I’m on leave at the moment, perfectly timed with yet another lockdown. We’re under strict orders not to leave home except for ‘essential’ activities. Banned from seeing our own family members, we’re allowed to exercise outdoors with nine complete strangers though… Maybe this has to do with the ‘The Hunger Games’ reference by Health Minister Brad Hazzard the other day?
Rank stupidity aside, to avoid cabin-fever I’ve been out ‘essentially exercising’ in the local nature reserve, a 213 hectare wilderness, with a son whose unusual interests include mycology, and a second time alone this morning to photograph a stump in a swamp. When it’s my turn to run, I’m gonna hide out in the reeds..!
Hold me back, right? Whoa! Slow down dude! But seriously, there’s not much else to do except plan for the apocalypse while waiting for the rich private schools to use up all the Pfizer vaccine. If you didn’t hate Catholics before, btw, you surely would now.
Coincidentally, the private school which benefitted from this latest “mistake” was St Joseph’s College whose pupils, resplendent in cerise and blue, must feel awfully chuffed to avoid that second-rate Astra-Zeneca poison. Plus, you don’t want the lads running out of puff halfway across the eighth tennis court with a pack of Old Boys in hot pursuit!
Out here in Western Sydney where life is cheap, I read how US forces in Afghanistan slipped away in the dead of night, leaving the country defenceless against the Taliban. So I watched Zero Dark Thirty (2012) again to remind me that Barack Obama killed Usama bin Laden. Donald Trump? Colluded with ISIL to reduce US troops from 100,000 to 2,500 thereby ensuring everybody in Afghanistan gets to play The Hunger Games.
I don’t know what my Sydney lockdown ennuii has to do with troop withdrawals in Afghanistan or that stupid movie, except that many excellent movies are filmed during difficult times. Maybe this afternoon I’ll watch Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo and Korengal, then Armadillo if I’m still feeling salty…