1. Lyrics Sale
The original lyrics to Bob Dylan’s 1960’s classic ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ are up for sale. It’s a sale on behalf of a collector at a fixed price of £1.7 million or $2.2 million. It went on to become one of the legendary protest songs of the ‘60’s. It’s just one page, a handwritten sheet from a notebook overlaid by changes and scribbles. The handwriting is that of Bob Dylan himself. If the asking price of £1.7 million is met it will mark a new world record for rock lyrics.
2. Personal Protective Equipment
Organisations representing NHS trusts have criticised the government after a delivery of protective equipment hadn’t arrived. The government said on Saturday that an 84 ton consignment of clothing would arrive from Turkey yesterday. Chris Hopson of NHS providers said he wasn’t confident the consignment would arrive today either.
Bitter experience over the last few weeks has shown that until a consignment has actually landed that the boxes and equipment have been checked the government shouldn’t say anything. So rather than being marched up the top of the hill and marched back down again, what we think is important is let’s just focus on what we know we can be certain of.
3. Furlough Grants
From this morning businesses can apply for grants to cover 80% of the wages of staff who have been temporarily laid off. HMRC says employers should receive money within 6 days. Speed is now crucial for those firms with little or no cash flow. HMRC’s online service can handle 450, 000 applications an hour and 5,000 staff will work to answer questions online and over the phone.
The Furlough scheme now runs until the end of June but restaurants, bars and hotels are likely to want a further extension because they face being some of the last businesses to fully re-open. It’s thought the Furlough scheme could cost 10’s of billions of pounds.
4. Mortuary Spaces
The government is providing 30,000 temporary mortuary spaces across the UK. Normally there are 18,000 available at public mortuaries with a similar number at funeral homes. Ministers say the measures are precaution and they hope the extra capacity won’t be needed.
5. Hay Fever Symptoms
The Royal College of GPs is warning people not to confuse the symptoms of Coronavirus with those of hay fever. It says many of the symptoms of hay fever such as a runny nose and itchy eyes aren’t experienced by people with Covid-19 but a cough could be a symptom of either. It’s important to remember what your hay fever symptoms have been like in previous years.
When most people have hay fever it’s the same symptoms they have each year and what we are finding is that some patients are saying ‘look this is a different thing to what I had last year, could this be Coronavirus?’ and in that case it might be.
6. German Lockdown
Germany is relaxing some of it’s lockdown measures from today. Small shops can reopen and older pupils will begin to return to school.
7. Canadian Shooting
In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia a gunman has shot dead 16 people. It’s thought the gunman, 51 year old Gabriel Wortman, was shot dead by police. The attack began on Saturday night.
8. Tabloid’s Royal Rights
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, have sent letters to Britain’s tabloid newspapers; the Sun, the Mirror, the Mail and the Express they are to end all forms of co-operation with them. “The Duke and Duchess, Harry and Meghan, This is because they have now stepped back from royal duties.
The letters also accusing the newspapers of unfair and inaccurate reporting. This is, the Duke and Duchess say, not a blanket policy as they will continue to work with a wide variety of other media.