Good News Column: Bad quarantine hair cuts, sunbathing seals, and 500k volunteers

The Tab’s new column to bring a little bit of joy

4 years ago

Welcome to The Tab’s daily round up of good news, bringing you heartwarming stories, funny moments and important trash TV updates from around the globe to help you get through the day during the coronavirus pandemic.

An Exeter student is delivering care packages to students who are self-isolating

One Exeter second year has taken it upon himself to help those who can’t get out of the house because of isolation. Alex Honey has been spending the last week delivering food packages to those in need.

He takes the orders for what people want, goes to a number of different shops to get everything and then they’ll transfer the money over to him. If that wasn’t enough, Alex also undercharges everyone for their food, if it cost him £18 he’ll ask for £15.

We really don’t deserve Alex.

A seal has been sunbathing on Brighton beach

Just because we can’t go to the beach doesn’t mean the animals can’t. Earlier this week, a seal was spotted sunbathing on Brighton beach, basking in the sun and I’ve honestly never been more jealous of a seal in my whole life.

It’s perfectly safe for the seal to be there as they often come to rest on the shores of the beach as the ocean is too cold for them. Bless.

The BBC family are back!!

Who could forget one of the most iconic moments of British TV when the guy on BBC news shoved his daughter out of the way on screen because he was on FaceTime live and then his wife runs in to grab her.

Well they’re back!!! Today Professor Robert Kelly and his wife and their two children appeared via FaceTime to chat about the difficulties from working from home with kids. And true to form his daughter was a whole mood and was constantly interrupting him and he was constantly pushing her back. It’s the best video I’ve seen today and if it doesn’t cheer you up then nothing will.

Over 500,000 people have volunteered to help the NHS

More than 500,00 people have signed up to be a volunteer during the coronavirus pandemic to help the NHS. Health Secretary Matt Hancock made the announcement on Tuesday asking for 250,000 volunteers and naturally the people of Britain have stepped up and over 500,00 are going to be helping vulnerable individuals.

Their roles will include delivering food and medicine to vulnerable people, driving people home after they’ve been discharged from hospital and making regular phone calls to people in self-isolation. I’m not crying, you are.

The call for help has gone so well that the government are now hoping to get to 750,000 volunteers. Even those in a high risk group can sign up and offer over the phone support for those in need. You can sign up to be a volunteer here.

Coronavirus tests might be here by next week

Yesterday it was announced coronavirus at-home test kits were being tested and are hopefully going to be available to the British public as early as next week.

The 15 minute tests involve pricking your finger and using a pregnancy test lookalike which will register if you have coronavirus.

Dyson are starting to make 15,000 ventilators

Dyson are preparing to make 15,000 life saving ventilators for UK hospitals to save those with coronavirus. They are expected to get an order from the government of 10,000 and Dyson will be creating a further 5,000 which they will fund themselves!

They are also planning on sending 80 ventilators to other countries in need.

Students are giving themselves awful quarantine hair cuts

We’ve hardly been in lockdown and already boys are giving themselves disastrous hair cuts or shaving their heads completely. Either way it’s not a good look.

Here are some of the worst to make your day:

Loads of dogs and cats are getting adopted

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home reported a surge in adoptions of cats and dogs after coronavirus was declared a pandemic. Between the 16th March and 22nd March more than 150 animals were adopted from the charity.

The figure is more than double that of the animals who were adopted in the same week last year. One of the animals to be adopted during the pandemic was a dog called Tulip who had been at one of the centres for 110 days.

A woman is spending her one walk a day providing books for her neighbours

Stella von Koskull is using her one exercise per day to leave books on neighbours doors, she’s basically a book fairy. Stella wanted to help others whilst walking and is travelling around London and leaving books on people’s doors wearing a mask and gloves.

The books are all her own and she said wanted to use this time to help others, inspire people and she hopes it will bring the community together.

She said: “One positive thing that can come out of this is that communities can come together.

“Hopefully I’m serving it in my little way and will inspire people to do the same thing.”

The CEO of PrettyLittleThing is giving away his month’s salary to help small businesses

Umar Kamani, the CEO of PrettyLittleThing announced yesterday he would be donating his entire month’s salary to small businesses in need.

Umar said he wanted to help with money or mentoring to companies which are just starting off and may have been effected by the coronavirus pandemic. On an Instagram live he asked his followers to tag any small businesses which required support.

He said: “To start with I am going to donate my salary in March to small businesses who need a bit of help to get through. I recognise the importance of coming together at this time and helping other businesses.

“It’s really important for me to spread some kindness throughout this time so I am asking all of you tuning in right now to tag any small businesses on my latest Instagram post who may need a helping hand in these difficult times and my team and I will work through all the requests you make to select the businesses I think I can help most.”

There’s a nationwide virtual Friends quiz happening tomorrow night

I couldn’t BE more excited for this latest virtual event. There’s already been live stream bingo and now we’ve got a live stream Friends quiz. Yes, we’re not spending our Friday nights how we usually would but that’s ok, it’s for the greater good and we can still have fun.

Eventures are hosting a virtual Friends Quiz tomorrow evening at 7:30pm on Facebook. The team behind it are asking everyone to donate £2 for the NHS, which is nothing in comparison to what you’d usually spend on a Friday night.

So get donating and answer every single question you can about Friends! Find the event here.

Gavin and Stacey

As a nation, what we need right now is more Gavin and Stacey and thankfully the BBC have listened to our prayers. In order to raise everyone’s spirits from 4th April the BBC will be putting on old episodes of Gavin and Stacey and Outnumbered.

Yes, they are on Netflix but it’s such a richer experience when you know the whole country is laughing along to Pam and Mick with you.