How do we now measure the coming new era?

[onetrack]

The impact of the COVID-19 virus has affected nearly all of us in some way. I thought I was relatively immune to any virus impacts. until I got put in quarantine. It's a PIA, and it's costly.

 

I had to get some items delivered today, that I bought online when I was on the Gold Coast in early January, that I would've normally picked up myself. It cost me $75 to get them delivered. And my ute sits uselessly in the driveway.

 

But when I talked to the courier bloke, it's obvious that few people have escaped the virus' impact - a mostly financial impact, here in Australia.

 

He told me how he'd booked a holiday to Thailand before the virus hit. He had to cancel everything. He had travel insurance that covered his hotel costs, and he's managed to get most of that back - but he's still down on airfares.

 

He booked with Thai Airways, who have gone into liquidation, and it's looking unlikely he'll get any of his fare money back. I guess he bought non-refundable tickets, and he has no idea if the new Thai Airways will honour the old Thai Airways tickets.

 

Then he went into the details of some of his relations, who got caught between Victoria and W.A. when the borders shut. They flew from W.A. into Victoria and when they arrived, the State had been put into lockdown, and they faced 14 days in quarantine.

 

Then when they looked at returning to W.A. straight away, they found W.A. had closed its border to Victoria, and they faced 14 days quarantine on their return to home!

 

If they stayed in Victoria, it meant a month in quarantine in total - and a minimum of 14 days in quarantine, if they returned immediately! Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place!

 

It got me thinking today - how will we measure the new era, after we eventually manage to get the COVID-19 virus under control?

 

Will we have a major break in our timeline measurement - such as B.C. and A.D.? - will we measure our life timeline as, Before Covid (B.C.), and After Covid (A.C.)?  

 

Will our future societal changes, and health system changes, and Govt control impositions, make us wish for those good old days of B.C.?

 

I want to hear your opinions on what good or bad things you see coming out of this 1-in-100 year global upset event.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Here's my guess... Covid will just add to a bunch of other things like the wars, computers and  airconditioning that changed our lives.

Airconditioning? I hear you ask.... well I grew up before airconditioning or insulated houses were normal, and let me tell you, life was very different. You needed to escape the house on a hot day and so you went to the gliding club etc.

As far as the wars went, ( ww1 and 2 mainly ) they changed society immensely and they still have a big effect on my thoughts today. I regard people who trust generals etc as fools.

And computers? They sure have changed my life and there is a lot more change to come. My son says that artificial intelligence  taking over and being nice to us is our only long-term hope. He thinks we are far too belligerent and short-sighted to survive by ourselves.

[Old Koreelah]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

..It got me thinking today - how will we measure the new era, after we eventually manage to get the COVID-19 virus under control?

...I want to hear your opinions on what good or bad things you see coming out of this 1-in-100 year global upset event.

I fear this one-year inconvenience will not be followed by a return to “normality”. 

Let’s face it, the post WWII decades have been a Golden Age of economic stability, especially here in OZ.

We’ve been insulated from wars by fighting them in other countries, from depressions by selling off the farm, bit by bit and from pandemics by our location. 

 

The general lack of resilience of our people is shown when ordinary Aussies riot over rolls of toilet paper.

Maybe Covid-19 came along just in time to prepare us for bigger threats to our comfortable way of life. 

48 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

...we are far too belligerent and short-sighted to survive by ourselves.

He might be right, Bruce.

[old man emu]

Bob Dylan said it all in 1964, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/thetimestheyareachangin.html

 

Things have definitely changed. Online shopping has exploded for all sorts of things. Cash is becoming obsolete. The 5-day working week is changing to a 4-day week.  The Internet and all involved with it is joining people together to a degree that was unimaginable 35 years ago. It is also allowing everyone to access information  at the click of a mouse button, or even at the utterance of a few words. And these are the things that pop readily to mind.

 

I remember as a schoolkid getting into trouble for taking a small transistor radio to school. This year my grandson in Year 3 (Third Class) has to take an iPad to school or he'll get into trouble.

[pmccarthy]

But that transistor might have played Rock and Roll!

[old man emu]

Worse still, Ward "Pally" Austin and  "a rickapoodie and a fandooglie".

 

He most famously got sacked from one radio station for saying "how would you like something hot and throbbing between your legs?" when advertising a motor bike. 

[nomadpete]

The story I heard was that John Laws got temporarily banned from direct-to-air radio announcing for that comment, which was 'cash for comment' advertising Honda motorcycles. Maybe there were multiple versions of it?

[pmccarthy]

Yep I heard John Laws said it at the time.

 

[old man emu]

No. Only happened once and was done by Ward Austin. The ad was indeed for Honda motorcycles. Honda really put a bit effort into marketing their small capacity motorbikes in the mid-60s. I remember them coming to my local regional shopping centre and setting out a riding area and letting all comers have a go.

[onetrack]

The story must have become an urban legend - a local wise-cracking radio personality, who became a legend in Perth - Lionel Lewis - was reported as telling that joke on breakfast radio here.

 

Lionel Lewis even got himself into the local salacious Mirror newspaper in 1951, wisecracking about a fake will he'd made.

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75702728

[onetrack]

I just remembered another one  of Lionel Lewis's breakfast session wisecracks - "I fell into the Swan River this morning, and was lucky enough to be dragged out by the balls. My thanks to Mr and Mrs Ball for the rescue".

[nomadpete]

Popular radio personalities have been working on their fame for a lot longer than that 1T.

I've been told (as I'm too young to have heard it personally) that the late To Rene Moe maybe regular infamous comments back in the 1920's.

I can't repeat any here but they would still be considered inappropriate but they kept the happy listeners listening to his advertainment.