I have learnt many wondrous things in lockdown. Some I already knew, Just needed a reminder. Others confirmed I was right in the first place. Then there are those I knew, but but didn’t need to be reminded of.
Take television. Growing up in post war London, we didn’t have a television. Later we did get one. It was big, only the screen was small. Black and white, and only one channel. The BBC, British Broadcasting Company. I soon developed the view, that if your sole topic of conversation was either the weather, the British weather at that. Or last night’s television! You were best off to shut up! In the course of our recent lockdown I have sadly watched a little more TV than normal. Education is a wonderful thing. I have learnt which is the first item of clothing a woman removes on arriving home. In my almost seventy years, I have never witnessed this. I’ve known a few women in my life. Been fortunate to witness a number undress. I may even have helped on occasion. But never have I seen the bra come off first!
Now I know a lady. She claims it is possible to remove the bra via a sleeve. Thus far she has declined my invitation to demonstrate. Leaving me to ponder the validity of her claim. Or the television add.
Other revelations! Sport is not important. You may be saddened to miss your favourite tennis tournament, football match. Or in my case motor race. But it’s not important. It’s the television rights that are important. Ways must be found to circumvent boarder restrictions, so the games can go on! There’s no one in the stands. No one to cheer. Just an empty venue, save for the cameraman. Foxtel must prevail. Well why not it does over our government.
In the late 80’s I was busy studying and writing papers on supervision and motivation of the remote workforce. Telecommuting was coming, but we had to wait almost forty years and a pandemic to see it eventuate. Do you know what FTN is? It’s fibre to the node. Another brilliant assassination of a poorly implemented piece of infrastructure. It was never a good idea, but it took a pandemic for the government to realise it. Anyone from IT saw this one coming a decade back. Similarly, I have waited 40 years fore the paperless office. The cashless society. Covid 19 has taken us closer in 5 months than the last 5 decades!
Tis the season to renovate. When it all started I bashed the plastic at Bunnings. Stoked up with all the materials for next few projects. The Pagola wasn't scheduled to be finished before June. That was completed in March. New trellis, new gate. New security. Including a smart lock on the front door. Now I don’t need to take keys with me when I go out. It even talks to me when I get back.The headboard, the seamless door frame. The bedroom is complete! Now I’m out of stuff to do. This is when you start getting silly and working through the software that will enable to lock or unlock your front door from Istanbul! To say nothing of the 15 IP address I now have in my house.
Or you start trying to configure a computer just to play your old Tomb Raider games. Then there are all those annoying little things that never worked properly. But you had learnt to live with. This is the time to fix them all. I’ve run out of them too.
At the height of the lockdpwn I realised as a retired racing driver. The most dangerous thing I was doing, was going down to the shops for a fresh loaf of bread. Answer, buy a bread maker. I soon figured I could do better myself and started baking it myself. Sold the bread-maker, but continued baking.
We also learnt that the most important purchase in our weekly shopping is bog roll. Nowhere in any news bulletin, from any news agency anywhere in the world, did I ever hear mention of Covid 19 ever causing diarrhoea! Yet toilet paper disappeared overnight off every single supermarket shelf in every village, town, city or capital throughout the world. WHY! People were fighting over it in the isles. And this was all while they were still publishing the local newspaper. Where was the panic?
Of the superannuation withdrawals you ask? Figures suggest that 64 per cent of it has gone on discretionary items such as clothing, furniture, restaurant food, gambling and alcohol. Rather than essentials like survival. In a world where toilet paper has become the number one priority. One is left to ponder where ours went wrong.
I ’m only 163 centimetres tall, so I can’t even claim to be a big kid. Sixty years ago, my Dad took me to the London Motor Show. I saw my first Lotus, and swore to own one, when I was a grown up. What do I drive today? A Lotus. My 5th
I’ve taken the odds to everything in life. But not the Corona Virus. That’s not just my odds. That's everyone around me, loved ones and friends. I’ve lost too many friends. It doesn’t seem fair somehow. I took all the risks, and I’m still here. Dad, Carol, Terry, Silly John, all lost to cancer. Never took risks, but gone. My Dad died at 53.
