Not drowning. Waving

[izmeina]

I just love the way David Rowe draws Bojo the blobfish. He is positively adorable. Like some cute cuddly teddy bear. Especially compared to the toxic pufferfish that is Bananaby Joyce with THAT hat. I get nightmares looking at him whenever he gets washed up in the corner of some cartoon




It's a new Goblin Year tomorrow in Oz. Also the start of Camp Nanowrimo and Plastic Free July. Today I went on a last supermarket binge which is sort of cheating. That also included a trip to Sushi Hub because except for Sushi trains, it's totally off the menu for the next month because it always comes wrapped in plastic.

Plastic Free July - I suppose you could describe it as the Ramadan of Recycling. But with a twist. No pigging out on chips and take aways at 2 in the morning. It's no take aways at all. Nor packets of chips, bags of lettuce leaves, cheese or yoghurt unless I make my own.

Looking through the weekly supermarket catalogues, it is in July that I noticed that more than half the items on sale consists of chocolate, sweets, snacks and take away sorts of stuff. And 3/4 of everything is packed in single use plastic.

Aside from the challenge of not using single use plastic, it is a sneaky way to stay away from the shops, use up the stuff in the Lair and to do much more cooking from scratch simply because it has become harder and harder to buy almost any food these days from the supermarket that is not bagged or wrapped in cling wrap or something

One thing I have noticed. Unless you go to a proper old fashioned green grocer or farmers' market, it has become almost impossible to get lettuce or spinach these days that does not come in some prepacked bag at an outrageous per kilo price. Supermarkets are making a fortune out of this bagged lettuce stuff.

I was amused to see a pile of toilet rolls in the supermarket bargain bin. A few months ago, they could not be found at any price and there they were sitting - a really good brand 3 ply double length 4 pack of loo rolls for the princely sum of $2. So I grabbed 3 and pottered off to the checkout with my plastic wrapped prize just one day before the deadline

The check out lady tells me. Sorry. There are limits on toilet rolls. You can only have one packet per person per purchase.
Apparently because of the new spike in the virus over in Victoria, there has been a run on loo rolls again over East and I guess the supermarket IT has the item flagged in the whole country.

It seems some of the latest outbreak came from the quarantine hotels in Melbourne. It seems they subcontracted work to private contractors who underpaid, undertrained and overworked their security guards who did not follow proper procedures. The security guards got infected from the incoming tourists and then passed it on to their families and then the wider communities.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Now as well as locking down some suburbs, the Victorian state government has resorted to diverting all airplanes from landing in Melbourne. That must be a major operation.

The opportunistic vultures here in the wild west are already gloating and using Victoria's misfortune to try grab the football finals. Now that's like moving the Haj from Mecca to Rome. Absolute blasphemy!!!

Meanwhile, the European Union has just released the first NICE LIST with 12 countries on it. Australia and New Zealand made it. Problem is, our government is still not permitting Oz passport holders to leave the country.

USA is NOT on the list. The rage tweets are going to start any moment now.