Well, no, not really, you know?

It has been chaos. 500+ parking violations in 3 hours, tons of rubbish left on beaches, one councillor on traffic duty spat at, guards at Durdle Door controlling entrance (we drove past the overflow car park on Wednesday evening and it was still rammed full), human faeces on the beach at Lulworth Cove, lifeboat call outs to people on inflatables. I don’t remember takes like this on the busiest public holidays.

Yes, some poor preparation from the authorities but it does look like some places were over capacity even with social distancing ignored. Mrs is BiND and a few other are livid with the leader of the council, he went on TV and asked people to stay away because we don’t have many cases and she thinks that attracted people.

We were at Kimmeridge all day Wednesday and it it was relatively quiet, perhaps weekend levels at most.

Don’t believe the crowd photos though, they use telephoto lenses to make the places appear busier, it’s called lens compression.

BiND – We went to Friar’s Cliff (just along from Mudeford) yesterday. Car park was as busy as I’ve ever seen it but the beach was fine. Everybody was social distancing (who doesn’t try and sunbathe with some distance to the next group anyway) and rubbish was not being left around.

Bloke from Southampton,

Everywhere’s closed, there’s only the beach so I don’t blame them.

I commented to our MP and county councillor that at a small music festival we used to go to in the Chilterns the organisers would wander round handing out black bin bags In the worst case they only had to collect the bags the next day, rather than pick up all the rubbish.

I do object to people shitting in takeaway burger boxes and leaving those lying around; disgusting bastards.

A pendant writes: the hill of Megiddo is situated in Palestine. It’s under archaeological investigation, I understand. No demon kings or 666 teated whores so far though.

‘perhaps if we just got back to normal we’d have more social distancing than we have now.’

I agree.

Of course the beachgoers might well feel that they have just as much right to be uncouth as the statue-smashers.

Philip, Megiddo is in Israel rather than the West Bank, but yes, Palestine one way or the other. It’s the one hill in a flat plain that stretches to the horizon all round. it’s a national monument, nice to visit, lots of excavations done, very peaceful. There’s a spring at the foot of the hill, and somebody clever dug a tunnel to it from the center, and then closed it off at the outside. So you have a defensible position with fresh water, and therefore a fort since long before Biblical times, and up to the ottomans. Got my favorite baseball cap there.

A 15.00 high tide combined with relatively narrow beaches will tend to compress holidaymakers into a somewhat confined space by mid afternoon. Who would have guessed?

“long before Biblical times”: good trick that. The Bible starts with the Creation.

Or it did when I was a lad. Maybe translating it into Town Council English has changed that.

Dearieme, hm. I guess you’re right. I meant sort of Solomon-to-David time, and even that’s pretty much straight fiction, but I suppose the Book not only goes back to the beginning but forward to the end, whether that’s teatime today or a billion billion years from now.

Bloke in North Dorset said:
“I do object to people shitting in takeaway burger boxes and leaving those lying around; disgusting bastards.”

Is it much different to what was in them originally?

Not very good behaviour, but with the pubs, cafes etc. closed by government order, so their loos not available, and public toilets mostly a thing of the past, they may not have had much alternative.

P.S. – if you want a beach in Dorset in the summer, Chapman’s Pool is a tougher walk from the car park so is usually pretty deserted. Just past the Square & Compass as well, although that’s not much use at the moment.