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    The Clap

    What do people think about it here? I initially thought it was a wonderful idea but, as time goes by, I fear that it is become a great distraction to the real issues with provision for the NHS - similar with Captain Tom Moore and Baby Johnson. My feelings have been exacerbated by one of my few friends who are genuinely on the frontline of the NHS who hates the idea and says he would rather they were paid and equipped properly.

    On the other hand, it isn't a zero sum game and the NHS isn't going to be any better funded or equipped if we stop clapping. Also (and, I appreciate this is selfish and diverges from the main aim of it) it is actually providing some sort of social connection not just briefly filling a void that has disappeared during lockdown but also, to an extent, decades before that. We are talking to neighbours that we never we had during Thursday claps (and, to a certain extent, this is true for the whole of lockdown with more people taking walks).

    #2
    I'm with you on that last part Bored – well, all of it, really.

    I've joined in for four of the last five Thursdays, I think, and I'm aware while I'm doing so that it's essentially a hollow gesture and arguably symptomatic of that whole situation where empty platitudes and charity drives are trying (and failing) to substitute for a properly funded and equipped NHS. But like you say, it's not doing anyone any harm in itself – and on a personal level I like it since it's a rare chance to actually lay eyes on people across the street, down the road, etc. as we all appear for a couple of minutes on the pavement, on front porches, leaning over walls, out of windows etc. It's nice to get the chance to at least wave and exchange a mutual thumbs-up, call out to ask how someone's doing, and so on.

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      #3
      Haven't clapped, won't clap - I did my clapping on the doorsteps in December and people can fuck themselves now.

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        #4
        Yes, half* the people out there clapping will have voted for the party whose previous bout of NHS-related clapping was when they voted down a pay-rise for nurses. This makes it all a bit nausea-inducing, and the Tories and their media cheerleaders are shameless enough to ensure it does distract from the real issues around funding etc.

        *That's 'half' used in the rhetorical sense. More literally, a very significant proportipon.

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          #5
          It's astonishing how willing so many are to mask the reality while celebrating what shouldn't be necessary: there's almost zero irony in their applauding the fact that elderly people are virtually crippling themselves in order for our NHS to receive even a fraction of the funding it needs.

          That said, I've joined in for four of the last five 'claps' (like VA). But then I didn't vote for the sh*tgibbons that have driven the service to its knees.

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            #6
            I'm uncomfortable, but am doing it, but we live in a constituency where over half the votes cast were for Labour, so can kid/assure myself that more than half our neighbours want a properly funded etc. NHS anyway and so basically feel the same way I do about this, genuinely giving a hoot.

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              #7
              I don't applaud for the same reason I don't clap at the TV screen when watching football in a pub. It seems like an exercise in futility to me.

              That, and the fact that I'm usually putting my kids to bed at 8:00 so I can't anyway.

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                #8
                I love the NHS and I'm really appreciative of it but I'm way too self conscious to stand on my doorstep clapping folk who can't see me anyway. Someone on here likened it to not wearing a poppy. I suppose I'm just days away from being 'outed' on Facebook and seeing burning pitchforks coming up the front path.

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                  #9
                  Ok.

                  Be honest, who else saw a thread started with the title "The Clap" and expected it to be about a different subject altogether?

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
                    Ok.

                    Be honest, who else saw a thread started with the title "The Clap" and expected it to be about a different subject altogether?
                    Yep.

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                      #11
                      They let out fireworks here....My wife is a nurse so I don't bother, my support is rather more involved.

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                        #12
                        If I genuinely believed that NHS workers were lifted by this, then I'd join in. As it is, and I may just be judging them by my own highly cynical standards, I assume that they think it's a ptronising load of claptrap, so I don't. Those a little closer to those involved (Patrick, Moonlight Shadow, etc) can you elucidate?

                        Anyway, every ship in the docks is unleashing its foghorn at 8pm every Thursday, so clapping can't be heard.

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                          #13
                          My wife (who, I've mentioned previously, works in a care home) is on a personal level really touched by the whole thing. So for that reason alone I'm OK with it and anything else that even temporarily brings her some comfort (however superficial) at a really tough time.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
                            Ok.

                            Be honest, who else saw a thread started with the title "The Clap" and expected it to be about a different subject altogether?
                            Well, obviously.

                            And the continued mentions of the NHS didn't throw me off at first, either.

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                              #15
                              I just asked a recently retired Spanish doctor friend (and someone very active in left-wing politics at the end of the Franco regime) her opinion about the applause and she replied that despite the politicisation of the gesture she was going to continue clapping at 8 every evening to say thanks to all medical personnel.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
                                , I assume that they think it's a ptronising load of claptrap, so I don't. Those a little closer to those involved (Patrick, Moonlight Shadow, etc) can you elucidate?
                                Well, it's a bit like prayer really. The person who prays feels better for doing something. The person being prayed for might feel better, if they know someone is praying for them. But it doesn't really change the situation.

