We supply paint to the door and window industry ( joinery ) they are all still working , not sure everyone understands the full message 

Given the way things have developed since early March, it may have been an idea to have asked most businesses to start closing their doors three weeks ago.

Don't get me wrong; I absolutely applaud the decision that Johnson has taken tonight. I only hope though that with the way the spread of the virus has escalated recently, it doesn't turn out to be a case of making it too late.

We live in hope though!

If west Europe manages to get this under control and the opposite happens in the USA what will happen? Trump is making noises about letting it rip and already it appears out of control in some states. 

Thanks Richard, likewise to you and your family also.

And although trivial in comparison, my car told me last week 'your brakes are getting low -get them checked". My mechanic mate been round tonight (earliest hecwas free) to look, says the back ones are particularly low. One of my tyres just the right side of legal, too. He was going to replace the brakes this weekend, and I was going to get the tyre changed sometime this week. 

But that's buggered up now. And I need my car to shop not just for us, but the parents too. The missus (NHS) needs her car.

I f***ing hate all this.

N.B. right on cue, winter starts with spring. Will the forthcoming cold snap affect the spread of the virus?

It is always the same when we have a rotten non-winter - it starts when the blossom is coming out. Why in the name of heaven can't we have proper winter in the winter proper instead?

They must have discussed it surely ??

Sounds rather like what has happened here in the past three weeks.

I have a few friends whom I knew at secondary school in the 1990s whom now live in the USA. One lives in Illinois, which I think went into lockdown at the weekend just gone.

I was wondering about this earlier. Alternatively will the higher temperatures tomorrow and Wednesday help it spread? I've not been keeping an eye on weather conditions in Italy during the last few weeks.

To my surprise, my Utah correspondent tells me that supermarkets are being stripped there - I thought it was purely a British disease.

Bad/cold weather should help keep people inside.

They are not the same type of lockdowns of course, but here is a comparison of start dates:

China: 23 Jan 17 deaths

Italy: 9 March 463 deaths

Spain: 15 March 288 deaths

France: 16 March 148 deaths

UK: 24 March 335 deaths

Just a warning to everyone.

Do not take the piss. Because this is only the beginning.

Do you want tanks outside your house and millitary style checkpoints? Because it will get worse if you don't comply.

Going to be high pressure dominated so dry 

They will be turned into morgues.

(with apologies)

Looks like turning colder for sure, but at least there might be a bit more sunshine to boost our vitamin D levels, if we are allowed to go outside and enjoy it.

Hopefully if the weather can settle down and remain settled as we go through April, then as the weather gets warmer it may help in te battle against this virus. That is what one of two health experts I have seen interviewed on TV recently have said anyway.

Can't speak for all of Italy. However, whenever the BBC has been reporting from Rome over the past week or two, it has always been sunny with clear blue skies.

That's astonishing 

To be fair I think virtually everyone here was already complying. The one member who boasted otherwise is currently taking an enforced holiday from TWO. I still have hope he was on a wind-up.  

I was listening to someone on the TV the other day and they said high temperatures haven't been proven as a killer for the virus ?

We don't have enough tanks or military to staff checkpoints. We have no national guard to call up. We have to do this by ourselves.

My main gripe with the Government, has not been with the way they have gradually ratcheted up the measures at home, but that they refused to use border controls to prevent the virus gaining such a strong foothold in the first place. Why would it have hurt them to advise against going skiing a few weeks ago at half-term? - that might have halved the current incidence of the disease for all we know. Why not insist that everyone (whether a citizen or a foreign visitor) should have to go through mandatory testing and at least a 7 day quarantine on arrival, even if returning from a holiday? Such measures would have made a difference to the overall penetration and spread of the virus. Plus, Liverpool appears to have dodged a very dangerous bullet with Atletico Madrid - I can only surmise that the Spanish supporters largely kept themselves to themselves - but, given that Madrid is a hot cluster for the virus, I would bet there was a lot of cross infection amongst the Spanish supporters themselves during that visit and flights.

You are right in your sentiment of course, but we obviously don't have the armed forces for anything like it.

As for tanks we have 225, little Greece has 1,345 tanks.