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Nowt wrong with a bit of bus and lorry spotting 

Blimey, now a union man!! One out, all out...

I preferred driving lorries because I'm naturally antisocial, and coach jobs tended to be driving round drunken squaddies to various events or going round in circles on camp shuttle getting abuse! So prob pretty similar to you  

Sanity hanging in there... just. Nearly put one of the kids on ebay this morning 

Great reminder about Flight Radar, not logged into that for ages, given me an idea for a post 

Been chatting to different Trading Standards teams and they are getting bombarded with complaints about profiteering

This has to be one of my favourite responses, Leon Livermore, Head of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

It's an unfortunate fact that a major crisis like this brings out the low life and bottomfeeders. From profiteering to outright scams and criminality.

There have been reports of people pretending to be NHS staff raising money, either on the phone or banging on doors, to people offering fake Coronavirus vaccines.  Along with the usual doorstep scams, such as tradesmen offering to fix nonexistent urgent issues.

The best defence is always to say "No Thanks". Don't feel guilty, if you want to donate to a good cause, then you decide when and where. 

If someone is genuine, they can leave information, won't pressure you, allowing you to research, ask advice and contact them back at a later date if appropriate.

With more older or vulnerable people self-isolating, the risk is higher, so make sure elderly relatives or neighbours understand to say no thanks to phone calls, doorstep traders, pleas for cash or offers of miracle vaccines. 

Thanks, Mollie, never heard of Ubbersuggest, just been having a nose. Looks pretty good.

I recently just let my subscription to SemRush lapse as I never really used it. Over the years I've had subscriptions to Moz, AHREFs and others. Years ago I used to find them really useful, particularly in the days when you could manipulate search engines quite easily.

Then there was the fad for LinkDetox and everyone panicking about negative SEO, all of which has long since evaporated.

But now I find these tools generate so much information and "recommendations" of which most are automated nonsense, that I see little value. There are so many good tools provided by Google, from Web Master Tools or whatever it's called these days, to developer tools such as speed testing, structure data testing, I don't think you need to worry about paying for big commercial tools.

Unless maybe you are a little SEO agency, and you need these tools to pump out official-looking reports which justifies your cost and lack of progress 

I think overall the Government response hasn't been too bad, although I seem to have fallen into the 5% that isn't entitled to anything. So I've pasted a few more adverts on the site to keep the amazon deliveries of wine and chocolate going. Bugger, prob will get arrested now for saying that  

On a serious note though, I do genuinely worry about the impact post-crisis. As a country we're taking on a lot of borrowing, but it still won't stop some big names from folding. So we'll have a double whammy of higher unemployment and some kind of new austerity measures to stop UK PLC going bust. But we are in a much stronger position than a lot of countries, so it could rebound into opportunity.

Obviously once Brexit has been sorted (remember that?) 

Originally Posted by Barney

“Obviously not you.......

on a serious note, I just work a couple of days a week now... weirdly doing the job I wanted to do when I was in my 20s..... driving a bus.... anyway the company has furloughed 80% of people at my depot.... with more to follow this week...... the company itself is haemorrhaging £11million a week at present.... we’re just driving around in empty buses....”

You packed up the plumbing? I know you said you were going into semi-retirement. Now I started out driving wagons and buses, and still miss it  

Bus companies must be crippled, you can furlough staff, but you still have depots, maintenance, and overheads.

I see my prediction about Debenhemans didn't take long, twitter is full of noise that they have alerted the administrators and are on the brink of collapse

Finally, now you know why we like to go for walkies

The only time I have cash is to give the kids their pocket money. To be fair, normally if I need any cash I have to borrow the kids pocket money 

Who on earth are the upper class? What ho chaps, here comes the squire arriving in his carriage.

Or does that make us all lower class? Personally I work for a living, so I guess I'm working class

I think you'll find everyone is struggling. To be honest, unless you are Apple or Amazon, it's tougher for the big boys. Imagine running an airline right now, or a High Street Chain? I think SME's will have the flexibility to ride out the storm better than corporations with stationary assets, or empty stores hemorrhaging money and making no revenue.

Unfortunately, I suspect a few big names that were already in financial distress, the likes of Debenhams, John Lewis etc won't be coming out the other side.