Dear Eilwen

Are you and Thomas yet surviving? I hope so and wish you both well.

Do you find it strange that this plague has come upon us in what is in truth our old age? I picture myself fifty years ago in Brisbane, on a knife-edge of debt with wife and four children to feed, with only a tenuous life-line of employment……..how the hell would the family have coped in this present situation?

How will similar families survive today, as the weeks go past?

I seriously question the new police-state clamp-down here. Is the same happening to you? I know the blow-ins inhabiting their holiday-homes are being discouraged: is this being enforced in Wales?  Here in Queensland  they face fines and are being turned back, perhaps to avoid introducing the virus to isolated rural or coastal areas and over-loading local supplies. But legally outrageous, virus or no, to forbid owners to occupy their own properties, no matter how distasteful it may seem. The situation cannot apply in the Channel Islands, where outsiders may not purchase local housing. A very wise policy which could have been adopted in Wales………local housing for local people.

My lovely gentle eldest son visited Luly and me yesterday, bringing boxes of the most superb home-brew. How could I not give him the family hug? We took a deep breath, turned our heads away, and grabbed a brief clutch! This current stand-off, (literally), sensible though it may be from a virus-transfer state, is awfully unnatural to us hug-deprived humans. There was a strange time, long ago, when families from England inherited a no-touch habit of stiffupperlipping their dear older children, and so strong was that in-bred fashion that I dragged it to Australia, unthinking. Until one day, it dawned, if I don’t give these big boys a hug soon, it will become too embarrassingly late, and we’ll have to make-do with that terribly cool British hand-shaking, of our own children. Well, at first it was a bit giggly-queer for them, coming out of the blue, but soon it caught on mutually, and spread to friends and rellies with great rapidity. But I remember my old mates being rather shocked at first, then pleased and coy, then enthusiastic! Such a relief to finally be Italian!

Now after all that lovely break-away from staid English stand-off (There’s a mouthful), we Aussies are back to the dark ages. What do you think?

I know, it’s a small price to pay in the death-lottery, but the insidious extension of  this to policing $1,500 fines to solitary beach-goers and surfers is madness, and it’s happening right now, here. Somehow (I’ve yet to find out) vehicles are being stopped and the drivers fined for traveling! Non-existent borders here are now check-points for huge fines, and turning-back of traffic.

I wondered how the situation would cope with the massively-costly employment of police and bureaucracy, when millions of genuine workers are sacked and desperate. Now we know. More laws, rules, fines, harassment: more power, and I hate the direction the state is taking.

If we can go to the shop, surely we can go to the beach? From home, to beach, and back……..is now banned, ha ha, in Australia! Such is the power of the state. Car-travel poses no danger of itself. But we must stay at home and go mad and broke while the economy crashes beyond all repair, and there will never be full employment again, and the country is irretrievably debt-ridden. I foresee a dreadful outcome of this apparently-sensible isolation-policy.

The policy may well have a worse result than the un-checked virus. A high death-rate of mostly un-productive population (me), versus a defunct economy, mass-unemployment and inevitable anarchy as people starve and all technology crashes.

Am I stupid Eilwen to think like this? Is there one viable country to not instigate this lock-down, so we can see how they fare compared to the rest of us? I don’t think so.

Oops, I’m mail-bashing you! Will you forgive me? I get carried away! And there’s more I have to say!

What are folk thinking in Wales? Here in Queensland all is calm (before the storm?) and quiescent  so far, but we don’t have that tribal obedience of the Chinese, and may soon reach a breaking-point. Possibly. I don’t know; I can’t see folk putting-up with this lock-down indefinitely. Six months, a year, more? And broke, and homeless, and harassed? And the shelves empty? My bills from multi-national providers still come with bold regularity: no respite there.

And all those with huge house-loans, and income suddenly stopped? All these transactions we constantly make rely entirely on our jobs and income. And all those new-age ‘landlords’ who have ‘invested’ in a rental property, or perhaps multiple properties, and will not reach free title to them for decades: no rent, no repayments, foreclosure and loss. The lenders acquire the houses, the debts continue. How can the new landlords reduce or waive rents? I can’t see the tenants remaining in possession under those circumstances. No rent, no home. Who will pay?

Those first-home buyers, if they are out of work: will they be kicked-out of their expensive investment when their repayments stop, and lose all they have put into into their loans? And still, homeless, owe the balance between loan and sale-value? This is what happens now; how will that change?

At this very moment the value of any real-estate is declining. All sales are slowing. It seems a crash is inevitable, and certainly values have for fifty years been massively inflated, city land at a premium. A collapsing economy will burst that bubble. ‘Investment’, always a gamble, has been a  winner for a lifetime, but there has never been a guarantee. The check is about to happen, and this isolating shut-down will bring the house down, and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does the government not realise this?

Even in my lifetime, I have seen a stagnant real-estate market culminating in a 25% drop in values. A comparatively small decline in value and duration, nevertheless it sent quite a few keen ‘investors’ broke, losing the family home and income. I use quotes because the word should always be ‘gamblers’.

Supposing, once all the new daily cases of virus cease, and we are released from jail, supposing it all starts again? There can be no second lock-down; neither the population nor the economy (should there be one) could stand it.

Day by day we face radical change in our outlook. One would hope that there are teams of wise folk involved in think-tanks around the planet, looking ahead, envisioning the results of government policy and advising incremental adjustments by the hour as this new and strange regime continues. However, I suspect there is little consideration taking place, just ill-educated politicians taking a punt. The medicos are on the ball, at least.

I still want to know. Who will tell me; who can guess the percentage of us would die of this contagion if it were left unchecked? And how would that figure differ from the current outcome? We know those at risk, and it is us unproductive old bastards who have had our day and should bow out gracefully and leave the world intact for our youth. Intact and fully operational, and not defunct beyond repair. A sad thought when the garden is so beautiful.

Weird times. I have to tend my poor buggered avos in a few days time, and repair the old tractor: will I be threatened by the police on my 200km journey? Fined and turned back? My hope is for good rain, no frost, fungus or bugs, and a beaut next harvest to help feed us all, in a small way.

There’s talk of a renaissance of the old manufacturing technology in Australia. Hard to believe that once we made railway trains and buses and ships and cars, and designed and built cutting-edge agricultural equipment. We have the raw materials and technology, and the expertise and work-force. Self-sufficient and fully-employed! Wow. With luck we’ll be clear of the virus before other economies and get started. Multi-nationalism has its severe draw-backs, despite what the bankers say.

It has been depressing to see this country descend to a third-world exporter of raw materials, at the expense of entrepeneurial manufacturing and research. We have been living on the crusts thrown to us from the vast profits of multinationals, and now perhaps may face the consequences of this dependence. Here is an opportunity to sack the policy-makers and engage the engineers and designers. And own our natural resources.

This virus may give us the opportunity to get to work, to look to countries like Sweden and Denmark and follow their lead; we have far more resources. Just no brains.

Meanwhile, the garden beckons, there’s ‘lawn’ to mow and delicious beer to drink, and nice neighbours to wave at. And hopefully your days are warming, and a calm morning will see the boat out for testing in those icy Welsh waters: will you go aboard? Catch a few fish? Will you be allowed to actually do that, even? Weird times…….

Love to both, hope the rant is not verging on rudeness, and hope too that my opinions are wrong on all counts, and bliss is just around the corner for us all,

Andy