving by car earlier on were dollied up as they would be for the Saturday night out in town that no doubt many of them have been badly missing the last couple of months.  There was smoke rising from disposable BBQs all over the place.  (Should be grateful they were here I suppose, and not out on a parched bit of moorland somewhere on the edge of the city.)

Coming back about an hour and a half later, the crowd had thinned quite considerably.  Those who remained were, I guess, a bit more tipsy and uninhibited than before.  What I'm guessing had initially been one of the BBQ's had become an actual f*cking campfire.  Shite everywhere.  With apologies if this constitutes "us vs them bad news porn", here's a pic from later on.  Not a great pic - I was driving past, stopped and jumped out of the van to take a quick pic then jumped back in again and carried on.

I found the whole thing quite upsetting, was actually quite surprised at how upsetting.  I think Cummings has a lot to do with this.  It's not just the lifting of the 'lockdown', it's the revelation to his fellow selfish dickheads everywhere that actually the rules never really mattered all that much in the first place.

The majority of the population will not have an exposure sufficient to be infected in the many countries that have the virus under control.

There is no need to be defeatist about the UK unless we are somehow inferior to Ireland, Switzerland, S Korea, Taiwan, Channel Islands, Iceland or Latvia. In those countries the rates of new infection are below or around the point where most of the population will die of old age or something else before they get infected. 

True

I live fairly near the beach at Bournemouth, and have been a mile or so down (past Branksome Chine, for those who know it well enough) the last two mornings about 9-11 with my son, and it's been fairly quiet.

Peak of the day right by an access point the crowds will obviously be bigger.

We're not inferior, but we are different. Population size, age distribution, social norms, economic activity, transport hub, tourism ... what works in one country can't necessarily be made to work in another. That's just how it is.

There's a video of at least one of the jumps that I saw posted on Instagram and the guy isn't a million miles away from back-splatting. Wasn't going off the seaward side either, straight off the end and not clearing the base by that much. In this case, probably lucky to have ended up in hospital...

We're "somehow inferior" only in the sense that we're currently governed by Trumpy populists, that the nature of our response to the pandemic is being determined by dishonest ideologues, who are ruthless, callous, devious yet somehow simultaneously moronic.

And of course, as it turns out, that the sense of trust and 'civic duty' and solidarity absolutely essential to maintain effective measures to contain the virus can be, has been, sacrificed in a heartbeat to save the not-quite-political career of a single unelected bureaucrat.

That is nonsense. We have all sorts of similarities with the successful countries and the successful countries have many differences. We do not have to be exceptionally incapable.

What works in one country works in every country that copies that because the virus is the same.

In a free fall from 40 feet, you'll enter the water at 35 MPH

In a free fall from 70 feet, you'll enter the water at 46 MPH

Quite a difference

Sorry but 46 MPH doesn't look like fun to me

I'm starting to think you might be right. And if you are right, I fervently hope that the idiot Johnson comes one day to BITTERLY regret the day he foolishly and stupidly and thoughtlessly failed to SACK Cummings 

If that is the one where the camera holder turns it sideways a couple times then it's doing the rounds on FB too. There is a very audible 'slap' when the guy hits the water almost on his back. And yeah quite close to the rock base.

They will have been jumping the Durdle Door arch, the outermost side. Not the cliff behind the beach. They're not that stupid...

Johnson...regret...?

Unlikely.

Media are now reporting a 200-foot jump and a 77 MPH entry speed. And a number of very serious injuries. It's hard to judge the height from the video but it looks in excess of 100 feet to me

Darwin Award, definitely 

There's full height routes up the back that are quoted as 25m but including significant horizontal overhang - the coastguard reckon it's 70ft which is broadly consistent with that.

It's definitely not 200ft (a full 60m rope length?!)!!? There's some exciting media exaggeration going on there.

Which isn't to say it's any more sensible - stair hole routes at lulworth are about 15m and it's pretty airy up the top of there - but we should probably at least be realistic...

Not the outer side, at least in one case.....

Edit:  on a clock face, if the line of durdle door runs roughly 3-9 as you look out from the beach, about 4

Unfortunately your Sheffield park looks pretty tame compared to just about every green open space in London I cycled past on a 25 mile sprint on Friday mid afternoon! Made me feel guilty for being outside but at least I was moving quickly!

I gather it’s important to “clench and cover” to prevent water going where the sun don’t shine.

Also don’t do it in a loose fitting buoyancy aid for “safety”.  It wants to go in to the water a lot less than the hapless person wearing it and it’s going to hurt.

Albeit from a lower height, I’ve never found the jump half as terrifying as the bit where it feels like you’re plunging deeper and deeper into the water for all eternity.

I hope I am wrong but I think it is just a matter of time before there is a second spike.

I know it won't happen but if there is a new spike I would like the government(for whom I have no love) to say.

"We told you what to do but a lot of you lot decided that you knew better and ignored it. We now have a second peak in cases and we are now going back to a full lock down. Don't moan about it, you know who you are and you only have yourselves to blame."

In the BBC account of the Durdle Door incident they interviewed someone from London! Is there no where closer to London to get some fresh air than Dorset.

