Turbulence at the top of the All Black Tribe

Cinda the Hard and Stern, mighty Over Lady of the All Black Tribe, had enjoyed a glorious reign, handling crises with her inimitably smiley style, and without having to handle competent opposition to her rule. Happily for Cinda, the Blue Rinse Tribe had chosen leaders who were male, incompetent and lacking in guile. Well might Cinda smile.

Darkness had descended on the Blue Rinse Tribe however. After rolling one chieftain because of his unfortunate tone of voice, the Blue Rinse Tribe was astounded to discover that the replacement chieftain was so unprepared for the trials and tribulations of the post that he resigned after 53 days in office.

The prospect of an imminent election loomed over the leaderless tribe, and as tribes had done since time immemorial, they despairingly accepted a leader they would not have chosen in less desperate straits. Emerging from the Dark Side, as if conjured up in a seance, the Sith Lady Judith the Crusher seized ultimate power in the council of the Blue Rinse Tribe.

The Old Boys of the Blue Rinse Tribe trembled in the presence of the Woman of Steel, but they were not alone in having reasons for their fear. Cinda too, had reasons to have a care.

Judith was female. No longer could Cinda count on an enemy who was afraid to attack a woman. Judith, being no wall flower, would not wilt in the scorching heat of the parliamentary kitchen. Judith had taken the precaution of marrying a non-European man, thereby making it difficult to play the 'race card' on her. Judith was shrewd and knew she only had to wait for Cinda to make a mistake. Judith was cunning. She suspected that constant, low-level needling might eventually cause Cinda to snap and do something stupid, in the way a girl exploded in rage after receiving one barb too many from a second girl who cloaked her attack by splitting it up into a series of small and seemingly innocuous criticisms.

Have a care, Cinda" Cone Man muttered to himself. "The election may be yours to lose, but the Blue Rinse Tribe has a cat in the fight, and while you may be feisty, she's ferral ..."

Cone Man returns to writing his chronicle ...

Cone Man had survived the Lock Down. He could almost be said to have survived it too well. People spoke darkly of a new beast stalking the world known as the "Pandemic 15", referring to excess weight gained from over-consumption of comfort food while enduring enforced sedentary hibernation. Like many others, Cone Man had resolved to use the time well, and like many others the time had begun to use Cone Man and turn him into a listless slob. Unfortunately, at the age of 57, he was enduring the 'Middle-age 45' or putting it in less prosaic terms, he was 20 kilograms overweight.

He could make jokes about his girth, and even laugh about it when others made jokes about the said girth, but the truth was that the jokes weren't funny any more. Jest did not make the weight drag less heavily or lighten the tiredness that haunted him. Jest emanated from a lively mind, not one sluggish from being trapped in a sluggish body.

Cone Man had avoided the issue, but the weighty issue would not avoid him. Cone Man could not run away from being overweight. Cone Man might, he hoped, ride off the weight that stalked him.

Cone Man's man cave was located 1.5 kilometres away from the foot of the Hill of the Gods. The crest of the hill was 184 metres high, and the road over it was 3 kilometres long. Riding uphill from the Wainuiomata side of the hill required an ascent of 90 metres. Riding uphill from the other side required an ascent of 180 metres. Riding from his man cave to the other side of the hill and back thus required ascending 270 metres during a 9 kilometre round trip.

The ascent was impossible for an unfit warrior who was 20 kilograms overweight. The real mountain to surmount was psychological, he realised. If he did not ride, he could never do it. On the other hand if he never did it, he may as well not ride.

Cone Man accepted that he would have to win the battle by attrition. He began riding to the foot of the hill each day and then riding part of the way up the hill. Each day he would ride one lamp post further than the previous day, thereby increasing his fitness each day while maintaining the pressure on his legs.

There were 50 lamposts on the hill. Cone Man accepted that this would be a long and brutal campaign against the terrible Middle Age Spread monster ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 25th Day

Twas the 25th Day of the Lock Down. Twas the Day of the Sun. Twas it the last Day of the Sun to occur in the Lock Down? Cone Man prayed to his god that it would be so. Many hoped that Cinda would announce the end of the Lock Down by the 28th Day. Others believed the Lock Down should go on for another two weeks, which would mean that it would last till the 42n Day. Cone Man groaned at the prospect.

