Category: the lockdown diaries

Day 143 – Don’t forget…

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As SA celebrates a move to Level 2 Lockdown from Tuesday morning, including a welcome return of alcohol and tobacco sales, I’m mindful of a couple of points that I feel shouldn’t be overlooked.

Firstly, please don’t let the joy of having your creature comforts back make you forget that the SA government response to coronavirus has generally been shoddy, unnecessarily opaque, often illogical and completely riddled with corruption.

And secondly, please don’t let the the joy of having your creature comforts back make you forget that the virus is still very much around, and that similar policies of opening up economies have resulted in spikes in Covid-19 cases and returns to heavier lockdowns all over the world.

We have the power to control this to a certain extent: continuing to wear masks, regularly washing our hands, socially distancing and not sharing indoor spaces are all simple things the public can do to limit the spread of the virus, and are even more important now that we are generally going to be out and about more.

Things might seem like they’re getting back to normal, but they’re actually not normal at all.

Please don’t forget that.

Day 142, part 2 – Those “Tokyo fireworks”

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We’ve surely all seen it shared by muppets on social media:

The fireworks were prepared by Tokyo for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games this year. The Olympics cannot be opened because of the epidemic, but these fireworks cannot be stored until 2021, so the Olympic fireworks are displayed at this time. Please enjoy the Olympic fireworks under the beautiful Mount Fuji.

And then the fireworks, which look entirely different from any other fireworks you’ve ever seen and are set to music about legendary Japanese hero William Tell, by legendary Japanese composer Gioachino Rossini.

Right up the old national pride street for Japan.

Strangely, the official Olympic Organising Committee didn’t share the link, and even more strangely, given that they the display was just a couple of days ago, here it is in its computer-generated entirety posted back in December 2015:

Almost 5 years ago!
No wonder they couldn’t store the pixels fireworks any longer.

…with the description:

As with the previous work, the background was based on the delusion that “a large-scale fireworks display was held in winter at Lake Kawaguchi in cooperation with the Lake Kawaguchi Fisheries Cooperative in commemoration of Mt. Fuji’s registration as a World Cultural Heritage site.”

Well, your video has gone way beyond that minor “delusion” now, mate.

This is one of those useful tools to sort out who are those less useful tools on your timelines. Obviously, there may already have been signs (football club allegiances etc.) in which case, this can act simply as a helpful confirmation.

I’m happy to assist.

Day 142 – Cyril leaves it late

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Here’s confirmation that cyril is leaving it pretty much as late as he can before address that lapsing National State of Disaster.

Just to be clear, if the National State of Disaster does lapse, it doesn’t mean that the nation won’t be a disaster.

That’s going to to take quite a shift in direction and an awfully long time to sort out. Not 4 hours.

Day 141 – Who knows?

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There was a real chance, what with loadshedding, schoolwork, an actual face-to-face meeting, washing the rest of Cape Agulhas off my car and cooking one of my awesome chilli con carnes for dinner, I might have forgotten to blog.

But there’s enough uncertainty in the world without that sort of nonsense.

And so here I am.

And talking of uncertainty, are we right at the end of “the strictest lockdown on the planet”?

Who knows?

It’s been… [checks title of post]… 140 days so far, and tomorrow will definitely be 141, but at midnight tomorrow, the National State of Disaster ends and with it, the National Disaster Act, upon which the lockdown regulations are founded.

That would end the lockdown.

But we’re still at Level 3 out of a scale of 5 to 0, literally not even halfway home yet, and still losing the battle with the virus in several provinces, so it seems highly unlikely that things will just stop tomorrow night. In which case, the government needs to act. And surely some form of action has already been taken, it’s just that we haven’t been told about it. They’ve had 6 weeks to prepare. But still: dololo. This would tessellate nicely with the ever increasing government twattery over the whole handling of the coronavirus problem. I’m not saying that it was ever easy, but I am suggesting that they could have done a whole lot better, even on the basic stuff.

Ugh.

The smart money is on a move to Level 2, bringing with it cigarettes and alcohol, inter-provincial travel and – probably – more virus. But apparently, no decision has been made. With 30 hours to go, they really need to get a move on.

Of course, they might have just had a busy day. What with loadshedding, schoolwork, meetings and washing their cars. It happens.

Their chilli con carne won’t be as good as mine, though.

Day 140 – Cape Town Loadshedding schedules 2020

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More loadshedding on the way. Everything has broken at Eskom: from the management team, all the way down to the actual generating units.

Stage 2 starts at 8am this morning.

Thankfully:

Most City customers will be shed at Stage 1 as the City is protecting customers from one stage of load-shedding. Stage 2 will apply for Eskom customers.

So if you are in Cape Town, when might you be likely to suffer?

Here’s the information you need, in handy PDF form.

If you’re outside any of the gaily coloured areas on the map in that link, then you need to go to the Eskom website to get your schedule – and check under Stage 2.

Plan ahead. Save electricity. And please wear a mask.

So many instructions.