Another quiet day in these crazy times. Who would have believed, Myer have closed all their stores for a month. Employees laid off without pay. All gun shops in WA closed down immediately, no warning. I can understand the lack of warning – the gun nuts would have rushed the stores to buy up before the ban applied.

But it’ll all be OK. The prohibition on getting hair jobs taking more than 30 mins has been lifted. Phew! So you can have that shampoo, blow dry, colouration, tips, style job, whatever, after all.

I’m only a bloke but why do you need to go to a hair salon to have your hair shampooed? Why not just do it yourself in the shower? And you’re not going to be going out on the town all dolled up, or meeting friends who you need to impress. Why do you need a salon job? You blokes, so you can’t have a haircut for a month or whatever. So what?

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I’ve just fired up the Denon Super Audio CD (SACD) player I bought second hand last week and discovered that it will read CDs and DVDs OK, but not SACDs. That’s annoying. I guess the seller probably didn’t know it was faulty; he probably didn’t play any SACDs. They’re not common. I did look through Amazon’s catalogue today, though, and there are plenty available. I picked some out but haven’t ordered, as they are not cheap.

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If you have to be self-isolated, it helps to have this beautiful weather. Let’s hope we get some rain tomorrow, but I’m not complaining.

I put up a comment on F/B with a beautiful picture of Rottnest, saying if you have to be quarantined, you could hardly wish for a better place to do it. People would pay thousands of dollars to spend two weeks over there.

One of my overseas friends was so impressed by the picture that she said next time she’s in Bali (she’s European) she’d like to visit Perth and see Rotto. I said “Great, stay with me.” Great, she said, and accepted. So that will be nice. I’m looking forward to it, but when it might happen, who knows?

Grrrrrr! It’s now 10.30pm and the power has only come back on 20mins ago after another four hour failure! It went off at 6.10pm. It’s another pretty warm night and I needed the fan, and I wanted to go to bed, but with no power I can’t have either.

Western Power’s website showed a fault in Butler but no map and no information about it. I’ve just looked again and there’s still no information. Big help. They sent me a survey form earlier tonight about Tuesday night’s outage and I was able to say something, but I’d say a lot more now.

It looks like I’ll have to invest in a UPS, and it will have to be a big one. We shouldn’t have to do this.

Apart from that, it was an uneventful day, nothing much to write about. Now for some quality sleep.

Aaaarrrrgh, diabetic foot pains! Sudden, severe pains in my toes and insteps, bad enough to make me gasp and cry out with the pain. It only lasts 5-10 seconds, but that’s enough.

Bad start, but a good day. It was a bad start because the mains power went off at 8.08pm last night and stayed off. There was a brief attempt at restoring power at about 10pm but it still stayed off. It was hot last night and with no fan, I was very uncomfortable. I listened to my battery radio for a while, using my battery LED camping lantern (it worked very well, bought a couple of years ago for just this reason), then I got tired of the radio and fired up my fully charged Samsung 4G tablet. When the power goes off, the NBN stops and so there’s no modem, no internet, no landline phone. The tablet is independent of the mains power and gets the internet from the 4G mobile phone network.

That meant I could watch Netflix! By 10pm there was still no power so I watched two 1hr programs, an episode of Contagion (yeah, about a pandemic) and an episode of The Crown. That’s nearly two hours of high definition TV on this battery powered tablet. It was great. Using headphones the sound was hi-def too.

It was midnight by now and I desperately wanted to go to bed, but with no mains power, it meant no CPAP and I need that to sleep. I got onto the Western Power web site, Faults and Outages section. It showed the lower part of Butler and Merriwa as without power, but showed my area as not having a problem! Grrr.

So I phoned them (on my mobile, no landline, remember). The guy was very vague about it, didn’t know why my area wasn’t showing, had no notes about it and wasn’t sure whether the line crews would even be aware of the problem. Huh. He said he’d get onto them for me.

By 12.30am I gave up and went to bed, too hot, no fan, no outside breeze, no CPAP, not happy. I must have drifted off because I was awoken at 01.22am by the bedside light (which I’d deliberately left on) and short beeps from the house alarm. Aaah, at last. Fan on, CPAP on and I was off. I had a good sleep from then on, no credit to Western Power. I have a fridge full of food. I hope more than 5hrs of warming up hasn’t harmed it.

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I was woken at 0830 by a call from the RAC at Joondalup. You’ll recall my MX-6 was taken there yesterday.

The news was that they’d found the problem, a broken plastic actuator in the gearbox where the cable connection from the shifter goes. He said it had more or less failed from age. But being a 25 year old car, there are no parts available now.

However, he said they have managed to put it back together using some kind of clips and it’s all good again. He said they can’t guarantee how long it will last – it could last another 25 years or it could fail next week. He said they will guarantee it until it fails! 🙂

So this afternoon I took an Uber taxi there and picked it up. The good bit was still to come. Apparently it didn’t take long to fix, less than an hour, and that is covered by my membership fees! No charge to me, in other words. Wow. Just goes to show, it pays to belong! Sure, the membership costs me $226 per year, but for that, all three cars are covered, and a second driver is covered. I get free towing up to 100Km in the metro area (which was the case yesterday, no charge for the tow truck) and all the usual breakdown services, as happened yesterday when I got the guy out to give me his assessment and advice.

So far this year, I’ve had a new battery for the Verada – I pay for the battery but the cost of the guy coming and changing it is covered; a roadside wheel change in January on the Honda MDX; two vouchers for $20 off any servicing or mechanical repairs; and now this. Money well spent, I reckon! I’ve been a member since 1971 and it works for me.

