Into the middle of all this winning saunters the Ghost of Leaders Past
Diary of the last four days
Friday 4.20pm
Turn up in good time to get my first shot of Pfizer because I have been completely duped by the global conspiracy and am here to roll up my sleeve without a second thought.
I say, I’m booked for 5.00pm.
They say, no problem you can get it right now.
They’re good, these global conspiracists. What follows is a model of smooth organised efficiency that makes you think jeez imagine how nice it would be if things could go even half this well when you want to upgrade your phone, or catch the ferry.
You get checked against the database, they hand you your card, you take a seat and wait for your turn. In just a few minutes, you're being shown to a cubicle, taken through the checklist, having it all explained to you, rolling up your sleeve, and then getting a bit of mRna up you. Card in hand you wait twenty minutes to see if you're going to keel over, and then you're on your way.
Didn't feel a thing, can't feel a thing, and now feeling surprisingly good about this extra layer of protection.
In this time of plague, the days feel largely normal. But then you register the feeling of extra protection you’ve acquired and you think: been a bit braced, I guess.
Saturday night
To Warkworth in the rain for a significant birthday party for MTAF reader Margaret - hi Margaret! Kind, happy, generous people making beautiful music. In this time of plague, the days feel largely normal. But then you walk into a room as warm as this and you think: lot of tension in that world outside.
Sunday
Looking at the National party conference and thinking: lot of tension in that world..
Party grandee David Carter, unsuccessful in his run for the party leadership, steps forward to inform the media with refreshing candour that the party’s rooted while this bloke remains in charge and he's taking his bat and ball and all the farming voters and going home. Or words to that effect. It's been a good weekend for David Seymour.
Gripping the podium, Pop-Up leader has plenty of rhetoric to dole out but no actual discernible policy so you can't complain she's not consistent.
Into the middle of all this winning saunters the Ghost of Leaders Past in an open necked shirt and jacket and he's here to toss around a bit of money trader wisdom with that trademark casual disregard for the consequences of goddam anything.
He reckons The Government has to get more creative.
Around the rest of the world, people are not being expected to MIQ for 14 days. There's no reason, when you're double vaccinated, people can't do home isolation and testing.
Oh really? By around the world does he mean the places where large numbers of people are still dying from the virus, or does he mean countries like, say, Australia which is still full-on for MIQ but also has bugger-all slots compared to us, or China where you have to do two weeks MIQ and a week of observation following that?
He's on firmer ground when he turns his dead-fish-eye gaze towards the MIQ booking system.
It’s true it hasn’t been nearly as even or as fair as it could be. It can be galling to watch some people get in thanks to their money and pull while others more deserving remain shut out.
Even though we need to be realistic about how well it could ever go when it's a rationed resource, and therefore some, maybe many, will be disappointed, it surely would help to find some way to prioritise.
So much of this agitation is constructed from the perspective of what I want and what is being denied me. It’s a Koru Lounge perspective of pandemic control: yeah yeah when can I get on my plane, and who's in charge of the Pinot Noir, this one’s a bit average.
When you're taking the perspective of when can we travel again and can’t we get more creative, what gets pushed aside are these questions:
What’s good for us as a whole?
What gets us all through this in the best way, and soonest?
As a country and a global community, how do we get hold of this?
The virus couldn't care less how loaded you are, or where you live, it just wants freedom of movement. Our largest job is to immobilise it. Best leadership would focus us all on that virus and how we get it stopped and tracking, day by day, our progress towards that.
Monday 7.10am
The country is being frozen and there are heartbreaking stories being told and in Greece the flames are portentous of tonight’s climate report and let’s just step away for a moment and give ourselves a break to admire some skill and talent.
7.45am
The outfit formerly known as the Natural Party of Government continues to wrestle hilariously with the mime We Have Our Shit Together.
Todd Muller, who was the actual party leader just over a year ago is now effectively an independent MP.
Meanwhile Chris Bishop has assumed it is safe to say in a Twitter message: I voted against the conversion therapy ban bill but actually I’m hurting inside, cos I’m a GC. He appears not to have considered the possibility that someone receiving that message might say OMG WTF and share it. One might wonder how he could ever persuade himself of this, but we must remember he was once a mouthpiece for the tobacco death industry.
8.10am
Breaking news informs us that a container ship at sea off Tauranga is full of Covid and yay, on we go. This might be a good time to mention something Sir Peter Gluckman has had to say:
Societal cohesion, mental health, wellbeing, and even democracy may all be at stake if lessons are not learned quickly from this pandemic.
We’re wrestling, a lot, with everything coming at us, processing it as we go.
Some of it is whispering to us from the back of our mind and we only realise it was happening as we roll our sleeve back down and find we’re feeling more at ease.
Some of it is making you stop in your tracks and ask what do they even mean, and then you realise people are stuffing notes in their bra and their sneakers.
And some people just leave you asking WTF, as Pop-Up Leader gets on the radio and tells Magic Talk:
In my opinion, having been a minister dealing with chief executives, this guy is good at standing up and talking about COVID. I just think that Ashley Bloomfield is probably a one-trick pony.
Maybe she really believes this.
Maybe she's going misère and just fully trashing the National party to open the way for ACT.
Or maybe it's just some weird mime I don't get.
3.35pm
Someone reminds me the IPCC climate report comes out tonight.
Wondering how much the temperature has risen. Hoping it's not too late to reverse the harm.
Living a bit braced, I guess.
4.20pm
I'm afraid it's far too late to "reverse the harm" of climate change. The best we can hope for is to limit the damage. Given that the worst case is probably apocalyptic, this is a worthy goal. It's a bit like cutting down a pristine native forest. You can put the trees back - eventually - but it will never be the same.
FJK looked half cut during his tv appearance. It's good to see him spouting his rubbish now and then. It reminds me of how lucky we are that he's gone, apart from the malign influence he still exerts with his directorships.