The BBC Pandemic: Part Five

Into the Lobster Trap

Full Transcript with links to critiqued material available at: http://www.pighooey.co.uk/lobster.html

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The Lobster Pot

Who can tell how the lobster got

into the lobster pot?

When he went in he did not doubt

there was a passage out.

There was not.

John Arden (1930-2012)

How a Lobster Trap works.

1. The wide, funnel-shaped entrance is inviting and easy to walk into.

2. The tunnelled netting narrows, encouraging the lobster in one direction.

3. Once inside, escape back through the funnel is impossible. The lobster is trapped.

You have to hand it to them – when it comes to manipulating populations into a trance state of bewilderment and compliance, they know what they’re doing. I remember the early weeks of the Corona Show when friends and family I’d previously regarded as level-headed and pragmatic began to glaze over and OBEY. I looked on in appalled fascination as one-by-one they stopped trusting their initial gut instinct that the unfolding melodrama was ridiculously over-hyped, and started to absorb every new morsel they were fed by the BBC, until they all fell in line.

And so, they were ripe to be led, bit by bit, into the entrance of the Lobster Trap.

Follow-the-thought-leader

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Abraham Lincoln

In the UK, the careers of Hannah Fry and her team of Mathematical Modellers had been shaped for years in advance to be on their marks, set and ready to spring into action at the B of the Bang. That moment came in January 2020 when they were called upon to model the spread of Coronavirus. The outcome of those models was never in doubt as they had already given us a sneak preview in the BBC TV Pandemic Simulation Experiment documentary of 2018. Death and illness on a massive scale.

“Into the Lobster Trap” gives an insight into the lengths that were taken to prepare for the Corona Show – nothing was left to chance in making sure that it would be All Right on the Night… and all that preparation certainly paid off.

A correction

In response to my FOI request, LSHTM released a letter addressed to the Principal Investigator of the BBC Pandemic Project, but the name of recipient was redacted. I hazarded a guess that the person in question was Petra Klepac. Following further correspondence with LSHTM, I have learned that the Principal Investigator was, in fact, [~~drumroll~~] Adam Kucharski.