Dave

Sorry but it's not. You're correct in that there's no need for us to be exceptionally incapable, that's just an added bonus courtesy of one deflated windbag  Johnson. He's a gift that will keep on giving.

But the idea that one size fits all is ridiculous. We couldn't do a Wuhan because we don't lock people up; we couldn't do a New Zealand, because a lot more people visit the UK; we couldn't do a Germany because ... well, we're not as well organised as Germany, and probably not as willing to obey rules (it hasn't always worked to our disadvantage.) 

'Sweden plus' - you saw it here first. Ease the lockdown - it's not worked, we still have 60,000 excess deaths (and, here in Wales, with our stricter lockdown rules, the rate is actually increasing - how much science based policy do you want?) and focus the billions we are spending each month on care homes, the elderly and the other at risk groups. 

So the working class don't have internet access, don't watch TV and can't read. Who's class shaming now?

To this lot as well?!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52868465

Good points. If you want to find info on just about anything it is there at the end of a few key strokes. If you end up on very crowded beach either you want to be there(which even without Covid 19 I'd run a mile from) or you can't be bothered to find anywhere else.

Dave

And we all know how accurate the media are when it comes to reporting such things, don't we...?

I'm not condoning the daft hordes heading to Durdle Door, but we do have to take press reports of this kind with a pinch of salt...

I meant in terms of the arch promontory; coasteeters climb up the 'end' (outer) of the arch, and then jump down, on the beach side. They may also jump on the sea side, but I've never been out at sea to see...

I've never had any desire to do stuff like that, and I don't really like to watch it, either...

A walk-away situation for the particularly crazy sport of shallow diving -  youtube.com/watch?v=G5_n9l5Etko& - one where I thing huge balls will actual be quite the liability.

The guy was airlifted to hospital.. I'm guessing you say 'walk away' as in 'didn't die' but that's not exactly what I call a walk away situation.

I think there’s a misunderstanding.  Thinking about the “audible slap” you mentioned reminded me that people actually dive from such heights into shallow water and walk away as an extreme sport, I’m not suggesting that was the case here.

Ah righto, I know what you mean.. using the slap technique to prevent diving too deep and hitting sea bed. Kinda like the judo roll where a slap is used to absorb a fall. =)

mindless many, more like..

I live walking distance from a beach, which did not immediately jump and re-open the car parks on the day that they were told, with no notice that "everyone can go to the beach tomorrow" by his majesty.

You wouldn't believe the sense of bad feeling and entitlement from those that now believe that it is "their right" to come to the beach because "boris said we could" and kick off big time that everything isn't just normal - no parking, no toilets, no lifeguards, no chips. 

Instead they bitch on facebook, double park and shit in the dunes. 

Sadly closing the car parks isn't all that it's cracked up to be - and everything isn't back to normal. 

you’ve not done Nikki’s Leap either then? I’m sure there’s a fair few climbers on here that have. 

Jeez, I would not do that holding a selfie stick.  My tick list just gained an item though.

A friend did it years ago in just shorts. I think the old Llanberis guide upped the grade for non-wetsuit 

A lot of people I know not only don't use maps to find quiet places to go but seem completely ignorant of the existence of the outdoors in the uk. When I tell people at work I go climbing they often ask what country I go for my climbing holiday,  and when I say most of the time I go within 20 miles of Leeds they laugh. I've often asked people what percentage of the uk they think is rural and most guess at less than 5%. They think the only places in the countryside are places they've heard of like Bolton abbey or Malham cove which baffles me as they have driven to those places and are surrounded by miles of open countryside on the way. 

Cycled over to a colleague's house tonight.  First time I have seen her in person in 10 weeks.  She was taking social distancing very seriously as her Mum died of COVID about a month back.   It is real, it is out there and the people who die have loved ones who will miss them very, very much.  Just because some of us are young and probably won't die if we get it doesn't mean that our Nan or uncle will be OK when we then pass it on to them and I wish more people could consider this before putting their pleasure first.

It's not just the beauty spots.

I drove through Windsor town centre this afternoon and the number of people was insane - loads of people completely ignoring any concept of social distancing.

I was very surprised, actually, as it's usually heaving with coachloads of foreign tourists, so it must be lots of local people, who have surely seen it all before, so why head out anyway?

Complete contrast to when I cycled through there a couple of weeks into lockdown, when it was like a ghost town.

In case you're wondering, we'd had a picnic nearby with hardly anyone else around and thought we'd drive home past the castle to show the kids the statue of Queen Victoria, as they've been studying her at home school.

My wife managed to seriously bruise her ribs on a work coasteering team building day by jumping into the water with a BA on - and that was from <10 feet, I think.

A jump from a decent height could easily break ribs, or (depending on design) even teeth if it shoots up and slams into your lower jaw.

Their actions may well be questionable, but for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and I would say the army of unpleasant judgemental internet militants that have spawned up since CV joined us are no cleverer. 

And yet you seem to think Dilatory's post was just fine?

yet only one will spread the virus, as worst the other will end up staying in a bit longer. It really isn't about being judgemental, it's about trying to stop people fun and livelihoods safer than a free for all, "I'm alright Jack" attitude.