Sometimes we just have to let those boxes go unticked
HAS SOMEONE BEEN ON THE SPACE JUICE?
Health secretary Matt Hancock has refused to apologise after the High Court said he broke the law by failing to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of Covid contracts within the required 30 days (Metro, Mon).
I think it’s disgraceful the matter went to court in the first place. This was at a time when the country was facing an unknown pandemic, with no known vaccine, and healthcare professionals and care home workers having to care for people with Covid without the right PPE because the whole world was facing shortages of vital equipment.
What should the Department for Health have been focusing on? Getting vital supplies sourced or ensuring that a 30-day time scale for reporting to parliament was met? I know morally what is the right answer.
Accountability and procedure are important but in the case of a pandemic and national emergency, we should prioritise those things that will save lives, not tick a box in a set of procedures.
Nick, Hertfordshire
Paul in Elstree (MetroTalk, Mon) defends lockdown on the basis that without it – and with Covid having a one per cent fatality rate – up to half a million Brits may have died. His scenario is all speculation.
Lockdown has, in fact, been a bungled, fingers-crossed exercise masquerading as policy, misled by science and worship of statistics, proving ruinous to our liberty and so much else.
To say that ‘things might have been worse without it’ is just speculation.
G, Surrey
Paul says the alternative to lockdown was to allow everyone to be infected. These were never the only two options. Many scientists opposed lockdowns while recommending other ways to protect the vulnerable.
Peter, Leeds
Alan Noon says it is only by the ‘law of averages’ that this ‘incompetent’
government has got the vaccine roll-out right (MetroTalk, Fri).
A mass roll-out of vaccines doesn’t just happen, while many things are actually beyond government’s control – eg people’s reactions to lockdown, social distancing and mask wearing.
Dave, Worksop
Alan does himself no favours by being so arrogantly derogatory of people with whom he does not agree. He can’t even bring himself to praise the success of the vaccination programme.
He follows that by calling everyone else ‘dumbed-down Britain’. That’s everyone except him, of course.
In the days when we were allowed to have parties I bet he was a riot, every other person there held in thrall by his witty repartee.
Chris HG, Maidstone
Further to Craig saying lockdown cannot last for ever because ‘people get sick and die all the time’ (MetroTalk, Thu) – yes, they do, but not thanks to the deliberate acts of idiots.
Some people clearly think the elderly are of no account and the economy is paramount. The world post-Covid will be another place. We’re having to think of
new, creative ways to live and work, safely and differently.
Dying of flu needn’t be a given if we continue to wear masks in the winter and use hand gel. There are no ‘acceptable deaths’ if they can be avoided. Doing the right thing is about empathy and taking responsibility for others.
If you think we’re ever getting back to the old normal any time soon then you’re in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
I don’t know what media you get your news from, Craig, but you’re very poorly informed. Stay safe – I wouldn’t want you to be under the weather for a bit and
have to be looked after by one of our front-line workers who do know what they’re talking about.
Sherry, London
Can Metro please stop printing comments from paranoid readers, especially now 18 million people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus and there are many more besides who have had Covid and so now have antibodies?
Let’s all focus on the positive that the R (the virus reproduction rate) is 0.7 and that spring is around the corner.
It seems to be never-ending misery for your character right now…
There’s not really been a gap between Leanne’s grief and then taking her round a corner into a different kind of emotion. She’s been going through the most horrific thing following the death of her son, Oliver [from mitochondrial disease], and now her other son, Simon, is getting up to all sorts of business with drugs in a gang. She’s still going through the grieving process.
Could you relate to her grief on a personal level?
Grief is a strange thing. You think you’re never going to be able to live again and your world is never going to be the same but we’re built to heal. I absolutely went through those feelings after my dad died. I was devastated by it but, as time goes on, you do remember them without crying. Time is a great healer.
You made your TV debut at 11. What made you want to act?
I remember the first time I got butterflies in my stomach was in infants’ school. There was a book in the library called How To Make A TV Programme. There was a picture of a camera and clapperboard in a studio and I got really excited. I took the book out every week for six months and read it cover to cover. I started going to youth theatre when I was ten and when I was 11 years old I appeared on TV in GBH alongside Julie Walters and Michael Palin. I fell in love with it and it’s been my love story ever since.
Did you spend your earnings on toys and sweets?
I saved it and spent it on things like elocution lessons and costume material but it was never life-changing amounts of money. I recently received a cheque for that job for £1.12! They’d shown it again somewhere but how they worked that amount out I will never know.
There was a huge amount of attention when the Battersbys arrived in Coronation Street. You were only 18. What was that like?
It was a baptism of fire. We caused a stir before we’d even filmed a scene because we came in as a family. Georgia Taylor played my sister, Toyah, and we were going through the same things so I could talk to her.