Cone Man could survive either development, but the decision between the two was out of his hands. Impotence in the face of forces of nature was nothing new of course. Modern communications, transport and technology created the necessity and possibility of global lockdowns, but that two was a force beyond Cone Man's control.

Cone Man's control extended to his keyboard and blog. "The pen is mightier than the sword" the old saying went. "Writing is at least  the opiate of those who are mightily bored".

Cone Man had considerable historical precedent for this view:  St. Paul wrote much of the New Testament while incarcerated in various Roman prisons; Martin Luther translated the Bible into German while hiding in the Wartburg; Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations from a prison cell; John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress while imprisoned for his religious views; Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for the failed Munich putsch; Antonio Gramsci rotting to death in a fascist Italian gaol, avenged himself by exhorting his fellow Marxists to establish cultural hegemony by infiltrating and taking over the cultural institutions of their societies; and Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote The Gulag Archipelago while in internal exile in the U.S.S.R.

House arrest  in his comfortable man cave did not automatically qualify him as a great writer of course, but it did provide him with the opportunity to redeem otherwise useless time. Quietly he wondered about the many different ways 3.9 billion poor souls were redeeming their otherwise useless time ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 24th Day

Twas the 24th Day of the Lock Down. Twas tedious to recount the times, but Cone Man remained cone-stant. Twas tedious because house arrest had ceased to be an exciting novelty. Twas tedious because week days and weekends became blurred together. Seven days a week you could sleep in as if it was Sunday morning, so what was luxurious about sleeping in? Monday morning was merely another morning, and 5pm on Friday was not the end of another weeks work. In a world without regular work, even rest had lost its allure.

Worldwide, one  hundred and fifty thousand people had died. This great and grim fact tempered the temptation to transgress the boundaries of the restrictions of the Level 4 Lock Down.

Temptation may not have to be resisted for long. Cinda had hinted that the government would change the alert level to Level 3 with effect from the 23rd of April, and Cone Man was counting the days. 

Napoleon Bonaparte had once derided the Union Jack Tribe as 'a nation of shopkeepers'. The 'shopkeepers' defeated his navy in 1805 and his army in 1815, before sending him St. Helena in the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The All Black Tribe, dwelling in the vast expanse of the South Pacific, could not be described as 'a nation of bakers' they had bought 1.4 million kilos of flour to make bread to fill many an otherwise tedious hour.

The All Black Tribe was nevertheless becoming listless. Fewer exercised than had done so in the first weeks of the lock down. Many became depressed. Partners became grumpy. Business people struggled as livelihoods shrivelled away while they were trapped at home. People had been compliant and "played nice" but they were beginning to turn sour.

Outside the strange Antipodean world of the All Black Tribe the 'Grapes of Wrath' were multiplying and being trodden out in the great vats of humanity in. 22 million workers in the Land of the Stars and Tribe had lost their jobs in the last four weeks. Protests against the lockdowns were beginning to be held in various places within the borders of  that mighty tribe.

John Brown had lived to make men free, and troops marching to terrible battles had cried "Glory, glory, Hallelujah" on their way to death. Cone-sidering the huddled masses yearning to breathe freely in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe, Cone Man grimly wondered when the blood red wine would begin to spill from the great vat ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 20th Day

Twas the 20th Day of the Lock Down. The Coronavirus Monster had bitten over two million people and killed over 120,000. Tired of twisting words into humour, and seeing naught to be humorous about, Cone Man took the day off ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 18th Day

Twas the 18th Day of the Lock Down. Twas the Day that the Shepherd King rose from the dead and defeated Death. He had risen, he had risen indeed. Buoyed by this positive thought, Cone Man's mind turned to other resurrections.

Cone Man realised that it may be premature to think that way while the world was walking along the great Via Dolorosa towards to the crucifixion of the way of life that had prevailed prior to 1st of January 2020. Admittedly, the Coronavirus Monster had emerged in November of 2019, but the wondrous peace of blissful ignorance had prevailed so widely that many departed for foreign holidays from whence they returned with great difficulty. Some were still having great difficulty returning.

