Plague Update

Well I am currently sitting in the wreckage of my holiday attempting to persuade a whole bunch of travel and accommodation companies, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy themselves, to give me some of my money back.  And it is that sentence that tells you how minor an inconvenience COVID-19 has been to me.  I'm not sick (so far) and so far I have been able to source most of the things necessary for my own survival.

When the pandemic struck my personal response was measured, calm and sensible.  Unlike certain others I didn't charge out hysterically and buy a lifetimes supply of toilet paper in an afternoon.  The result of this is that I am currently calmly, sensibly and in a measured fashion cutting up sheets of newspaper into convenient strips while a bunch of hysterical nutjobs are sitting on enough toilet paper to last them for approximately thirty five years.  I have learned my lesson.  Never again will I be seduced by the siren song of common sense.  The next time there is even a hint of illness in the air I will respond with monomaniacal irrationality.  And if you happen to beat me to the last roll of 3-ply on the shelf I WILL FEAST ON YOUR HEART!!!

Which should also help avoid an ugly scene in the meat section. 

With my holiday plans in ruins I sank to a level of desperation so great that I actually decided to go and visit my Tasmanian correspondent instead.  She informed me with ill disguised glee that Tasmania had decided to quarantine itself from mainland Australia and that I wouldn't be let in.  In the interests of strict accuracy that previous sentence should be amended to "had decided to quarantine itself from the mainland even more than usual".  My nation's southern most extremity has locked the door and is huddled under the blankets until the world gets better.  According to my correspondent there has been no discernible difference.

Meanwhile my employers have decided that everybody should work from home for a while.  Exactly how long hasn't been determined but its entirely possible we may never go back.  The offices haven't actually been locked down which is useful as at least one particular staff member has sneaked in, ostensibly to pick up his laptop but actually to water my plant.  Working from home certainly has its advantages.  Firstly there is the matter of clothing.  This is usually required in the office, certainly human resources informed me of this in no uncertain terms when I attempted to test the fact.  Secondly coffee is only a few steps away which means I have essentially spent the last week on a manic caffeine bender.  It remains to be seen how that will work out but its amazing how many hours there are in the day when you don't spend any of them asleep.  So far the hallucinations have been manageable and my tendency to jump ten feet into the air at the slightest sound is not actually a function of the coffee.

Across the Tasman my New Zealand correspondent tells me that COVID-19 hasn't been a major issue so far although precautions are being taken.  I was astonished and I'll bet you are too.  I had completely forgotten I had a New Zealand correspondent.  To be fair communications with our eastern neighbour have been a little problematic ever since Australia's major export to them turned out to be criminals.

People hope we will learn something from this outbreak and this may be a guide to a new and better way of doing things.  Such people are utopian idiots.  The sheer astonishment they have shown at the panic, the hoarding and the deranged toilet paper fixation prove that they're idiots.  There is nothing particularly surprising about any of this.  There have been situations like this in the past and the general public has responded to them in exactly the same way.  If these social commentators are incapable of learning from history it is a little unfair to expect anybody else to.  I have to go now, I need to decide which of my hand towels are the most expendable.