                                Some NHS organisations are embracing and promoting it. As a morale boost it might work for a lot of people who feel unthanked and unvalued. It doesn't reduce vulnerability though. It won't bring colleagues back.

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                                  #17
                                  I would not put out anybody to clap, lots of NHS staff are fond of it. In the case of the missus, she is a bit too political and cynical to care for it.

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                                    #18
                                    Yeah, a lot of people I work with (in a GP surgery) like it, and I think that things that build community fellowship are a plus too.
                                    But we don't bother - partly because our kids are in bed, and partly because we are almost at the end of our street - and both the only house past us and the ones opposite are occupied by deaf nonagenarians.

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                                      #19
                                      The New York version of this (7pm and from windows in taller buildings, otherwise stoops) seems much more genuine and hasn't been co-opted by the government and state media in the same way as it appears the UK one has. It may help that fewer than ten percent of voters in this neighbourhood went for Trump in 2016.

                                      And all of the members of our extended family who are in health care (more than half a dozen now) appreciate it, so we continue to participate.

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                                        #20
                                        We haven't bothered at all because a) we're a bit self conscious about it, b) it does seem a bit futile and mostly c) as some cockwomble round here let's off a firework at 8 o'clock which petrifies one of our dogs, so we stay indoors to comfort him.

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                                          #21
                                          We've done it each time until last night, when dinner timings went a bit awry. My wife works for the NHS and welcomes the gesture but it won't fix the underlying problems that had caused her to resign after almost 30 years, deferring her leaving date when the crisis arose.

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                                            #22
                                            As a non-front-line NHS worker, I find that the general public clapping to be a nice thing in recognition of those front-line workers. What is dislike are any forms of governmental backing to this, not backed up by actual support for health care. An example being getting police cars and fire engines to flash their lights in front of hospitals in some areas – it's purely superficial appreciation and a waste of their time and resources.

                                            On an individual level I've not participated in the clapping, partly because I keep forgetting about it. Every Thursday at 8pm I get confused by the weird noises outside, and by the time I realise what's going on, it's over.

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                                              #23
                                              Wife is a hospital doctor. She doesn't care for it and we haven't got involved in it but I agree with Bordeaux that for many it is a little way of still feeling connected to your local community, which can be a boon.

                                              All the Captain Tom and the 'Heroes' talk does grate though. I always felt that the NHS's 'specialness' (the heightened emotions that swirl around all conversations about it) was given a boost by it's inclusion in the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. When they spelt out 'NHS' with lit-up trolley beds I recall that my first reaction was surprise. In that Boyle had chosen to refer to the NHS as something distinctive and noteworthy about our nation, rather than something more natural, logical and taken as read. Having a national health service should be natural, not special.

                                              Maybe it already had that elevated place in the national consciousness, I don't know. But that ceremony was like air raid siren to the right. I think the ceremony's particular idea of Albion came across as a vision of hell to the likes of Rees-Mogg and the ERG. It galvanised them. And then they found a way to weaponise that love for the NHS, started wearing their little lapel badges and whacked the logo on the side of the bus.

                                              That's how it went in my head, anyway.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by lambers View Post
                                                As a non-front-line NHS worker, I find that the general public clapping to be a nice thing in recognition of those front-line workers. What is dislike are any forms of governmental backing to this, not backed up by actual support for health care. An example being getting police cars and fire engines to flash their lights in front of hospitals in some areas – it's purely superficial appreciation and a waste of their time and resources.

                                                On an individual level I've not participated in the clapping, partly because I keep forgetting about it. Every Thursday at 8pm I get confused by the weird noises outside, and by the time I realise what's going on, it's over.
                                                My wife is a cleaner at the local GP surgery, which happens to be opposite the entrance to the Minor Injuries Unit that we have in Tewkesbury and she's said that for each of the last few weeks the fire service and police have turned up outside it just before 8 in time for the applause. She thinks it's marvellous and they all line up and clap outside the surgery.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I've got mixed feelings about it, but as professional musicians, Mrs. jdsx and I have joined in and then afterwards played a few bars of something with some neighbours opposite who are quite keen amateur musicians... Their kids play in a fiddle orchestra, so one week we did a jig, 'The Irish Washerwoman' (you'd probably recognise it if you heard the tune ). The next week I arranged the Beethoven 9 Ode to Joy for the correct number of instruments (2 violins, viola, french horn and trumpet), and this week we did Somewhere over the Rainbow.
                                                  I mean, our immediate neighbours both work in the NHS, and I guess we recognise that in terms of 'key workers' we're at the opposite end of the spectrum. Anyway, all the neighbours seem to like it, so we'll keep doing it I suppose, although we haven't got to the stage of the police stopping it as a potential danger to health... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXsOhL31dwk

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