Resurrection, however, was part of life. The caterpillar was reborn as a butterfly, and the butterfly was reborn as a caterpillar. The mating of young men with young woman may have produced the weariness of tending newborn babies, yet enabled the human race to live on after the young became old and passed on. The biographies of famous people were replete with accounts of failure of professions and projects unrelated to the professions and projects they later became famous for. And how many successful businesses originated from unemployed people having to explore new ventures in very difficult circumstances?

Daydreaming about Spring growth after the bleak Winter was all very well, but how bleak, dark and long was the Winter going to be? And how would the world endure it? Cone Man was shocked to learn that 25,000 people had applied for 2,000 supermarket jobs. Airline pilots were stacking supermarket shelves, a situation inconceivable to all a mere two months earlier.

Troubles came not in threes, but in thirty's and were too numerous to be listed. Dairy farmers saw the worldwide market for milk products collapse and were faced with a price that barely paid their expenses. Rest homes bought personal protective equipment because the government refused to supply it. Farmers in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe disposed of millions of tons of food when they found that they could not deliver it to market.

"If this is the 'Autumn', I shudder to think what the 'Winter' will be like Cone Man groaned ...

Corona Saga: Lock Dowm - 17th Day

Twas the 17th Day of the Lock Down. Twas the Day when the Shepherd King lay in the tomb, after having been killed in no uncertain terms the previous day. Twas strangely appropriate to the wider entombment of the All Black Tribe in their caves, a nation lying dormant, along with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, instead of one man dying once and all for the sins of the world, it seemed as if the world was dying for the sins of the Dragon Tribe of the Middle Kingdom. But what to do? The Dragon Tribe could not be sued, and even if they could, no law suit would put the  Coronavirus Monster  back in the bottle from whence  it sprang.

Who would or could move the stone trapping billions of human beings in this grave moratorium on the business of life? Medical experts prophesied the coming of a New Vaccine that would arise to deliver humanity form the Coronavirus Monster; Econe-mavens prophesied Disruption, Depression and Doom brought about by the terrible Recession Monster, sadly not without evidence; and tribal leaders prophesied that one day they would lead their tribes out of their caves, through  the Level 3 Alert,  and on to a time, which, if not exactly flowing with milk and honey, would at least allow the people to buy milk with printed money.

Cone Man had his doubts, but what was to be gained by a lack of faith? The way things were going, even false hopes were better than no hope. And the business of life could continue in the many tombs in which the population hid.

Cone Man's literary work continue, as did the work of many who had access to the Internet at their caves. Cone Man wondered how many children were being conceived each minute, but knew he would have wait for a few months before the statistics appeared.

The business of life, in some quarters, even took on a new lease of life. Prophets of the Cult of the Shepherd King found that three times more  people attended their online services than ever attended when they could physically gather for worship. The supermarkets continued to do a roaring trade.

Grave as their predicament was, the men and women of the All Black Tribe, were definitely not dormant, even if some of them felt rather down ...

Corona Saga: Lock Dowm - 16th Day

Twas the 16th Day of the Lock Down. Twas also the day when the Cult of the Shepherd King commemorated his unjust trial and brutal execution on the orders of the uber villain, Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a cynical man, to say the least, so far gone that at one point of the trial he asked: "What is truth?"

4.7 million members of the  All Black Tribe, settling in for what was effectively a siege, had time to begin reflecting on their situation and the many questions it raised. Everybody understood the broad question of the hour, namely when was the day and the hour when they would be caught up in the rapture of the post Level 4 Lock Down world without going forth to damnation by disease? 

In every age, there is a great question that defines the Zeitgeist of the period, simultaneously unifying everybody around one point of reference and dividing everybody into different parties regarding the answer. Already the Great Question of the Age was creating the Various Views of the Age.

