Plague Lockdown Day 6 Mailbag
Ask Uncle Dave
Been almost a week now. Time to open the mailbag and share the questions tormenting the sleep of a fretful nation.
Here as usual is your pal Uncle Dave, to separate the wheat from the chaff, the dickeads from the jetboats, the bullshit from the Bishop.
Please keep your mask on at all times.
Hi Uncle Dave!
Yesterday I was reading this column in a Sunday newspaper that started by saying:
The rest of the world is embracing its post-pandemic future while New Zealand enters a March 2020 time warp
And after that it just went completely off the reservation.
Like:
Turns out the roadmap was redundant. We haven’t even started building the road.
And:
here we are back in the world’s strictest lockdown. As much of the rest of the world de-masks, we are back to fitting ours.
How does this stuff happen in an actual newspaper Dave?
Cross Ian
Hi Ian!
To understand how this could happen you need to know how a newspaper like that deals with its columnists.
The first thing they do when they take you on is they ask you:
How much is the bare minimum you'd be willing to do this for”
And when you tell them, they say:
Gee sorry but we're a bit tight for dough. Would you do it for a quarter of that and also would you be prepared to be chucked overboard without a moment's thought if it ever looks like we need to protect the people on the good salaries?
And you say well I suppose so, and then they shake your hand and give you a bear hug and say this is the happiest day of my life and hand you an instruction booklet called How to Write Columns.
And on the first page it says.
Really go for the doctor, like don’t hold back on the wild exaggeration and whatnot. Basically we want people to put down their toast and say get a load of this and read it out loud. So go completely OTT.
And on the second page it says:
But make sure that you can back up what you’ve just said with some sort of true real fact. It can’t just be a big sulk because you're not personally getting exactly what you want whenever you insist on it.
And unfortunately, the way the booklet is printed, a lot of people don't realise there is a second page and they never read a word of it.
Hope that explains things Ian.
Cheers, Dave
Hi Uncle Dave
So how much of that OTT rant yesterday was supported by an actual, like, fact?
Priestly Brian
Hi Brian
Well if you take out the fallacious parts and the sulking and the elements that were wrong or hyperbolic or moderately hysterical, the column reads as follows:
Tuesday night. My stash of Irish tea is running low, and I’m down to my last packet of Percy Pigs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The variant penetrated New Zealand’s defences. Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Cheers, Dave
Hi Uncle Dave
So do you mean the stuff about no road map and the leisurely approach to vaccination and no one’s wearing masks and New Zealand is stuck in a time warp is all wrong?
Chubby Fact Checker
Hi Chubby
Pretty much. Let’s say we had got to 60% of people vaccinated by now, like say they have in the USA. We’d still be needing to lock right down right now. 60% is still way too short to say let her rip and don’t worry about all the deaths and the hospitals getting choked. So is 70%, so is even 80, arguably.
The reason it’s so strict for the moment is because we’re one of the few places in the world where it’s still possible to do this and and then resume what we been enjoying while places like the UK have endured month after month of slow crawl torture.
Meanwhile, the vaccination rate is catching up super fast. According to Stuff’s Henry Cooke’s calculations, if the average rate of last 7 days were kept up, this is what we can expect:
80% of 12+ pop first dosed Oct 17
90% of 12+ pop first dosed Oct 31
Whole vax programme over on Dec 30
What comes next - as set out in the roadmap that somehow doesn't exist but was also reported in the media at the time it was announced - is a gradual opening, tuned all the way along according to what develops.
The idea is: steadily and surely make our way out of it, working to the principle of protecting our hospitals from being choked, and getting as many people as possible protected by vaccination. We ain’t just sitting here doin’ nothin’. It’s just that it makes a better song if you put it that way.
Cheers, Dave
Hey Uncle D
None of that happened Dave, I remember I ordered coffee and you ordered tea and no-one was bear-hugging anybody.
Editor Jono
Hey Jono!
Fair point, I was still on the sauce then. But I deffo have the booklet.
Dave
Hi So-Called Uncle Dave
Judith says you're still so blocked pal but we want to know: if we have to get dickheads and lefties like you to vote for us what will it take?
Everyone’s best bud Bish the friendly MP
Hello Mr Member
It’s no mystery really:
Don’t use half-truths, don’t twist facts, don’t be undermining collective confidence, start asking questions that show some genuine interest in finding a way through rather than scoring petty points.
Do you read Newsroom? Sure you do. There’s your model: they ask questions that are constructive and productive. Hell, they were asking questions about Crowne Plaza a month ago. Did you not think it might be a good idea to follow that up?
Basically, start thinking like Marc Daalder and forget you ever heard of Mike or Heather or Kate or Kerre.
Dave
Hi Dave,
I was reading Bernard Hickey’s excellent Substack this morning and I got a bit unnerved. He’s saying we need to vaccinate everyone as fast as possible and then:
open up and take awful risks with our youngest and most vulnerable earlier than we'd like, because delta is so infectious, & because our health system has been so starved of investment for 30 yrs.
What do you reckon?
Holy Mum Teresa
Hello holy Mum
He’s got a strong point but I don't think we need to shove our hand into the flame quite that fast. Did you hear Professor Baker talking about the months ahead? He suggests that being closed off a while longer might buy valuable time because anti-virals may be not too far away. That could make a big difference.
The thing about all of this is: yes we have to make our way out of it but we don't need to go at a gallop and we should try not to do it with our eyes closed.
And yes to everything about the health system.
Cheers, Dave
Hey Dave
Have you seen the complete unhinged shit that guy Ansell is cooking up now? What do you reckon? Also, where does he get his designers LOL?
Andy Wormhole
Hey Andy
My theory is he was always this dire, it’s just that until Facebook he thought he was on his own. Now he has friends, he can start talking out loud about putting women - it always seems to be women - in front of tribunals and seeing them executed.
You know that line At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock ? That was written by David Ogilvy and it got him celebrated as a genius.
Shit like that made a lot of advertising people who were talentless hacks and dimwits believe that what they were doing amounted to something. As if.
Cheers Dave
Hi Dave
This is all a bit of a downer, do you have something to cheer us all up?
Reader Cate Prestidge
Hi Cate!
Sure!
1. Here's a most excellent video of cardboard hero Vinny Eastwood completely folding under tiny pressure. It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom, eh Braveheart LOL.
2. Here's the perfect kitchen workout, with thanks to reader Red - hi Red!
3. This one is for the thoughts and prayers people
4. If you enjoy puzzles but have always found the form somewhat constraining, your spirit animal is here to inspire you.
5. And this is lovely and also extremely good for making the cat sit up and look around going WTF? Where is it? This is driving me nuts.
David, unless you completed the PhD in organic chemistry, good luck separating bullshit from Bishop.
Thank you for making our days brighter.
Thank you for affirming my response to the ludicrous Andrea Vance SST column. I note that she is a salaried a senior journalist at Stuff so presumably the booklet does not apply to her - unless she is auditioning to fill the lovely vacuum left by Duncan Garner.