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It’s like being in a union. You pay your annual fees, but you get so much in return! Hospitality workers are discovering this – many hundreds of them have been right royally screwed, done over, stolen from, by big name restaurants, bars and venues owned by “celebrity” entrepreneurs and chefs. Their union, Hospo Voice, have recovered tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from low paid and otherwise powerless workers. The union is running a brilliant Facebook campaign. (I never thought I would see the day when “wage theft” became an everyday term, but it has.)

People don’t understand – national wage cases for industry pay increases (for occupations covered by awards) have to be argued in the Industrial Relations Commission in Melbourne. That means skilled negotiators have to stand in front of the commissioners and make the case for workers. These people are usually lawyers and have to be paid.

If a pay increase is won, it might be 2%, say. On an annual wage of $50,000, then 2% is $1,000 a year. If your union dues were $200, you’ve recouped that five times over! People can’t grasp this. You get back more than you put in.

Everybody has a union. Lawyers have the Law Society; doctors have the AMA; company directors have the Employers’ Federation; company directors have an association; actors and stage people have Actors’ Equity; journalists have the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA); politicians, even Liberal Party politicians, have a parliamentary members’ group. To stand aside and refuse to join in your group in the face of this is just lunacy.

Everyone benefits from working together. The only people I can think of who don’t, strangely, are creative people, writers, artists, sculptors – people who work alone But even they are eventually part of a team that works to put their work out to the public.

Refusing to support your industry union is sheer selfishness, parasitism.

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I’ve spoken of how great it is that I was able to use a mobile phone last night despite the loss of mains power, and the LED camping light, and the tablet giving me hi-def TV despite the blackout. Today I was told that I can have medical appointments remotely without needing to attend the surgery by using a video conferencing facility. If I have to have a talk, they email me a link that connects me.

Then I got the Uber taxi at 3pm. I looked up the address on Google Maps, then used my mobile phone to book it. It only took five minutes to do. The phone showed me a map of my area and where the Uber car was on the map. A little car icon moved up the map and it showed me where he was and how long until he got here. It’s only the second time I’ve used Uber.

Then when we arrived, I didn’t have to fish in my wallet for a card (lucky, because I was wearing dishwashing gloves and they make it hard). Uber uses Paypal so the charge is automatically debited to my credit card ($25.14, by the way). I just got out and that was that.

My point is that all this is courtesy of electronics and computers. Wow, just wow! As you know, that has been my life’s work and interest and I’m proud of the way electronics and computer guys (generic term, includes girls, but there are very few!) are so clever, so inventive, so skillful. Marvellous.

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Words. I was thinking of the word wakeful and wakefullness this morning. Wakeful – full of wake? How does that work?

The words hopeful and hopefully are often in my mind as I write. So many people say, “Hopefully we might get a pay increase” or whatever. But hopefully means full of hope. So, “Full of hope, we might…” rarely works. You need to think of the whole sentence before using it.

A correct example would be, “Hopefully, the sailors waved their arms looking for rescue.” They were full of hope. Or hopefully, the doctor might arrive soon. “I am full of hope that…”

Fat chance. Pissing in the wind.

Another relatively recent cliche word is shuttering or shuttered. It started last year, it’s meaning being closed. Nothing is closed any more, it’s shuttered. It’s even used as a verb! They shuttered the business. This is madness.

I also rail against the need to use utilise, in place of plain use. Why does everyone have to use (utilise?) a four syllable word when there’s a perfectly suitable single syllable word? It’s become endemic.

Being a confirmed, foundation member of the Society of Pedants, I’ve been keeping a text file since about August last year of grammatical, spelling and punctuation crimes I come across on the web. It’s mainly populated by the ABC News since that’s my main source of news (and The Guardian, but they don’t make many errors). I ensure I record the journalist’s byline for each one.

It’s a long list now, eight A4 pages long and growing every day. Being a text file, I’m hoping (hopeful? Full of hope?) that I could feed it into a spreadsheet as a database so as to sort it into columns by date, web site and journalist’s name if possible. I’d have to go through it and add commas so that it would be comma delimited. It wouldn’t be hard.

Gawd, what a waste of time! Get a grip on yourself, Pedantic Pete. There are many more important things to be done.

I went out late yesterday afternoon to do a little bit of grocery shopping, but mainly to beat a possible closure of bottle shops which I heard about on the radio. That would be a very unpopular move, I would say.

Anyway, I only went to the IGA on Connolly Drive about 1.5Km away. I was wearing a mask and gloves, as we are told to do. But in my trip and visit to the shop, out of the 3-4 dozen people I saw out walking, driving and in the shop, NOT ONE person was wearing a mask or gloves (except the two checkout people wearing gloves as they normally do).

So much for voluntarily following these new rules. I’m very annoyed. Someone said masks and gloves are unobtainable. Dishwashing gloves are in full stock, that’s what I was wearing, and you can easily make a simple mask out of a paper towel by folding it in a concertina way and stapling the ends with rubber bands to go over your ears.

I got my masks out from the serious ‘flu epidemic in 2008. I found I have two boxes of 100 each. They are very simple, just a single layer of paper, but it would provide basic protection, both ways.

Very annoyed.

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I must admit I’m noticing I’m getting a bit irritable and narky. I’ve long known that I’m prone to that, even depression, after long periods of no human company, however brief. I may need to find ways.