The Vaccine View held that it was criminally negligent to relax restrictions on the population until a vaccine had been found, tested and mass produced. Purely scientific and logical, the Vaccine View appealed to medical scientists and humanists, but ignored two problems. Firstly, until the vast amount of data being generated by intensive and extensive research was processed, scientific opionion of Covid-19 was not strictly speaking, scientific. Secondly, continuing draconian restrictions on the freedoms of over seven billion people for fear that some would die from disease was all very well in temrs of humanist situation ethics, but was ultimately inhumane. The business of life cease, and many began to wonder how long before lives began to cease.

Cessation of lives because the cessation of business was propounded by the Economic View. And in truth, if the economy declined past a certain point, death by non-Covid-19 means was inevitable via suicides, lack of resources and tax revenue, and political strife arising from economic distress. The Economic View also had flaws. Firstly, much of the damage was already done, because the shock of the previous 6 weeks had crushed sections of the economy and suppressed demand for years to come. Secondly, the downstream effect of the shock could and probably would create an economic depression that would have life of its own, irrespective of what measures were employed to fight the Conroavirus Monster.

The Herd Immunity View occupied the middle ground between the first two views. The Herd Immunity View argued for a graduated lifting of restrictions so that most of the population could return to work, on the rationale that those who got sick could be managed while the bulk of the population developed and 'herd immunity'. Those judged to be vulnerable, namely the old and sickly, would remain at home until a vaccine was available.

The Herd Immunity View also had flaws. Firstly,  it was a situation ethics calculation - the benefits of allowing people to go back to work would outweigh the cost of those who died. Secondly, it effectively turned the bulk of the population into human laboratory rats in a gigantic medical experiment. Admittedly, many considered the urban lifestyle of the human race to be a 'rat race' but that was beside the point.

Policy makers would have choose one of these views sooner or later, and whatever they chose, many would condemn as them as uber villains. "What is truth?" Cone Man wondered ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 15th Day (continued)

Twas the morn of the 16th Day of the Lock Down. Cinda had announced on the 15th Day that all who showed up at the borders of the Land of the All Black Tribe would henceforth be automatically placed under supervised quarantine for a period. Previously returning members of the tribe had been allowed to go home on the understanding that they would quarantine themselves at home and be checked upon by officials. This procedure was found to be unworkable in one out of three cases, hence the change in policy.

The wisdom of Cinda's policies was becoming apparent to all. Less than 1300 people had been bitten by the Coronavirus Monster in the Land of the  All Black Tribe, and over the last four days the number of people recovering had exceeded the number of people diagnosed. The plague had peaked.

Sadly, the plague had not peaked in the world beyond the sheltering  seas in which the Land of the All Black Tribe nestled in comfortable isolation. The All Black Tribe watched in helpless horror as tribe after tribe suffered the predations of the Coronavirus Monster.

Information from medical research was beginning to flood into the Centres of Learning and like a picture emerging from the pen of a pointalist artist the outlines of the Coronavirus Monster were coming to clearer view as they were illuminated by facts. The facts, while they were still bad, were increasingly less Apocalyptic. The projected death toll in the Land of the Starts and Stripes Tribe had reduced from an initial worst case scenario of a quarter of a million people to just over 60,000. Nevertheless, there was still not enough information.

No one really knew where the 'lines in the sand' were. A full scale lock down was safest but unacceptable in the long run. A full scale re-opening of the economy was inevitable, but what level of Coronavirus deaths were acceptable and inevitable for the economy to run? At point could these two polar opposites be reconciled and balanced? Cone Man reassured himself that the torrent of information reaching policy makers would ultimately answer this question, but for now he could only hope.

Confined, if not to the catacombs, the Cult of the Shepherd King found they were able to congregate virtually via the Internet. Things had certainly changed since St. Paul had written half the New Testament while dictating letters to scribes  in Greek for the benefit of far flung congregations geography and his chains preventing him from preaching to in person.

Confinement did not prevent members of the Cult of the Shepherd King from praying in their own homes. Furthermore, there was much for them to pray about. The national sky canoe tribe had just announced that 1460 people were to lose their jobs. "That adds a new take on the old phrase 'on a wing and a prayer'" Cone Man thought as he wondered how they would keep their homes ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 15th Day

Twas the 15th Day of the Lock Down. The Lock Down was past the midway point for the All Black Tribe, but other tribes had further to go to complete this particular journey through time. The reigning overlord of the Rising Sun Tribe decreed that their lock down would begin in a few days. The overlord of the Stars and Stripes Tribe advised his people that the worst week of their Corona crisis lay ahead of them.

