Wow. I posted this picture of Bournemouth beach, taken earlier, today. It got quite a response -- some of it shocked me. A thread:

1. "Do you know how it feels to live in a one-bedroom flat?"

Yes, welcome to my life.

2. "Great to see!. People awake to the scam."

As of Monday, 36,914 people have died with coronavirus. Doesn't sound like much of a scam to me.

3. "Sad to see so many people parroting the nonsense of a mythical second wave, where is the evidence there will even be a second wave?"

This @SkyNews report looked at countries that have experienced exactly this (note: it was published April 28) https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-and-the-second-wave-beware-of-the-danger-of-lifting-a-lockdown-too-early-11980622

4. "You are the real problem. You do you, obey your control structure, stay home, wash your hands every 5 minutes and you'll be fine mate."

The abuse towards the media has been a constant. We're accused of scaremongering when we are telling people what's going on. It's worrying.

5. "Is the pic even from today?"

See also:

"It was not that busy!"
"Clever camera angles!"

This is a picture, from today, from PA, a UK British news source. I'm sure many people on the beach observed social distancing - I didn't say they hadn't - helluva lot of people tho.

6. "Everybody looks like they're dying!"

Flippant. There's less risk of the virus outdoors, but crowding isn't good. Should there be an impact, we may not know for weeks.

Everyone seemed fine at Cheltenham Festival in March, there are still fears it was a super-spreader event:

7. "Dominic Cummings has a lot to answer for!"

Common theme. To be even-handed, Cummings' alleged breach of lockdown rules may prove to have not helped public morale, but I doubt it was the sole factor in today's exodus to Bournemouth beach.

8. "Other beaches were nice and quiet!"

I'm very sure they were.

9. "Well, they might just as well knock everything on the head and go back to normal. No point having any lockdown."

I can understand why some will feel dejected — everyone's having a nice time, why can't I?

Scientific advice shows restrictions do help, even if there's a blip.

10. "The beach will always be there but your health won’t.
All the seafront car parks where full up today, so the beach was busy !"

A good point. Even if this is okay on the beach, crowding en route/nearby is a problem.

Just to stress — I'm not biased to one side. I'm not sharing dishonest photos. I'm not accusing every beachgoer on a bank holiday of being reckless.

I'm just surprised by the polarisation in my mentions. Lockdown morale is slipping. (And there seems to be LOADS of bots.)

I shared this photo because a beach on a sunny bank holiday took me by surprise, and some of the responses here on Twitter (even though it isn't representative of the real world) shocked me even more.

OK, I'll have a gin now.