So: we’re in lock down – or as I prefer to think of it, the big Tai Ho. Staying home, staying put, being stuck in one place. Find your bubble, stay in your bubble, don’t burst my bubble. Shouldn’t be that difficult really.
I’m not really sure why people are getting overly excited by this – it’s a fairly simple thing to do, and not overly difficult to comply with. But then I’m just a single fish, not a whole school. Think of an anenome. Just keep to yourself, waving quietly. Woohoo. Stick your feet to the rock and don’t shake hands or breath the air of others. True, a bit boring, but you’ll get through it.
One person that doesn’t understand it, because he’s an imbecile, is President Rump. As a result, many Americans will die. Let’s hope that he is one of them. That would be justice for his inaction and stupidity. This virus does not respect personal boundaries, or personas. They’ve just announced that Prince Charles has Covid. Interesting: he’s a super-spreader then. Anyone can get it. Mind you, there’s nothing like a toxic royal… …and they’ve had a few.
We all need a hobby during this lockdown. Some people will just watch a lot of TV. Hmmm. Some will learn to cook, but you just know there will always be one key ingredient that you’re missing… Some will take up painting. Some will read a lot of books (forgone conclusion for me – I’ve a lot of books to read!). Some people will write a book. I think that I’m going to write a novel, but am a little unsure of the theme. Love in the time of coronavirus? Just another fish in the sea? The end of the world? The start of a new world? A romantic comedy? Something light and frothy to take your mind off things? To take my mind off things? I have a feeling that the joys of the web may get a little tiring over the next few weeks. Maybe I’ll take up a hobby. Hope that I’ve got all the tools. Maybe I’ll paint the bathroom. Damn – forgot to get the paint. Hmmmm. Here’s a list of possibilities – there must be something here for you.
You don’t need me to tell you what to do – there’s enough people doing that already. But you could always tell me what you’re planning to do. Go on: I’m interested to know. Comments down below please. We have 4 weeks. How are we going to make the world a better place?
In a word, work.
Damn you www.
Also, thank god for www.
But m-d – work is cancelled for the next 4 weeks. You’ve got to have a hobby man….
I’m planning to build that Rietveld Military table…
nice ! Got a good drop saw and paint all lined up then? Damn. Should have gone to Mitre10 yesterday…
I dunno where you work, but this fine ol’ malarkey has created a great deal of extra work for me and many others here. And meanwhile, no one is suggesting that any of my normal tasks should be dropped to make way for it – we’ve just switched up the order of it as a way of coping with the additional burden. I can’t even math that.
m-d : time to put it to the hive mind. Share it with the group. How can we help? Are you designing something? Or – leave it to the Fish. Email me separately m-d and I’ll see if I can help. I have friends in wet places….
Sorry – that’s all totally unhelpful, i know. Trouble is, we’re going to be in this current holding pattern for a while… a month… two months… maybe six months? Eighteen months?!?!?! The prediction today that 80,000 people could die in NZ while we wait for a method of inoculation to be invented, worries me considerably. They’re the experts, but I reckon they have got the maths waaaaaay wrong. If we isolate, like we doing now, and nobody moves for 4 weeks, then there should be nobody sitting around in a contagious state. We’ve got 20-odd people who have now had it and come out the other side, released back into the community. They’re cured. They can’t get it again. They can therefore work in the community without fear of A) getting it and B) passing it onto anyone else. They’re the only people in the country with the right antibodies that can fight it. So where do the fresh 80,000 deaths come into it?
Hmmm. Answering my own question here, with some commentary from a NZ Herald article:
“Baker has contributed to research that shows about 30,000 people would die if the virus rips through communities, infecting about 60 per cent of the population.
That is less dire than the 80,000 deaths if Covid-19 was left unchecked, as predicted in modelling from researchers at the University of Auckland.
The number of deaths can be hugely curtailed if the Government’s current “elimination” strategy succeeds, which Baker backs over other countries’ strategies to “flatten the curve”.
Even if the lockdown successfully eradicated Covid-19 from New Zealand, there will still likely be a few thousand cases and some fatalities.
“Once you get a certain number of cases, I think fatalities are unfortunately inevitable, though a big factor is the age group of people infected and underlying illness,” Baker said.
The mortality rate was about 1 per cent, he said, but there were many contributing factors including how overwhelmed the health system might be.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12320471
To make the world a better place?
I’m raising Kauri from seeds and will plant them out around the place
As this is not labour intensive and runs on a longer time frame than this lockdown, there’s
finish painting the house
build steps down to the creek
finish furnishing the gun room
waterblast the deck
build hay feeders for the horses
hang the new laundry door
cut some pinetrees
make a bedhead frame
build a water intake for the hydro scheme
and go hunting
Fortunately it is going to be longer than 4 weeks
Aaah, 60, i love you. Always such a positive attitude, and such a practical bloke. Everyone needs a 60 MPa to call upon in an emergency. I think most of those are on my list of To Do as well, except perhaps for lack of guns and horses. I’m aiming smaller: perhaps a novel, and a wine rack. Priorities. Probably wine rack first.
Leviathan, I suspect most people will be finishing the wine than finishing the wine rack.
Aaah Helen Moate, lovely to find you here. Are you an essential worker, driving a truck or managing a project, or are you a non-essential rump worker like myself, discarded casually onto the scrap-heap of employment? Yes, you’re quite right of course about the order of importance of events, except that one day this lockup will be over, and then I’ll need more space to store all the new bottles I will buy. I’m taking the liberty, of course, in assuming that I will survive the dose of Covid that we’ll all eventually get.
Helen is 100% correct, wine now has a very short shelf life in our house, he says quaffing a reasonable Aussie Shiraz
PS Levi – never stick a wine rack under the stairs
Hold on there a second Buster – A) why shouldn’t i stick a wine rack under the stairs? and
B) just how did you know that is exactly where i was planning to put it?
Non-essential rump worker??
Aside from disturbing jazzercise implications, this can’t be true. I imagine the Leviathan as Te Aro’s own Howard Roark – using this unveiling of human frailty to plan a dizzying future?
A) The constant vibration from people going up and down the stairs means that the wine doesn’t get to settle properly and therefore doesn’t age so it just becomes a wine cupboard
B) I’m psychic (it’s where people usually put them)