The world was both locking down and loosening, as the stragglers locked down and the veterans learned how far they could loosen the restrictions. Lack of confidence about the future locked down spending everywhere as frivolous goods and services were ignored in favour of paying mortgages, rents, utility bills and food.

"What worth a man is appears best at a time of adversity, for circumstances do not make a man frail but they do show what sort of man he is" Thomas a Kempis opined in 1418. Thomas was an Augustinian friar who spent most of his remarkably long life cloistered in the Mt. Saint Agnes monastery, so his observation was peculiarly pertinent to a situation that forced, albeit briefly, billions of people in their own cloisters.

Shining brightly in the gloom, many proved their worth by quiet and often heroic self sacrifice: Doctors and nurses in many parts of the world died helping patients; supermarket workers did their poorly paid best to serve the public; many worked from home while home schooling children.

Shadier characters found their dark dispositions thrown into sharp relief. Many demonstrate d a total refusal to comply with the Lock Down; others gladly applied for wage subsidies they did not share with their workers; and a small minority were so malicious they spat on others with the intention of infecting them.

Some were merely silly rather than sinister. One less than sinister cabinet minister, wise in his own eyes, but a hopeless fool in the eyes of others, ignored his own ministry's rules twice in one week. Cinda had every reason to be hard and stern with this miscreant, but had to discipline rather dismiss him on account of the unacceptable chaos that would result. He would be removed when the crisis was over.

The crisis, however, was young and far from fully grown. "We'll see far better and worse conduct before this saga runs it epic course" Cone Man cone-sidered ... 

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 14th Day

Twas the 14th Day of the Lock Down. The All Black Tribe was both relieved and depressed. Relieved because they had passed the 'midway' point and looked forward to the end of their confinement; depressed because the novelty had warn off and been replaced by boredom. Boredom, they found, did not grant immunity from fear of the unknown, and fear of the unknown turned into anxiety, which in turn led to depression.

Cone Man, personally, did not view depression has a problem. Cone Man even cone-sidered that cone-siderable harm was done by the contemporary tendency to view depression as evidence that something was terribly wrong.

Depression, viewed properly was a natural part of life like night and winter. The world's temperature was finely calibrated by the god of Cone Man, and if it ceased to spin on its axis, or orbit the Sun, all eight billion souls riding through space on the Great Space Ship would be dead within a few weeks.

Similarly, if human beings only experienced happiness and ecstatic joy, how long would it be before they broke down? What warrior could experience a young wife and fatherhood without the stresses of family responsibility? What woman could experience a young husband and motherhood without post-partum depression? If you could accept that depression was only that, then you could more easily transition out of it. Or so was Cone Man's Uneducated Layman's Opinion Which Others Should Take With A Cone-siderable Grain Of Salt.

Cone Man's speculations about  human psychology did not change the fact that humans had rather a lot to be psychotic about. Cinda the Hard and Stern indicated that the Lock Down would not continue past the 28th Day, but many legends indicated that the All Black Tribe had much to be anxious about: tourism, hotels and airlines were suddenly so uneconomic that tour operators, hoteliers and air crew had no choice but to consider new careers, if they were young enough; recession was a fact not a fear; and by some estimates the effects of the  Corona crisis would take three and a half years to play out. The unspoken dread handing over all of this was the suspicion that one of the many ill effects of the crisis could in turn spark a new crisis that could compound humanity's problems.

One way or another, the All Black Tribe was in for a long hard time, and there was nothing to do else to do about it but settle in for the proverbial 'Long Haul'. Cone Man began to feel rather  depressed ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 13th Day

Twas the 13th Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man decided that his writing should not be left to the vacuous vagaries of Facebook policy, so he decamped to his own blog. Those who wish to follow his adventures will have to follow this blog.

