6.05am
I am at that welcome stage of being crook where you are no longer counting the hours to your next paracetamol.
Hello readers of the free editions! To bring you up to date, I have been crook as a dog but I am not the 58 year old Devonport man of the hour.
I am however a man of that vintage who got tested by his GP that same afternoon and came back negative and boy am I relieved I did, because once you know it's in your hood and you happen to also be hacking and coughing and hacking, well, imagine.
8.05am
On Facetime with our daughter who is having her morning coffee. She gestures at the apartments across the road and says she usually holds to the code that snitches get stitches but she and her partner have been watching this dude running his apartment like a goddam open home and fuck that shit.
She wonders aloud where one might make a report. By the time I’m texting her the URL she’s saying cheers we already filed it.
Here’s the address, should you too have a neighbour who believes the rules do not apply.
9.33am
Hannah My Lady Tamaki has been on the social media saying No vaccines for us TYVM.
Cheers for your civic contribution there Hannah. Shall we explore Psalm 91 then?
I’m imagining her muting the 200 inch screen to say Brian we need to talk.
I’m imagining Brian saying: Hon, I’m just looking, I don't want to buy one.
And her saying: I don’t mean the yacht, you can go back to watching in a minute. This is about God taking care of us. You need to know this for Sunday, here, read this.
Bishop works his way through the words.
He reads:
Psalm 91
I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.’
Hey I could change that to he is my refuge and my JetSki and my Bentley! How about that?
Hannah smiles and says nothing.
He smiles back, keeps smiling, until he realises she means no and presses on.
He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler
And from the perilous pestilence.
He shall cover you with His feathers.
He looks up:
that sounds way
gay. Do we want feathers?
Hannah smiles and says nothing
He says, okay but don't say I didn’t warn you.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,
Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
He looks at her and says: It keeps saying pestilence, do we need to say it again?
She says: Because the pestilence is the so-called Covid.
God protects us from the so-called Covid. That’s what we’re saying. We don’t need vaccines ‘cos we’ve got God.
Brian says: Oh okay.
Then: But we’ve got our shots as well eh?
She says: Yes, but that’s not the point. Go on.
Brian says: Okay,
A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.
Hey I don't like the sound of that. The bit where they come and throw the money at me on the stage is the whole point isn’t it? It has to come near us or what’s the point?
She says: Keep going.
Brian says:
Only with your eyes shall you look,
And see the reward of the wicked.
Hannah smiles and says: do you get it now?
He looks back and smiles: No.
Hannah sighs. The reward? Do you get it now?
He looks back and smiles and pretends to get it: Well of course.
Then he says: you’ll make sure you underline the bits I need to say louder eh?
9.52am
Listening to Susie Ferguson in for Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon and thinking I like this tone. But when UK corespondent Matthew Parris asserts his scepticism that Incels could be, you know, a thing: I’m saying dude, r u for real?
Karren says: he can be quite naive sometimes.
Dear Matthew Parris, maybe start here and work your way down.
11.38am
You see Kate Hawkesby being quoted and know you shouldn’t read any further.
You know it will be an artless assemblage to be read out in the brief non-advertising minutes of the radio hour that, like her spouse’s, is a vehicle for advertising with reckons that comfort the comfortable and pour scorn on the afflicted.
Her knowledge of the world is informed by few passions and even less intellectual curiosity. The abiding passion that informs her work is a consuming antipathy towards any attractive widely admired woman like say Meghan or Cindy who must surely be faking it and I bet she’s had work done.
So here come a few minutes of scorn for the skilful work of communicating with an entire nation. Like, Kate Hawkesby taking someone else to task for not using sophisticated thinking or language! Like, LOL. OMG. Eye roll.
12.39pm
A hundred years ago when I was in law school those lecturers and professors just impressed the hell out of me. Imagine being that brainy, imagine having a job that cool.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I could be that person, my own self. UNTIL TODAY. Because it now appears AUT will give the job to literally goddam anyone.
I mean they will give you cash money and you will get to stand in front of a theatre of students and tell them I am your law lecturer no seriously they pay me cash money and everything. I even have a door with my name on it, even though the stuff you’re saying to the media is, like, just totally out there man.
For example:
the decision to go into a snap lockdown was an insane policy that probably amounts to a crime against humanity
Like, for real. You don’t even have to have someone holding a gun to your head saying make people ask how AUT chooses its law lecturers, or anything.
You can even say that you don't agree with what the insurrectionists did at Washington, but you understand their frustration and:
I believe the election was stolen
Dreams really do come true!
1.00pm
And the envelope please: the source of the infection and the chains of transmission are all looking pretty clear now and boy is that some relief.
Give us a bit of time to feel god this is looking a good bit less worrying now and then we can move back to saying we keep dodging bullets, like this is not an actual fucking plan that keeps working.
Also, take a bow Scott Morrison, you dismal failure of leadership. If we follow this trail of breadcrumbs back to Sydney and up the chain of failed command what do we find? Well, surprise surprise. Old mate Morrison.
Was thinking just yesterday this is Scotty still giving New Zealand a 100% fucking, even though it’s been two decades since his contract ended.
Quite the influence you have there, pal. Kevin Rudd was right on the money with this.
3.00pm
Meanwhile, readers of MTAF are laying waste to cheese blocks and it’s a joy to see.
And here’s the recipe, from Helen Jackson’s Nana. Cheers, Nana Havill!
4.20pm
I had no cheese so I made a tamarillo clafouti. As you do.
Thankyou. For summaries of my thoughts for the day and inducing FOMO re cheese puffs (alleviated by the provision of the recipe)! It's so cool to be reminded that there really are lovely people out there (cheese puff photos!) Perfect 😍