Plague Update #8 - The Cracks Are Starting to Show in New Zealand

I received a bizarre communication from my New Zealand correspondent today, and it wasn't only bizarre because I thought he was dead.  Apparently he had faked his demise to prevent his loved ones from cannibalising him and was now hiding out in the attic foraging for scraps whenever his partner and daughter went out to ambush passers by.

I indicated that this was terrible news (while giggling under my breath) and asked if he wanted me to get my tech support to send in an extraction team.  Probably wisely he refused (they're terrible dentists) but with tears streaming down his cheeks he begged me to send him a cauliflower.  I may have asked him to repeat himself, twice.  He definitely said cauliflower.  Apparently ruthless black marketers have joined forces with the market garden mafia to drive the price of cauliflower beyond what ordinary, decent folk can afford.  Hysterical New Zealanders have flooded their government with complaints demanding that something be done about the outrageous price of cauliflower.  It remains to be seen whether the NZ government will mobilise their army to secure cauliflower supplies but something will have to be done as apparently this could be an election issue.

Back in something marginally closer to the real world the Victorian government announced that the possibility of getting laid wasn't a good enough reason to visit someone.  Then this afternoon they appeared to relent possibly as they remembered how many politicians didn't actually live with their mistresses.  They're blaming the Chief Health Officer for being over eager.  I presume he actually lives with his most frequent sexual partner.

Meanwhile Tasmania is on fire again.  According to my inbred maniacs correspondent they've decided this is the perfect time to start hazard reduction fires around Hobart.  Smoke is rolling towards my correspondents home as she bemoans the fact that she now can't even decently tell her kids to get out into the backyard.  I'm not sure how the bushfire brigades manage social distancing while simultaneously incinerating the countryside but I hope the message has gone out to the fires as well.  Meanwhile caravan dwellers are being subjected to the sort of hostile "move along" messages that used to be restricted to Gypsies, Aboriginals, foreigners, other foreigners (you know the ones who don't look foreign but definitely are), homosexuals, the lactose intolerant and vegans.  According to the parents of my correspondent there is a huge crush of caravans essentially driving round and around in circles hoping to find somewhere to stop that they won't be immediately moved on from.

In Western Australia they're doing much the same thing with cruise ships.  There are apparently a few of these loitering offshore in the hopes that the government will let them land and drop off those in need of medical attention.  The WA government has pointed out, reasonably enough, that "those in need of medical attention" are exactly the reason why the ships aren't being allowed to dock.  The messaging is getting increasingly hysterical and its probably only twenty four hours away from suggesting remedial drowning as a solution.  In the meantime it is demanding that the federal government do something (although what is left up in the air).  The federal government whose experience with dealing with rogue vessels is limited to small ones containing poor people has absolutely no idea of what to do with a large vessel containing passengers rich enough to sue them.

On a personal note I have kissed more money goodbye as I cancel the last bits of my holiday (oh the horror).  I've also decided I need to go out and source more coffee before the tanks start rolling down the streets.  For the record tanks aren't going to start rolling down the streets if for no other reason than the army only has about sixty of them and there are far too many streets to roll down all of them.  At a pinch they might be able to secure a suburb.  This hasn't stopped babbling halfwits seizing on the fact that soldiers might be used to assist the police to claim that martial law is imminent.  Hopefully if it is imminent those people are on somebody's "disappearance list".

Up in Queensland the state premier is mobilising what she calls a Care Army but which basically involves persuading blameless citizens to pester the elderly in their homes.  If the elderly weren't sick before all these people turn up on their doorstep they probably will be afterwards.  This will also mean that the Care Army will manage to inflict more casualties than the actual army.