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 12th Day

Twas the Twelfth Day of the Lock Down. Management theorists opined that while a team of seven was ideal for taking action, at team of twelve was ideal for analysing an issue from all angles. Individuals, Cone Man cone-sidered, could at least analyse a situation by consulting the hindsight of twelve days of experience. And if they had learned nothing in twelve days, well, as the old saying went: "There's no fool like and old fool'.

Twelve days older, Cone Man wondered if he was any the wiser. Suffering sedentary solitude, he had instituted the discipline of halving his food portions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hopefully he would avoid becoming a fat old fool. He had also implemented a daily exercise regime involving walking or cycling so hopefully he would become a fit old fool.

Maintaining these disciplines after the end of the Lock Down would make him a trimmer fitter fool in due course, but the problem remained. Cone Man found that everyone had become and armchair expert on Coronavirus, with views ranging from cynical disbelief to near religious faith in medical experts, news reporters, and the ability of governments to deliver while presiding over shuttered economies that were multiplying unemployment claims while reducing the tax take.

Who could be believed? Who knew all the facts? Who knew what they were talking about? If they knew what they were talking about, how could you know they would not be proven wrong by some perverse event designed to make the most learned sages look silly?

Cone Man tiredly reflected that it was not really worth his while to worry about it. "After all" he admitted "whatever you suspect, you only have to wait a week or two for the evidence to emerge." That was all very well, but in accepting that, he also realised that he was no wiser for being twelve days older ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 11th Day

Twas the 11th Day of the Lock Down. Workers in the Land of the All Black Tribe were losing their jobs in tranches. During the past week hundreds of Legend Bearers and Wager Slaves had borne the wages of a legendarily sick economy. On the last day of the week 600 sky workers of the Virgin Tribe had been informed by their overlords in the Land of the Wallaby Tribe that their livelihoods had sprouted wings and flown into the sky.

Sadly, the sudden unemployment of a thousand workers in the Outer Antipodes was not world shaking news. Forty million workers in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe would be unemployed if the Lock Down in that country continued for another three months - or so was the ghastly estimate.

Strangely, some forms of employment were impervious to the Lock Down. Gambling operations bridged the physical barrier between themselves and their clientele by arranging online gambling; drug dealers delivered drugs by courier or post; and Sex Vendors reported to their guild that some of their clients continued to pressure them to supply their services.

Ironically, though human resourcefulness provided some outlets for vice, in quantum it was virtue that triumphed. Confinement to hearth and home forced the closure of nightclubs, bars, brothels, strip joints, sex shops, sports stadia, hunting and fishing grounds. Restriction of movement restricted the utility of online dating applications as well.

Unbridled Temperance was the order of the day! The virtues of Chastity, Fidelity, and Parental Supervision raged unchecked across the land. Adulterers found themselves forced to neglect their mistresses and sleep with their wives. Young warriors with no thought of paternity, commitment and responsibility, found themselves inadvertently starting families as they manfully fought in bed to bring comfort to anxious cone maidens. Teenagers found themselves under the All Seeing Eye of parents who never left the house or let them roam without supervision.

Surveying the surreal state of sexual mores prevailing amongst his contemporaries, Cone Man shook his head in disgust. "We are more virtuous than we have been in decades
and yet we still manage to lose our Virgin Tribe!" he groaned.

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 10th Day

Twas the Tenth Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man had plenty of material to write about, but the novelty was wearing off. The surreal was becoming the commonplace. Of course that which becomes common experience simultaneously ceases to be unusual experience. 3.9 billion people did not require someone to write about the experience of being under lock down because they already were experiencing lockdown.

Surviving a epic event, and recording a daily description for the benefit of posterity were not one and the same thing however. Within 20 years elderly witnesses to current events would be dead, middle aged witnesses would be elderly, the young would have a set of vivid memories of particular events and children would be twenty somethings who would have been both present and too young to understand the drama unfolding around their childhoods.

Describing an event for the benefit of unborn historians was not that easy, however. 7.8 billion people were witnesses to the events brought about by the Coronavirus Monster. Cone Man's chronicling of events was subjective, allegorical, dependent on the reliability of Legend Bearers, and cramped by the realities of being observe little personally from his man cave, in valley, on the southern peninsular, of an island, located deep in the Outer Antipodes.