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One thing that’s occurred to me is to re-photograph Fremantle streets as I did in 1989, 1990 and 1991.

Those were taken under normal traffic conditions! Freo can be a very quiet place and if you pick your time, you can eliminate most people and cars. But now, with everything shut down, it would be especially deserted.

It would be interesting to go back there now and recapture these scenes, under the virus shutdown conditions and with the benefit of a modern digital camera. I don’t think I’d be violating any rules. I would wear a mask and gloves. This is the time of year to do it, as well, the equinoxe when the evenings are getting shorter and the sun has moved a bit north. Have you noticed that sunset is at 6.22pm and sunrise is at 6.23am at the moment?

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There’s a great sequence of images in the New York Times today of the great silence in all the world’s great cities. The photos are full screen and are fascinating. Recommended. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/world/coronavirus-great-empty.html?campaign_id=3&emc=edit_MBAU_p_20200323&instance_id=17005&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=90088204&section=whatElse&segment_id=22648&te=1&user_id=b1ade9e6a47d2851775dbb1f19af8aa3

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I mentioned the trouble I had yesterday after the humidifier in my CPAP boiled dry with tap water in it. Above is the reservoir showing the residue from just one night! This is very fine stainless steel, so all those crystals are what came out of the tap water. Ugh! Luckily it’s easy to clean and I found another bottle of distilled water I’d forgotten about, so last night was easy. It just shows that I do need distilled water. I might go over to Woolies now and see if I can get more.

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Later, 4.15pm: busy day. I finally phoned the RAC to get them to come and look at the MX-6. The guy came very promptly (within 30 mins) and didn’t waste any time on the idea of a brake switch causing the problem.

He took a plastic cover off the engine and worked directly on the cable from the gear shift to the auto-trans box on the end of the engine. His conclusion is that something has broken or dislodged in the box and needs to be fixed. Thinking the engine might have to come out to get at the transmission, I groaned at the prospective cost, but he said it could be quite easy to fix in situ.

Then, as I’m an Ultimate Level Gold card member, he said I could get a “free” tow to the RAC service place in Joondalup. They will do an assessment and give me a quote. If it’s too high, I can decline and there’s no cost. He said I can still drive the car as it will go into all the gears except Park. Reverse seems to have freed up. It would be legal to drive. But being unable to get to Park, the key is stuck in the ignition so it wouldn’t be advisable to leave it anywhere too long.

So I should know tomorrow morning what the damage could be. It’s too good a car to write off, even if it is an expensive fix. Them’s the breaks.

A tow truck arrived about 20 minutes later and off she went on the back of a truck. Crumbs, they make it easy. Hydraulics, steel cable from a motor driven drum, fabric, nylon straps and she was up on the truck within 10 minutes. First time I’ve seen it done. And the last time, I hope.

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Then I went to the Woolies shopping centre at Butler Central. To be honest, with my head full of car things, I forgot to take the mask and gloves. Once again, NO-ONE was masked or gloved. It was moderately busy and NOT ONE shop was closed. Everything was open, as if there was no such thing as a corona virus.

Again, I started using a trolley, forgetting to think about sanitising the handles. And now that I’m home and everything’s unpacked, I’ve completely forgotten to wash my hands. Damn, it’s hard to change habits.

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A busy day and a hot day. It’s 34degC and there’s not a breath of wind.

Notice the oddity in the picture above? Apart from being Kangaroo Tail Soup? Where are the forepaws in the middle two tails? Different logos for different aircraft. I’ve never seen that before.

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Well, what a strange world to be in. None of us has ever known anything like this, confined to our homes for the foreseeable future. Not even in wartime did this apply. It’s like a science fiction novel. I’m fine, I have plenty of non-perishable food and even if I ran low, a period of enforced starvation rations would do me a world of good. I really, really need to lose weight but that’s another topic.

Thank goodness the weather is beautiful, even hot. Mid thirties most of this week in Perth. It wouldn’t be so nice if it was cold. I tend to feel less happy in cold grey weather, but there’s no sign of that, so Don’t Worry, Be Happy, eh?

I don’t think there’s any reason I couldn’t go out for a walk around the lake, or drive down to the beach access, get a bit of sea air. As long as I keep away from people and don’t touch railings and things without rubber gloves, no problem, I think. Could it actually reach the stage where police and troops were patrolling the streets with coercive powers? It’s a possibility. I could shake my walking stick at them.

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One of the things I’d like to do to while away the days (as if I needed things to do!!) is make a slideshow of a folder I keep on my desktop called Great Images from the Web. Whenever I see a fantastic image that I reckon I’ll want to see again, I save it there. I have 400 images in this folder!

Unfortunately I usually don’t have permission to use them or any way to credit the author or photographer. If I found my images were being used commercially or passed off as someone else’s work I’d be upset, but in this case I would be showing them as examples of great work and in no way claiming ownership. I hope to escape censure. Watch this space.

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I was in Coles last Friday and came across a Navy person, a woman, in full camouflage uniform with all the badges and she had shoulder boards with two gold stripes, a Lieutenant. I felt bold enough to say hi and that the Navy is my favourite service. When I was 12 and 13 in the Sea Cadets in Rockingham in 1959/60/61, I wanted to join the navy but the minimum sign-on was 12 years in those days, which was a lifetime for someone my age. They didn’t want people who wore glasses either.

I asked this officer why the Navy needs camouflage uniforms out on the ocean. She grinned and admitted she didn’t know. Nice little chat.

