mike carey

Not in a hurry at all. I'm not sure yet what metric I'll use for travel to California or elsewhere in the US, and the answer may be different for different places. Not that I'll have any say in that any time soon. I'll be interested to see whether we will have differential quarantine requirements for arrivals from different countries or regions.

I thought this tweet was worth posting in here. [MEDIA=twitter]1265733487077797896[/MEDIA]

Not a real cute critter, but it makes you laugh. [MEDIA=twitter]1265199564274888706[/MEDIA]

It's interesting that that's the way the phone regulator chose to go in the US. One of the reasons, or at least it appears that way to me, is that in areas that ran out of numbers they had new area codes overlaying older ones, so the house next door could have a different area code. In Australia the regulator took a different tack and rolled all the two and three digit area codes into four geographically based two digit area codes. (In all cases, old and new, the first digit of the area code is a zero which fulfilled the same function as the 1 in the US (and Canada and the Caribbean).) They also made the previous mixture of five, six and seven digit phone numbers all eight digits. So all landline numbers are in the format (0X) XXXX XXXX. We can still use just the eight digit number to call phones in the same area code. Mobile phones use numbers starting with 04, which is not used as an area code, and all numbers are in the format 04XX XXX XXX. You have to dial all 10 digits for calls to mobiles. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, just making an observation. And now that we mostly have the numbers we used programmed into our phones, it matters even less. In my phone, most numbers are programmed in the international format, so all my Australian numbers (well, most of them) start with +61.

There will be a new 'normal', the question is how different will it be to the status quo ante? My guess is that personal space will be respected more, and if you wear a mask it will be unexceptional, nobody will think you're a weirdo.

Alex Greenwich MP, an independent member of the NSW state parliament, if I'm not mistaken. And if it is him, yes he is gay.

Wonderful to have you back commenting!

I couldn't possibly be drawn into commenting on anything of the sort!

Yes, exactly. Perhaps a pool party for a select group of friends, suitably physically distanced of course, with, oh, I don't know, perhaps devilled eggs served?

I've spoken to him a few times, most recently just over a week ago (he called me while he was out doing cardio). He seems to be doing OK, and we've talked about the usual things we discuss: travel plans and what we've been doing around our houses. But also a bit about our respective situations with the virus and lock downs.

*Starts researching bathroom renovations*

Another 'anchor client' concept, as I understand it, is having a client whom you trust who signs up for an overnight (or that plus another session) and you pay your own airfares, meet him and see others for the rest of your stay. I have read here of escorts who will fly themselves into a city, and in return for an anchor client paying for their hotel, will see them, and see others while they are in town.

Elective surgery has resumed in Canberra, and today a pop-up 51-bed hospital has been opened on a sports ground adjacent to Canberra Hospital. It may not be used, but 37 days ago when it was started nobody would have known that. It cost $14m, but it can be taken down and packed away, and potentially sold.

Cancelled!

More about what you do after you've done the shopping than the shopping itself, but that's close enough! Heard this guy on a serious radio program this morning. He's a comedian who has a tour of the country planned from March, and when that fell through he started doing cooking videos. This one is for Australia's 'national dish', spaghetti bolognese. Everyone in the country makes it and there are about as many different recipes as there are cooks in the country. I'm sure some of you will take issue with his recipe (and it's pretty much what I use), but it's about the presentation! Oh, and *Language Warning*.

I realise that it is in the US, and I don't remember how different it was, either in the US or here, when I posted that. Here, the government advice (three weeks later but it's been the same for a while) is that if you have any, any symptom that could be related to Covid-19, be that a cough, a sniffle or anything, go and get tested. Testing is readily available, provided by the state and territory health departments either walk up or drive up, and is free. Australian comedian Adam Hills, speaking on the British comedy news show he hosts (from his garage in Melbourne rather than the studio in London now) told of the experience where he drove up and the health worker's instructions were to lean back in the seat, hold onto the steering wheel and brace.

You mean he'll have to pay himself for those as well?

Here, the Red Cross runs the blood donation program and sets the rules about who can donate. If you meet the rules you can give blood, no other agencies have any say in it. I haven't tried, although my last 'illicit' contact was in January. I make no comment about TB.

Maus, I suspect you're not the only one, good luck with whatever you chose to do. I hope we will all be back to 'normal' soon. I really look forward to meeting guys like you when that all becomes possible.

Well, I'm in love with one rooster, @Benjamin_Nicholas, but I can control that urge.

I made a meatloaf last week for the first time in years. It didn't go all that well, nice enough but could have been better. The previous one I made had pistachios and cranberries in it (I forget what sort of meat, pork and veal I think) and that was great. I must try to find the recipe again! Although the mixture as a whole on this latest one wasn't the best, one part I will repeat is using rolled oats as the filler. Lining the loaf tin with streaky bacon with the ends of the rashers on top of the meatloaf would appear to be essential.

Have you accepted the 'gold fish 1.5 seconds memory' idea? If so this conversation will derail that impression. I often tune out of these daily one-hour conversations but didn't today. Here, in a 50 minute podcast a marine biologist talks about fish and their intelligence. https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/culum-brown/12236632 Among other things he talks about fish that learnt how to evade an obstacle over a short period (they took a while to get it) but when presented with the same obstacle months later remembered how to evade it, fish that when presented with a mirror realised that what they saw was a reflection of themselves, not another fish, and manta rays that knew that on weekends recreational fishers would clean the fish they had caught at boat launching ramps so they would turn up to eat the fish guts and scraps that the fishers were throwing away. A Port Jackson shark latching onto a research student's head for 30 minutes has to be a highlight.

No, cornflour, at least in Australia. You can also buy 'wheaten cornflour' which is a wheat derived flour that has the smoother thickening characteristics of actual cornflour. (But the real thing is better.) On whether to use a fresh wipe for each grocery item (I hope they wiped the package of wipes), most items on shelves seem to be in the cut-open boxes they were shipped in, so more often than not you will be the only person to have touched your items. Guaranteed? Certainly not, a shelf stacker may have rearranged some items, and another shopper may have picked them up to read the label. Reason for caution, but not for paranoia. Hand hygiene and not touching your face is probably enough, but 'an abundance of caution' has become a catchphrase in this pandemic.

More an aviation geek story (as the author notes) is this one from the dying days of international aviation (yes, hyperbole). The last few QF SYD-LHR flights, which were usually routed through Singapore had to be changed due to a change in Singapore government policy. So Qantas for a couple of days had non-stop A380 flights from Australia to London when it operated with a technical stop in Darwin rather than a standard stop in Singapore. https://onemileatatime.com/qantas-a380-australia-london/

Yes, it used to be a green top-left corner of the avatar.