When I was 11 years old I appeared on TV in GBH and it has been my love story ever since
Are you close in real life?
We’re like real sisters. Georgia is one of my best friends and we call each other sis all the time. I do have a sister who I adore and who I’m very close to but physically she’s not close, she’s in Australia. With Georgia we phone or text each other most days.
We understand you had a crush on your husband, actor Robert Beck, before you even met…
I met him at the Soap Awards in 1999 but when I was 13 I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall when he was playing Peter Harrison in Brookside. I still have the poster! I have a dressing room in our house where I keep all my mementoes, such as front covers, but he drew a line at that. He’s very modest about it. He was a big heart-throb at the time. He still is, in my eyes.
How are you coping with lockdown?
I’ve got a dog and that’s been my saviour. I go out for endless walks. I’ve not seen my mum for two months but I feel a bit guilty moaning about it because other people have gone through horrendous things and sadly lost people. Work has helped me too. It’s been a distraction.
Why did you take part in Dancing On Ice?
I’ve always loved the idea of skating, a lot of friends have taken part and I was going through a quiet patch, storylinewise, so the Coronation Street producers were happy for me to be involved. It was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done but it turned out to be one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Fortunately, I came out of it with just a few bruises here and there.
What’s your favourite way to unwind?
My passion is TV. I love settling down in front of a good show with my family. I’ve just binge-watched Bridgerton, which was extra special because Phoebe, the daughter of [Coronation Street co-star] Sally Dynevor, was the lead. And I’ve just finished It’s A Sin, which blew me away.
Is there anything on your bucket list?
I really want to travel more. Now we can’t, that highlights how much we take things for granted. I’ve only been to see my sister in Australia once. She’s been out there for 11 years, which is a huge part of both our lives.
How long would you like to stay in Coronation Street?
It’s a difficult question because you can’t choose what you do. As an actor, your life is in someone else’s hands. I love Corrie and I don’t know whether I would get those opportunities elsewhere. I might change as I get older but I feel pretty content.
AN ANGRY mother-in-law lashed out after catching her daughter’s husband marrying his mistress.
With his new young bride by his side and Buddhist monks chanting blessings, she gave bigamist police sergeant Sarunyoo Mukaew, 34, a shove and a slap round the head.
Cheated wife Nipapan Peuchpen, 33, and her mum had crashed the wedding at the bride’s home moments earlier. A clip of the bustup in Chai Nat, Thailand, went viral.
Nipapan said she had kept his affair secret to avoid upsetting their daughters aged 15 and five.
‘I didn’t think my husband would get married to his mistress,’ she said. ‘He was still staying at home and told me he would be going to work the night shift at his station.
‘The next morning, I went to the woman’s house. When I arrived, I was shocked and sad.’
Her mum, whose name has not been revealed, said: ‘How could he do that? And to his girlfriend: she needs to know that women should not be home-wreckers.’
Now Sgt Mukaew is facing prison. Police chief Yingyot Thepjamnong said: ‘A police officer who has a mistress will be jailed for 30 days.
‘Any man who doesn’t take care of his wife will be jailed for 30 days. Furthermore, duplicating a marriage is punishable with 30 days of imprisonment as well.’
HUNDREDS of thousands of people poured on to the streets of Myanmar for one of the biggest protests so far against the military coup.
Workers downed tools for a general strike and gathered peacefully across the country to oppose the junta, led by Gen Min Aung Hlaing (pictured), that seized power on February 1.
The huge show of dissent yesterday was dubbed the Five Twos revolution after the date, 22/2/2021, in a nod to the 8888 uprising of August 8, 1988.
Hundreds died when that revolt was brutally quashed – and the junta appeared to threaten to intensify its own violent crackdown.
It accused activists of ‘inciting emotional youths to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life’. But the defiant protesters demanded that elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi be freed from house arrest and returned to power.
In the biggest city, Yangon, demonstrator Kyaw Kyaw said losing pay due to the strike was a small price to pay. ‘Nothing’s going to happen if my salary is cut but if we stay under a military dictatorship we’ll be slaves,’
he explained. In the capital Naypyitaw, a police water cannon truck and other vehicles closed in on a procession of chanting pro
testers. The marchers scattered when police rushed in on foot and wrestled several to the ground.
At least three demonstrators have lost their lives and the army said one policeman had died from injuries suffered in the protests. After the junta’s
Crackdown: Riot police assemble in Naypyitaw
warning yesterday, Facebook removed pages belonging to the military and state-run MRTV for violating its ‘violence and incitement’ policies.
Britain, the US, Germany and Japan have condemned violence used against protesters. And UN secretary-general
Antonio Guterres urged the junta to stop the repression it began after alleging election fraud with no evidence.
Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said 640 people had been arrested, charged or sentenced since the coup.