But with sea level rises, I didn’t know we would have the RAN at our door this far up the coast. Maybe she was doing reconnaissance for a new base up higher.

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I missed out on a good buy on Facebook Market last night, a Sony Mini Disc hi-fi deck for $120 in Yanchep. The ad said it was a bit reluctant to eject but it looked in good condition. I was going to buy it.

But the woman wouldn’t tell me where to come or give out her phone number (sign o’ the times, I guess) and I eventually said, “Well, will you bring it to me?” That seemed OK, briefly, but then she said her husband had a guy at his work interested, so this morning I found I’d missed out. Frustrating.

Umm, I actually already have three MiniDisc recorders so I hardly need another one, it’s just that this one would have matched my other components, i.e. it’s not black. One hi-fi deck size is black, one deck is a little portable and the other is built into a small all-in-one unit.

I started browsing eBay this morning but ouch! The fall of the A$ against the US$ has driven prices up markedly. Things from overseas are unaffordable now. Oh woe is me. Be thankful for small mercies.

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It’s hot! Time for some aircon.

No, you didn’t miss a day yesterday. It was a dull day, nothing happened, there was nothing to write about. If I don’t write for a time, don’t worry about me. If I get sick, you’ll know.

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This from a science journalist that I’ve been reading for many years (so I trust him), Ed Yong, in The Atlantic:

One of the few mercies during this crisis is that, by their nature, individual coronaviruses are easily destroyed. Each virus particle consists of a small set of genes, enclosed by a sphere of fatty lipid molecules, and because lipid shells are easily torn apart by soap, 20 seconds of thorough hand-washing can take one down. Lipid shells are also vulnerable to the elements; a recent study shows that the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, survives for no more than a day on cardboard, and about two to three days on steel and plastic. These viruses don’t endure in the world. They need bodies.

That’s still no excuse to be silly about touching things, but it does explain what the virus is and how it works. And how you can minimise your chances of letting it get you.

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A friend posted on Facebook that he has a measuring stick that’s attached to his belt to ensure his 1.5m safe distance from people. I’ve got an environmentally friendly way: I save water by not showering. That way my body odour keeps people away, at least 2m. 🙂

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Uurrrrgh, I awoke at 6am with a bad pain in my nose. The CPAP humidifier water had evaporated away leaving it bone dry, which irritates the nasal passages right back into the sinuses. I’ve had this happen quite a few times in the years I’ve been using CPAP but this was a bad one. It reminded me of the time in York in 2008 on my UK and Europe trip. I didn’t bother to use the humidifier and awoke in my cramped hotel room in the same condition, with severe pain in my nose. You just have to wait it out.

However, I’m annoyed with this new, costly Resmed Autoset. I’m finding random changes in the settings. When I felt the bottom of the humidifier, it was almost too hot to touch. No wonder the water boiled away. Yet I’ve got the heating level set at 3/10. This is the second time it’s happened. I’m also finding that sometimes the air won’t shut off automatically when I take the mask off. Yet it’s on Auto. I don’t expect these kinds of troubles from a $1600 machine.

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I’ve also run out of distilled water for the humidifier. It’s just the de-ionised water you use in irons and kettles, but Coles was devoid of it on Friday. I can use tap water but it has a slight smell and leaves a small residue in the evaporator. That says something about the quality of our water, doesn’t it? I notice that if I let my hair get fully wet in the shower, it goes tough. Something in the water?

That means I’ll need to go out today to find more (water, that is, not hair). I have some simple, single layer masks from the 2008 flu epidemic. That’ll do. I’ll keep my distance and wear the dishwashing gloves I bought on Friday, big enough to fit my hands.

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Since I’ve bought a second hand Super Audio CD (SACD) capable player, I’m now on the lookout for SACD discs. I think I’ve got one or two on my shelves from years ago but I can’t remember. I’ll have to search through the 1,000 CDs in my collection.

Anyway, while in JB HiFi on Friday I asked what happened to their small selection of SACD and Super Audio DVDs they used to have. I never bought them because I couldn’t play them then. Their answer was, they’re gone, they know not where. “Best to look on-line.” Yeah but, I’m trying to patronise my local shops.

Anyway I bought a CD, Mahler Symphony no. 4 because it’s from a series that I saw reviewed in Hi Fi News and Record Review magazine just a few days ago. It’s a very recent recording, and it was marked down to $9.99, bargain! When I got it home, I found it’s even better because it’s an SACD. I didn’t notice when I bought it. Bonus! Now I’ll have to go back and search through their bins for more.

What’s SACD? From Wikipedia:

The SACD format offers more audio channels (e.g. surround sound), a higher bit rate, and longer playing time than a conventional CD. The SACD is designed to be played on an SACD player; however, a hybrid SACD contains a Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA) track so that it may also be played on a standard CD player.

SACD is a disc of identical physical dimensions as a standard compact disc; [but] the density of the disc is the same as a DVD. There are three types of disc:
Hybrid: Hybrid SACDs are encoded with a 4.7 GB DSD layer (also known as the HD layer), as well as a PCM (Red Book) audio layer readable by most conventional Compact Disc players.
Single-layer: A DVD-5 encoded with one 4.7 GB DSD layer.
Dual-layer: A DVD-9 encoded with two DSD layers, totalling 8.5 GB, and no PCM layer. Dual-layer SACDs can store nearly twice as much data as a single-layer SACD.
Unlike hybrid discs, both single- and dual-layer SACDs are incompatible with conventional CD players and cannot be played on them. A stereo SACD recording has an uncompressed rate of 5.6 Mbit/s, four times the rate for Red Book CD stereo audio.