Yet try he must. "I cannot explain this drama when I am senile or dead" he grimly reflected ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 9th Day

Twas the Ninth Day of the Lock Down. There were only another 19 days to go. Or were there? Cone Man had heard rumours that the Lock Down could be extended. In any event everyone knew that there would be no return to the now happy seeming world of early January 2020.

Over half of humanity was locked down along with the All Black Tribe. Over one million people had suffered the malignant bite of the Coronavirus Monster and over 50,000 lay dead. Along with Death, other riders of the Apocalypse accompanied the Beast.]

The stock market of the Stars and Stripes Tribe had lost 30 percent of its value, another 6.6 million workers had filed unemployment claims and altogether over ten million workers had lost their jobs in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe within the last two weeks. Both developments were unprecedented, but the relentless borrowing of the Overlords of the Stars and Stripes Tribe, coupled with their tendency to print dollars, brought ever closer the day when the fabled 'Greenback' would suffer a catastrophic loss of value.

The Land of the All Black Tribe was not immune to this financial tsunami. Over 200 workers at the Casino in the Sky found that their career gamble had not paid off and their livelihoods were forfeit. Perchance all would return to normal, and big spending international gamblers would return, but the Wager Lords were not prepared to stake their own salaries on that particular bet.

One hundred thousand people wanted nothing more than to leave. One week after imposing the Lock Down, if finally dawned upon the chieftains of the All Black Tribe that they had prevented foreigners from travelling to airports to escape the country. Dispensation was given to the foreigners and they duly began to flee.

Viewing the global mayhem from his man cave, Cone Man dug over his vegetable plot. "Food will not get any cheaper" he shrugged ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 8th Day

Twas the Eighth Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man power-walked to the lookout at the crest of the Hill of the Gods. He encountered and counted 33 others walking on the same hill. Keeping his distance he hailed each fellow walker they passed him by. Some gaily returned his greeting while others strode by, indifferent to his offered bonhomie.

Unfazed by the varying reactions of his fellow walkers, Cone Man returned to his man cave and pondered the suffering of his fellow human beings. "Cold is the heart that feels nothing for the suffering of others" Cone Man cone-sidered.

Suffering was indeed multiplying. The Land of the All Black Tribe faced the prospect of 11 per cent unemployment following in the wake of the terrible Coronavirus Monster. Cone Man had last seen that level of unemployment during the Recession of 1991-1994. He had worked in a supermarket in the Land of the Aucks to survive that period.

Cone Man understandably sympathized with supermarket staff who were overworked, underpaid, endangered and abused. Their abusers apparently saw nothing wrong with continuing to eat from the very shelves that the supermarket workers stacked.

Himself an aspiring writer, he also sympathized with the hundreds of Legend Bearers who were informed that their legends would no longer required. The Paper Lords saw the catastrophic collapse in revenue from advertising and had no choice but to let the Legend Bearers bear the shock of this legendary catastrophe.

"Legend bearing may not be much of a job" Cone Man mused "but it sure beats stacking supermarket shelves for a living … "

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 7th Day

Twas the Seventh Day of the Lock Down. In happier and more frivolous times it was known as "April Fool's Day". Unhappy and less frivolous people known as accountants referred to it as The Start of the Financial Year.

Human nature, a strange phenomenon that baffled accountants, showed its irresponsible, anti-social side as many flouted the rules of the Lock Down to gather in crowds at parks and beaches. This sort of thing would prolong the tyranny of the terrible Coronavirus Monster and kill even more members of the All Black Tribe, and Cinda had very good cause to be Hard, Stern and Unamused.

Cone Man feared that the irresponsibility of the few would lead to the curtailment of the one remaining freedom of the many - leaving home for solitary exercise. Suspecting that he would not have to wait long before his worst fears were realised, Cone Man resolved to enjoy what little freedom he could while time allowed.

