Plague getting in at the borders. Testing that touches the sides.

Diary of the last 10 hours.

Aug 14, 2020

4.35am

The darkest hour is just before dawn. And also the Tui.

Lying here taking stock: how’s the nose, how's the throat. This would be the third morning of waking up to a bit of a runny nose and well you can see where this is going can't you. What will happen next? Will the GP get up my nose? Stay tuned, first we have to listen to the radio.

6.45am

Siri turns on the radio

6.58 am

Birdcall, headlines, a nation waits to learn what comes next.

What will cabinet decide? Will there be super rugby on Sunday? Will all those thousands of Aucklanders who have somehow got themselves stranded in their Coromandel holiday homes have to stay there now? Are we all getting locked down by the army from September 1 like Jason’s partner’s cousin in IRD says, or is half the bullshit you see on Facebook 194% wrong?

First the news with Nicola Wright.

7.20ish

On the line is Professor David Skegg about how something like two thirds of the people working at the border haven't been tested at all, and how the expert recommendation had been to test them weekly. Bit of a worry eh. What’s the right thing to be doing here?

7.40ish

On the line is Chris Hipkins. Says they've been building up to it, they've been doing a good bit of testing. Kim Hill says good gravy, man, how long does it take to get onto this. Chris Hipkins says it takes a while. Kim Hill says but you've already had quite a while, haven't you?

Hipkins says a big chunk of these people don't have any contact with the arrivals. Well that puts it in a slightly different light. Also says that compulsory testing is a bit of a big lever to pull.

Okay. But also, wouldn't a good idea be: throw a shitload at this and test high and low and never mind if some of that effort is wasted? And wouldn’t another good idea be: in a time of plague, don’t be too frightened to pull on the quite big levers?

Clearly this is something that’s being worked out as we go along. Clearly it won't always go the way it ought. Clearly the answer doesn't come all neatly wrapped up in a bow.

7.50am

We interrupt the plague news to look at presents all neatly wrapped up in a bow.

Today is not only Nation Learns Its Fate Day, it is also #MidWinterSecretSanta day on Twitter.

This is the doing of @FoxyLustyGrover and her friends @JackyNinjakitty and
@eloquentsonia. It's a Christmas thing, but because this year was a bit completely horrible, they decided to do a midyear one as well.

You get assigned a giftee and anonymously send them a gift.

Get onto Twitter and check out #MidWinterSecretSanta and all the personalised and customised and handmade gifts and messages. It’s beautiful, all consideration and generosity and warmth. In the age of Trump you cannot have too much of that.

8.10am

Thrilling news of the non-fruit-loop/non-total-whack-job kind for the National party this morning. Their designated voice is Dr Shane Reti.

He says,

we’re working very collaboratively which is what New Zealanders want us to do.

He says,

this is a hard problem in anyone's hands and all of us need to swing behind the mission and make it work.

Corrin Dann asks him,

is the government being transparent?

He says

I think they're doing the best they can. There is no particular information that I am waiting for today.

He says many government policies are pretty good policies, it's just how they've been deployed. We'd be more rigid.

Corrin’s all yeah yeah but how stupid and irresponsible and well just completely ludicrous were your leader and deputy leader this week, making the government out to be coverup merchants, were you all good with that or nah?

But he will not diss Judith or Gerry no matter how you try. Although neither will he say they were right.

I rate him. So does his leader. She likes to say he went to Harvard, becauses she likes to use appeals to authority in place of actual arguments.

In yesterday's interview for the ages she said:

He is actually a doctor, he's not a journeyman minister he is someone who does understand that well.

The highest praise you can have bestowed upon you by the pop-up leader is an accolade of high intelligence.

Announcing her strong team of shadow ministers all those many three weeks ago, she said

Nicola Willis is highly intelligent.

Simon Bridges is highly intelligent.

David Bennett. Agriculture.

8.20am

Ring to talk to the nurse. Tell her about my runny nose, and my bit of a cough. She says put it this way, would you have come in with these conditions if it was this time last year?

Also she says if I could come down right now he could see me right away. I think I don't want to waste anyone's time but if I don't do this I’ll just spend a week wondering.

8.24am

In the car, outside the surgery. Doctor comes out in PPE, greets me warmly, takes my temperature, reports I’m not too warm. Says: shall we swab? I say: might as well. He says: it's a bit uncomfortable. I say: so I've been hearing.

I’m thinking if Ashley can keep smiling so can I.

In it goes and holy shit. The front of my nose might be larger than any in christendom but up in there it is definitely touching the sides. Then I remember Dr Bloomfield was smiling all the way through so I lose the grimace.

And then I think: if he can keep smiling through that, maybe on those tough days, when there's still no grimace, it's actually touching the sides.

11.09am

Tweet from Mark Latham:

Well done Jacinda Ardern: New data out showing a 6-7% collapse in New Zealand GDP, wiping out $21 billion of national income, taking the economy back to 2016 levels. Yet NZ ended up with the virus anyway.
What a Birdbrain!

You may know Mark Latham from such things as being the actual leader of the Australian Labor party and potential Prime Minister of the Greatest Nation On Earth before he bailed on them and wrote in a tell-all book that it would take a miracle for the control freaks and power junkies of the Labor movement to reform their ways, and who said of Kim Beazley, also once potentially PM of the Greatest Nation On Earth, that he was a dirty dog, not fit to clean toilets at Parliament house.

There’s an amazing scene at the end of the film True History of the Kelly Gang that has Ned emerging to face his doom protected by just his iron watering-can mask, a couple of weapons, and a stream of invective and c-bombs. Truly, the spectacle of him firing in every direction and his deranged stream-of -consciousness cursing is the most Australian thing I've ever seen.

In many ways Mark Latham is the natural heir to that pulsating legacy, especially the bit where he went back into parliament with Pauline Hansen.

His tweet is a minor tour de force but he’s really not any more on the money than our leader of the opposition. I’d still rather be here than Australia or anywhere else at the moment.

1.00pm

Still there are questions about the border.

Have they screwed up, or not? Minister Hipkins has some more detail to offer, clarifying that a large proportion of those people working at the border have no contact with incoming travellers at all.

Maybe there could be less cause for ire. But again, what’s to object to, really, about throwing everything at this and testing high and low and never mind if some of that effort is wasted?

1.30pm

Catching up on feedback to yesterday's post. Quite a lot of you liked the jokes about Judith Collins. Heaps of you liked the cheese puff recipes.

Lara said these cheese puffs are amazing.

Gordon Fraser immediately went and made these.