So that’s why a couple of my older CDs would never play.

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As I said, I’ve abandoned any thoughts of driving north but I got an email on Friday, two weeks after I enquired (!) about having mains power available in a Broome camping area. Two weeks! Typical Aussie attitude, file under LBW, Let the Buggers Wait.

Anyway, the guy said he’s 69 and uses CPAP too, so knows what I need and even though the sites are described as unpowered, he said he could probably arrange something. I replied that that was then, this is now. Can’t travel, sorry. Maybe next year.

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More later; I need some more sleep, having gone lights out at about 12.30am and being forced to get up at 6am.

It’s been an interesting day so far. I just hope it doesn’t get any more interesting.

I went out to my car, the Verada, parked in the laneway this morning and noticed the driver’s door slightly ajar. Uh oh. I’d opened the bonnet yesterday to top up the power steering fluid and must have forgotten to lock the car afterwards.

I found the glove box open and also the centre arm rest. Nothing missing, nothing to steal in the car. But thankfully, I noticed straight away that the one thing of value, my TomTom GPS was still in place on the windscreen, just partly hidden behind a reflective sun screen. Either the thief didn’t want it or just didn’t see it. It would have been dark.

Once I’d had a good look and sworn a bit, I just slowly drove off and as I turned a corner the rear passenger door swung open – it wasn’t closed. Then I noticed the door warning light and found the tailgate was also unlocked, so he’d had a good look through. But as I said, there was nothing in the car worth stealing, except the GPS and he didn’t take that. Another near miss.

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OK, I got to the medical centre for my podiatrist appointment and found a Stop sign and a small queue to reach a table outside the entry door with a suited-up and masked nurse. We had to join the queue, keeping 1,5m spacing, read a declaration, use hand sanitiser, then when we reached the nurse, read and sign a declaration while she took our temperature with a non-contact thermometer. Phew!

My temperature was 36.6C, so I’m a cool customer.

No other dramas inside. I asked and they said no, it’s just that they’re required to follow a protocol. Fair enough, I’m happy about it. It’s for my protection as much as theirs.

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Then I went on to my usual Clarkson shopping centre for my usual Friday lunch and grocery shop. The car park was pretty full and although the centre seemed quieter than usual, there were plenty of people there.

I used the Coles hand sanitiser which is always there to clean our trolley handles, but apart from that, everything looked normal. Things will probably change in coming months but it’s OK so far.

However, things have really changed just in general in the past two or three weeks haven’t they? I’m not alarmed but wow, I reckon this is just the beginning. We’ll see a lot more changes in the rest of the year.

I thank my lucky stars that I have no problems – no job to lose, a regular pension income which I can’t imagine will stop, no debts to speak of, no dependants to worry about, a comfortable home that I’m in no danger of losing, plenty to do and enough money to do it and enjoy my life. And I live in one of the most pleasant places in the world. What more could I ask?

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Actually, in my opinion, this is the beginning of the end of the world, or the end of this civilisation. Dramatic? Yeah, maybe, but …

All the signs are there:

• There’s no question that the planet is heating beyond acceptable limits. It’s scientific fact, not open to debate any longer;
• This heating won’t stop, even if the world suddenly became virtuous and did the right things. Not while Trump and Bolsonaro and the Liberals here are in power;
• The drought in the east was the first major climate event;
• That led to the catastrophic bushfires last summer;
• There’s not a week goes by without more news of sea level rise, ocean degradation, declining fish stocks, dying coral, animal and insect extinctions… the list is endless. We are killing the Earth;
• Now a small change in a piece of DNA in an overcrowded and unhygienic meat market in China has set off a pandemic;
• That’s leading to a major crash of the world’s financial systems;
• That means a worldwide depression with mass unemployment and real hardship.

These are just a few signs. I haven’t mentioned the incredible greed of the eight billionaires who hold half the world’s wealth. Half the world’s wealth in the hands of only eight men, men who screw their employees and pay almost no tax.

I am totally pessimistic. I do not see this civilisation surviving when it goes on this way. The Earth and oceans are being poisoned. The planet is out of balance. I pity the young kids, they are going to face absolutely huge problems which will not be overcome, as long as the billionaires are there blocking the way. There will be catastrophe on catastrophe. I’m not joking, I’m deadly serious. Sorry.

Day 2 of this ad hoc diary. I’m not sure I’ll write every day but we’ll see.

Notable today is the quiet. It’s like a Sunday. There’s noticeably less traffic noise. I assume this is because people are staying home. There are also no sirens. That’s one good thing that’s come out of this so far. I hope it reflects reality.

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From ABC News this morning, regarding four new Covid-19 infections recorded in Perth yesterday:

“Three of the cases had travelled from overseas — one from the UK, one via Bali on the way to and from the UK, and one from Austria.”

My partner is in Vienna, having not returned to Bali, thank goodness. She’s more or less confined to her apartment since the authorities there have imposed quite severe restrictions on crowds. She says they are not supposed to gather in groups of more than five people. Luckily it’s spring and the weather is warming up, but the temperature yesterday was only about 10degC. She’s in quite a central area of the city, close to the Danube and I think if you have to be confined somewhere, Vienna in spring and summer would be one of the nicer places to be. But since all the concerts and operas have suspended their performances, and the museums and art galleries have probably closed, there may not be much to do after all. Books, books, Netflix, DVDs, computer, plenty to do.

