Get in the ute, it's time to not make a point

Diary of the last ten hours

7.35am

A busy morning, and I see the mailbag is full. So let’s turn things over to Uncle Dave, the man with the answers to everyone’s questions, and I’ll see you later today.


Hi Uncle Dave

Thanks to the magic of fiction I’m writing to you from tomorrow morning. Hello! 

I’m on my way into town and I’ve hit a queue of grumpy looking bastards in utes. They’ve shoved these huge placards into the back, so that means the dogs look pissed off too.

Some of them look like farmers, one of them looks like Judith Collins and a lot of them look like swivel-eyed Facebook nutters because I doubt that any sane person would believe such a thing about 5G and John Campbell and hamsters, let alone write it on a placard.

Anyway my question is, do you know why they’re complaining? And will I be late for my shift?

Clare the Hard Working Nurse

Hi Clare, 

It’s a bit hard to explain, but here goes. The pissed-off farmers say they support doing something about the climate crisis, just not any of the things the government’s asking them to do.

And they say that every five minutes the government’s asking them to do something else. And also big bureaucracies get on their tits. And also they feel picked on. 

You might want to take another route, they tend to go on a bit once they get started.

Uncle Dave

Thanks Dave

That sort of helps. But I don't really get it, I thought farmers were still getting years to make changes before they have to pay any sort of emission fee or, you know, whatever?

Clare

Well yes, that’s right. But they may have to pay a bit of a fee if they buy a brand new ute, if it’s not clean enough on emissions. The government is doing that so that they can encourage people to shift over to e-vehicles.

Uncle Dave

How much money are we talking?

Clare

Oh, say, a few thousand on a new ute that might cost you $50,000?

Uncle Dave

So they only pay a fee if they buy a new ute, and only if its emissions are a bit dirty? That doesn’t sound like they're being picked on, really. Not when there’s a climate crisis going on.

Clare

Well no, it doesn't. But don't bother trying to tell Judith Collins that. 

Dave

Hi Uncle Dave

I don't usually write a question like this but my flatmates spiked my kombucha and left me immobilised in my chair and turned the radio to Magic Talk and left me there for three days. Assholes. 

Anyway, now I have this nagging idea in the back of my mind and I know it shouldn’t make sense but I feel like I should be moving to some country that isn't as completely absolutely hopeless as ours at dealing with the ‘Rona. Any tips?

Matthew

Hi Matthew,

You’re right, that makes no sense at all so it’s definitely Magic Talk you were listening to.

Just to reassure you, here’s a quick review of the state of play:

Sydney: rooted, if they’re not careful.

They do their lockdowns like the five-second rule, so they say yeah we’re in lockdown, but they still go to malls and get haircuts.

Honestly if their strategy had a motto it would be: I’ll bring a condom next time, babe, promise.

Melbourne: rooted, if they’re not careful because they’re only nine hours’ drive from Sydney.

London: completely rooted without any hope. 

To pick one tweet at random here's a taste of the way things are right now: 

Four people from my team went to Wembley separately and all have tested positive for COVID19 another three went down pubs and have tested positive. That is 7 out of a team of 10. 

Nearly half the population remains to be fully vaccinated at this point. People with other conditions are already being turned away from hospitals and yet their PM wants to act like they’re free to cough over one another like it’s VE Day.

He fancies he’s Churchill, but really he's Asquith in 1915, just shunting the expendables onto the trains and along the production/destruction line to the Western Front; a man with no conscience and no care.

So-called Freedom Day stands as one of the cruellest pieces of deceitful political rhetoric ever uttered. 

USA: Still quite a bit rooted by the wreckage left by Former Guy. Worse, Former Guy continues to work hard to be Future Guy, in which regard he is receiving eager and constant spiritual hand relief from conscience-free Republicans.

Netherlands: beating a swift retreat from the risk of being rooted.

They're reinstating work-from-home guidelines just weeks after lifting them, because COVID-19 infections are surging. Their PM says: What we thought would be possible, turned out not to be possible in practice. 


So:

Next time someone tells you we need to prepare to leave the Hermit Kingdom, tell them: it's not a goddamn hermit kingdom, it's the best current proposition for living somewhere near a state of normality.

Also: you would have to have rocks in your head to ease up too soon.

Also: if your asshole flatmates aren't scanning wherever they go, tell them to get a goddam clue.

Also, friends don't make friends listen to Peter Williams.

Cheers, Dave

10.45am

Another day in America, another day of revelations about the perturbing state of things.

According to the forthcoming book I Alone Can Fix It, top military leaders discussed a plan to resign one by one rather than carry out dangerous orders in the event of an attempted coup by Trump and his allies after the November election. 

To refrain an earlier item: these people are stripping away voter rights and laying out as smooth a runway as they can for their pet monster to have another run.

And to further refrain an earlier item, Mr Travis Allen has something emblematic to say:

I never thought that during a pandemic that half of the country would be fighting on the side of the virus

11.35am

Okay that’s enough dispiriting stuff for one day. Let’s turn our attention to Feilding. Today we have a spectacle.

Item One

On Fridays in Feilding the saleyards get busy and so do the trucks. Viewers, start your engines.

Item Two

The other day I invited readers: take a selfie next time you’re passing through the old hometown.

This morning old friend and MTAF reader Harvey Hilliard answered the call. Cheers Harvey! 

Feilding rocks, writes Harvey, and just like that we have a name for the feature.

Next time you're in Friendly Feilding Where The Parking’s Easy, do please take a moment for a selfie and email it here, marked:

Feilding Rocks

Att: Uncle Dave

Now that I post it, I’m recalling that Mr Damian Christie did one of these.

Fine old pub that. Sat outside it one night as a kid listening to a cover band doing Smoke on The Water. Possibly that’s where the doomed fascination with drink began.

Anyway:

Selfie

Feilding Rocks

Att: Uncle Dave

2.05pm

Recommended event. Second and last alert. This is a most excellent piece of writing. I doubt anyone has ever written a tauter scene inside a 747. And they’re not even airborne.

Loop Tracks, with Sue Orr.

2.15pm

Bonus I just found, in the course of verifying Pan AM services in 1978: a 1970 Pathé News feature about scenic modern beautiful New Zealand.

Things sure were simpler up on Waltons Mountain back then.

Note: contains gobsmacking moments of casual sexism. Cannot recall when I last heard someone say the world and his wife, but then I’m not the kind of person to get locked  in a room with Magic Talk.

4.20pm

Another excellent pick from Mr Graeme Tuckett