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I heard on the radio, ABC Radio, so I trust it, that there’s a new scam going on. The scammers have got the phone numbers of some people like me who have home help coming to clean weekly or whatever.

They phone the target and say, “Hi, this is Silver Chain [or whatever], your regular cleaner is sick today so we’re sending a replacement. Could you please just confirm your address?” So the trusting elderly person gives out their address, and soon after a big guy arrives and ransacks the house for money and valuables. How nice.

I’m never an advocate of capital punishment, but it’s time we brought back public caning for scum like this. Or public shaming – the stocks, or shackling them to a lamp post in the street for about 8 hours with a sign to say why they are there.

I have someone I know in the USA who has been writing quite often on Facebook lately. But she’s writing and repeating things that are mostly just hearsay and unverified “medical” advice. She’s emphasising how this pandemic is nothing compared to all the deaths from other annual events and diabetes etc. That’s not what the health professionals are saying. The point about this is that we’re only just at the beginning and it could get away from us in a big way if we’re not careful enough.

So I feel she should pipe down and stop spreading rumours and pseudo medical advice. But I’m not sure if I should write to tell her so. I don’t know her that well, even though we’re related. I’d only do it in private anyway.

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I did decide to go out yesterday, to a local auto parts shop to buy some power steering additive for a leaking power steering pump in Vera, the Verada. Were any of the staff wearing masks? No. Was I? No. I did buy two pairs of gardening gloves as substitutes for the thin rubber ones that tear when I try to put ’em on.

I have my regular podiatrist appointment at the medical centre tomorrow, so I’ll be interested to see how protected they are when I arrive. I intend to ask if this year’s ‘flu vaccination has come in and book an appointment if it has. I have it every year and it doesn’t worry me. I don’t get ‘flu either.

I read the other day that when real ‘flu hits you, it happens within about 90 seconds. One minute you’re feeling OK, the next you’re feeling as if you’ve been hit by a bus, with body aches and pains and headaches. And you feel you can’t get out of bed, even to eat.

I can honestly say, I’ve never had this happen that I can remember. That’s why I feel pretty safe right now.

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So much for my idea of driving North. The government are saying, “Don’t”. Broome was specifically mentioned and there are two sides, two views about it. The first is that Broome depends on the winter crowd for most of their annual income to see them through the tropical summer cyclone season. The other is that they, and the government, don’t want visitors possibly bringing the virus into the town, which sits quite isolated from the world.

Anyway, I’ve decided the safest place to be is right here.

Being one of the ones who definitely should self-isolate, having three co-morbidities as they say, I thought I might try to do a daily diary of any little things. You never know, this might be my last writings for posterity to pore over. Samuel Pepys, move over.

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Crumbs! This from Schwartz Media, publishers of the Saturday Paper and The Monthly, this morning (I subscribe to the Saturday Paper):

At Schwartz Media, we are anticipating and preparing for a significant downturn in advertising. The arts sector, which our titles do so much to support, has a freeze on shows to promote. The travel industry is in lockdown. Others will follow. In the short term, a third of the revenue we use to make our titles will likely disappear.

It is a perverse outcome of this crisis that just as quality journalism becomes more necessary, its production becomes more precarious. What we need now is calm and trustworthy information.

This comes on top of the shutdown of Australian Associated Press AAP, which is being called a disaster for news and journalism, and the slow strangulation of the ABC by this nasty, hostile, anti-free speech government. Does anyone realise or remember that there used to be 10 minute news bulletins at many hourly points in the day, and now they are only 5 minutes? And that AM and PM used to be 1 hour programs, but are now only 30 minutes?

This is the result of this inexorable loss of government funding for the ABC, as prescribed by the IPA, that cabal of hard right wing destroyers. The parliamentary Liberal Party are doing their bidding. The aim is to cut the ABC so hard that they will be able to privatise them, sell them to a commercial company, and guess who that would be – News Corpse, and Rupert Murdoch. Shit!!!

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As the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good. (I wrote that in full because it’s quite possible that younger readers, if I have any, will never have heard of that expression. Ask your grandparents.)

I’ve got quite a lot of camera equipment that I’ve been meaning to sell. One of the best and easiest ways is to sell to a company called KEH in the USA. They specialise in second hand equipment and constantly need new “old” stock to keep the dollars flowing. They have an on-line form for you to list your stuff and it gives an estimate of what they’ll pay. If you decide to go ahead, you package all your stuff and send it to them. The postage from here will cost quite a bit, unfortunately. Assuming your items pass their assessments, they pay into your nominated account. There’s no chance to haggle though. It’s take our price or leave it.

As the Aussie dollar falls against the US$, if I sell my stuff in the US, I get more for it. If the rate was US$1 = A$1 for example, I’d only get maybe A$50 for that old $50 camera. But if the US$1 = A$0.59, then I get A$84.74.

Therefore one of the things I’m going to do in my self-isolation will be to package all that surplus gear and make some money on it. It’s a crime, the low prices they pay, but I doubt I’d do any better on Facebook Marketplace. It means I’ll have to go to the post office a few times, but I’ll seal myself up somehow.

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Having said that, I keep a box of rubber gloves as a normal thing. I never usually use them but I tried a pair just now and there’s no chance I could get them on. My hands are too big and the glove just tears as I try to pull it on. I’ll have to use dishwashing gloves, the heavier ones. Which I’ll have to go out and buy!

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Come to think of it, I’ve been advised to use Nulon additive in the Verada’s power steering pump to stop the leak. I’ll have to go out to buy that, so right now is a good time.

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Up here in the wild north, I’m not having any trouble buying my groceries. I have the Coles just across the car park; a local IGA, which is often almost deserted; Aldi 1.5Km away; a big Woolies another 300m further; and big shops at Clarkson, 5Km away. I must admit I was a bit surprised at Aldi on Monday:

I chatted to a shelf loader and he said there’s no shortage of deliveries, it’s just people coming in early and taking everything. They must be freezing it, I assume. Serve them right if it’s not properly frozen and they get food poisoning.

I saw one guy with a trolley of UHT milk; he had at least 24 2litre cartons.

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In the news yesterday, people are still flying to Bali, despite the warnings. The report said two full planes flew out on Monday alone with a total of nearly 500 passengers. Interviewed, one couple said they had booked their holiday months ago and they didn’t care, they were going.

This is all very well, but when they come back, they could be carriers. We know the virus is active in Bali, with one (reported) death so far. And the government are saying, come home while you still can, before the flights stop and before we close the borders. Typical bogans. Do they realise they will have to self-isolate, by law, for 14 days when they get back? That could well affect their income and so much for having a relaxing Bali holiday, they’ll be stressed out by their enforced isolation once they get back here. Duh!

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As for my self isolation, what’s different? I spend most of my time isolated anyway. For sure, I would miss my twice weekly lunches at the shopping centre, but I’ll probably find a way to go safely.

As for being bored, hah! I have a million things to do. So many unread books piled up. So many unwatched DVDs. So many Netflix programs to watch. So many images to upload to Picfair (allowed 20 per day). So many images to print and frame. So much writing to be done on my work history and memoirs. So much gardening to do. So much design and construction on my “one-of-these-days” model railway. And so on. I’m not bored!

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There was a door knock at about 10am and my amplifier has arrived. The guy had put it down on the doormat and as it’s a big, 17Kg box I asked him if he’d lift it and put it onto a small trolley that I had ready.

He was quite reluctant. He said they are not allowed to come into the house, fair enough, but I reassured him and he finally did it. No big deal, he didn’t have to cross the threshold, but he was ready to leave, pronto.

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Ouch, ouch, ouch, oooowww. I’ve just had my latest water bill – $565.08! As they say on the card, I must have a water leak.

I’ve had an email today about it, how to test, and it says there’s possibly a rebate if the leak is not my fault. But to get onto it, quick sticks. OK. It’s simple to check.

Yes, I was aware of a kitchen tap leak, but that was fixed about three weeks ago, and both my toilet cisterns have very slow hisses and drips, as they don’t quite shut off, and I’m careful to minimise it. But I didn’t think the damage would be that big.. There goes most of my $750 government pensioners’ gift.

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I keep thinking I’m finished, but then a new thought pops up. I’ve been using Phenergan, the anti-histamine, on my GP’s advice for my right ear problem and it works wonder for sleep. It makes me groggy in the morning for a while (until about 11am), but I sleep well.

I ran out last night so had to do without it. I was a bit worried, but I needn’t have been. I dropped off normally and had a good sleep, waking at 7.15am with no bleariness of the eyes. This is good!

And the ear problem? It seems to have cleared up, thanks for asking.

Now to open my big parcel!

Hmmmm. How about this for a scenario for a novel?

CHAOS

A virus sweeps the Earth. It becomes clear that it mainly kills the elderly. Healthy younger adults recover easily and children seem to be unaffected. The result is that population demographics are shifted, world-wide, in favour of the young and especially children and adolescents.

Elderly people in aged care homes are simply left to die because there are no nurses for them and no carers are willing to go there. Healthy people with families are too frightened to care for them.

The disease progresses over several years, losing none of its toxicity, perhaps even increasing its virulence. Since there are now far fewer old people, it becomes clear that the budgets of many countries greatly improve. The long feared problem of the burden of ageing populations seems to be solved. After the disease has ravaged populations for a couple of years, it becomes clear that money is which was earmarked for increased numbers of aged pensioners and increased spending on aged care facilities is freed up to spend on the health and welfare of much younger populations.

Actual news quotes: Authorities have since relaxed restrictions, established an emergency hotline to help doctors and invested millions in private companies developing quick-turnaround tests. (My emphasis.)

It also establishes a testing system that looks somewhat like South Korea’s, with big-name corporations operating drive-thru clinics.

The average emergency room visit in the US costs $2,246 AUD— and that’s without the standard COVID-19 precautions like isolated rooms and specialised care.

Taking the time to get tested is another financial obstacle.

Nearly one-third of all Americans do not receive paid sick leave, and the current tests can take days to yield answers.

America is waking up to the fact that it has almost no public capacity to deal with this crisis. The crisis builds into public panic. Much of industry shuts down, starved of workers. Yet many, many people are forced to work, regardless of their illness, since they have no sick leave pay, no social security, no annual leave stored up. It’s go to work or your family starves. There is no government support and proper medical care is far too costly. Therefore the virus spreads with almost no control.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour and a Professor of Public Policy at U. Calif. “Instead of a public health system, we have a private for-profit system for individuals lucky enough to afford it and a rickety social insurance system for people fortunate enough to have a full-time job.“

My book scenario continues: As the disease progresses, it kills millions, including hundreds of thousands of hospital and medical staff. The U.S. in particular, enters a crisis caused by years of neglect by the Trump administration, including the disbandment of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Pandemic Response Team of professionals which has left the already overloaded U.S. medical and hospital system unprepared.

The U.S. government relies on private companies to come to the fore by providing testing kits, essential medical supplies and rooms in privately owned and run hospitals. Since these are all in the hands of mega-millionaires and billionaires who see this as a very profitable opportunity, only the well off get help and treatment, those who can pay.

The result is chaos in America with the mega rich and the billionaires profiting from the crisis.

The disease then mutates and becomes even more contagious, even more severe. The vaccines are nowhere near ready and due to the mutation are rendered largely useless.

It becomes clear that although children don’t get sick, they are still major carriers of the virus. Parents are faced with the need to keep their children out of school, off the streets, at home but at the same time, they must practice isolation from their own children. They must especially keep their children from contact with any vulnerable people, the elderly including grand parents and anyone with any sickness at all.

The children do what children do, try to escape these restrictions, so the police and armed forces become involved, policing the streets, keeping children away from any public areas and returning them to their parents. Anger flares, escapes grow, chaos grows.

Geopolitical issues arise. European countries close borders completely, even within the Schengen area of the EU. Troops patrol the borders although the disease takes its toll even among the soldiers. Poorer countries see disproportionate power and funding being used as political weapons and react. Mass migration attempts begin from poor countries, the Middle East and Africa, dwarfing anything seen up to now.

Russia, which had kept a very low profile, decides it is time to show some muscle while the US is in chaos. Russian troops annex parts of Hungary and more of Ukraine. The West is powerless to do anything, being preoccupied with the disease controls.

China sees its opportunity to tighten its grip on the South China sea, prohibiting passage through the Strait of Taiwan without express permission. Taiwan goes to a high state of military alert since the prohibition on shipping blocks access to its ports. The USA makes threatening talk, but China knows that there is little chance of any military response.

Etc etc etc. What do you think? Anyone is welcome to write this novel based on my outline. Just acknowledge me, OK?

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I’m fine. As I’ve said, in all my life I don’t think I’ve ever had even the normal winter ‘flu. I’ve had a bad cold and I get a mild one each year, but never anything serious. And as they say, you’ve got about as much chance of winning Lotto as catching Covid-19.

There have been, what, 28 cases in the whole of WA? That’s 0.0014%.

I had to laugh this morning – there’s talk of closing our border with SA and the NT! By road, that is, and even by air. Oh, I laugh. I’ve been joking about that for years. We should require people from the eastern states to show passports to get into WA.

The problem is, the reverse could apply, in even worse form. Hmmm.

I think I’ll delay my plan to escape North, though. I don’t like the idea of being away from competent and comprehensive medical and/or nursing help. Maybe later.

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I’ve bought a beautiful Super Audio (SACD)/DVD player to go with my new s/h Sony amp:

The amp was going to come ‘sometime this week’ and as there was a medical appointment cancellation at midday for one hour, I grabbed it. When was the amp delivered? In that time slot! Grrrrr. They don’t say when they’re coming. Now I’ve had to rebook the delivery and they have to make another trip out here tomorrow. This is crazy and infuriating. They have three ways to contact me: phone, SMS and email. Do they try? No. Grrr. So it’s coming tomorrow.

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My Mazda MX-6 is laid up in the garage, my garage that is, with an auto transmission problem. It won’t let me move the selector into Reverse and then through to Park. It’s in Neutral, but that means the key is stuck in the ignition switch. Since I can’t reverse it, it’s immobile.

Knowledgeable friends tell me there’s a switch or solenoid on the brake pedal that’s there to ensure you have your foot on the brake before you can select Reverse. That’s to stop you putting it into R while the car’s moving. Good idea. Anyway, they say to get that looked at. Also a good idea.

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I had the roof lining in the Verada replaced yesterday. Advertised on Facebook at $100, it turned out to cost $230. It gets your attention, that’s the thing.

It turned out to be in Canning Vale. That’s 1 hour’s drive! It’s freeway all the way except for South St at the end, but I’m tired of all the roadworks on the freeway. They’ve been going on for years. It’s both north and south of the river. How long is this going to go on? Large parts of the freeway are down to 80Kmh or even 60Kmh in a few places.

The guy was a very offhand kind, as if he’s doing you a favour. He works at his home and there were five cars parked on the road and two in his garage. It’s a wonder he doesn’t get complaints.

Before he started on mine, he asked if I had a plastic bag for him to put all the screws and plastic fittings in. What?! He’s the workman, how come he doesn’t have trays for this? I found him a plastic chamois cloth container.

He said it’s not the glue, it’s the foam that the cloth is glued to that deteriorates and gives way. All cars do it, and none is worse than any other. About 20 years, that’s the life. Foam plastic breaks down, that’s all. That means we’re breathing the breakdown products, though!

Anyway, he had a suitable colour so I walked to the local shops while he did the job, about an hour. He had to be paid in cash (no pay tax, GST, OK?) and when I got in I found two small plastic caps left over on the floor, left over from screw heads. Grrrrr. I can’t see where they’ve come from, so it will have to be.

All in all, would I recommend him? I would not. I wouldn’t use him again. At least the job is done.

Combined with

• the power radio antenna being fixed (thanks Danny!),
• the LH headlight being polished clean and clear,
• the new RH driving light being fitted in place of the smashed one,
• the RH tail light assembly being replaced,
• the new brakes and
• the new exhaust;
• a new battery;

it’s now a fine, good condition car. There’s a very intermittent misfire occasionally, and the power steering pump needs topping up from time to time, but all else iss gut. Good enough to sell? Maybe.