Cone Man set himself the regime of riding his not particularly mighty steed once every two days and 'power walking' on the days in between. In both cases he would not travel more than two kilometres from his man cave. The power walk could be a round trip to the crest of the Hill of the Gods, while the ride would involve riding to a 600 metre stretch of culvert and riding back and forth on the grass bank.

Cone Man also continued his other exercises. "Is there a problem here?" mused the pondering, pontificating, post-penning, pressing, power-walking, pedalling, planker of Parkway ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 6th Day

Twas the Sixth Day of the Lock Down. The mounting global death toll defied hurmourous description, and Cone Man knew humour was callous under the circumstances. so he turned his attention to the many inconsequential trivialities of the 'New Normal'.

A fascinating aspect of the 'New Normal' was the extent to which people found how much could be done without physically leaving home. Witchdoctors interviewed patients virtually. Teachers taught classes that were geographically dispersed and over one million children were both truants and students with the full, approving knowledge of their parents.

Other jobs, however, could not be done from home, yet nevertheless had to be done. Supermarket employees were numbered among the heroes of the hour. Overnight, the newfound danger of their profession, combined with the necessity of their work, rendered them the status of an elite force - soldiers fighting in the frontline of the war against the Coronavirus Monster. "Who important and who is not is merely a matter of dates and circumstances" Cone Man marvelled ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 5th day

Twas The Fifth Day of the Lock Down. As was the case with wars, sieges, revolutions, famines and other crises, people found the initial excitement replaced by a gradual acceptance of the dreaded 'New Normal'.

The problem was that nobody knew what the 'New Normal' was. Just how long was the 'New Normal' going to go on? Cinda the Hard and Stern declared that international travel would be restricted until the Witchdoctors devised a 'vaccine' to defeat the Coronavirus Monster - which could take as long as 18 months!

Pressing issues focused the minds of many in the meantime. Formerly safe employments had evaporated as quickly as a morning mist. Mortgages, although suspended,remained two haunt the minds of the confined.

Economic angst was general as well as particular. Everyone knew that the All Black Tribe depended heavily on the proceeds of tourism, export education and airlines.

The land of the All Black tribe may have been an archipelago of Antipodean islands but it was definitely no island in the economic storm. The world financial system was already grossly over leveraged. With trade collapsing everywhere, how, long would it be before the world's financial system collapsed?

Cone Man may have been an island of sanity in the storm (others may have begged to differ) but deep down inside he knew that his secluded man cave was ultimately no Island from the storm ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 4th Day

Twas the Fourth Day of the Lock Down and the Legend Bearers reported that 30000 people had been killed by the Corona virus Monster across the world. Over 600000 others had been bitten by the malignant Beast.

The Legend Bearers where merely doing their jobs, yet were not really doing their jobs. Legends emanating from the Legend Bearers were often anecdotal, sensationalist, alarmist, and lacking in careful analysis and fact-checking.

The Legend Bearers were struggling to tell this new legend. The Legend of the Coronavirus Monster was so unprecedented, epic and at a speed that even the most experienced, professional and objective of the Legend Bearers reeled under the daily deluge of information.

The Legend Bearers could not be condemned for suffering the limitations of being merely human, Cone Man cone-sidered. The problem was that their failings led to the exacerbation of two existing problems.

One section of the population, through intellectual laziness, gullibility or sympathy with the biases of the Legend Bearers, tended to swallow poorly researched and prepared legends. The other section of the population, through ingrained cynicism and abhorrence of the biases of the Legend Bearers, tended to dismiss their legends as "fake news".

Reflecting tiredly on these to very different reactions to the same phenomenon Cone Man muttered to himself "You may judge for yourself which is the greater folly ..."

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 3rd Day

Twas the Third Day of the Lock down. 2 1/2 billion people were cowering in their homes in terror of the terrible Coronavirus Monster. The world cried out for a hero to show them the way forward.

Cometh the hour cometh the man! In the social media sky a strange figure was seen. Was it a bird? Was it a sky canoe? No.

He did press ups; he did sit-ups; he planked; he pondered; he pompously pontificated; he penned Facebook posts ... he was Cone Man the Destroyer of Boredom! He also suffered from delusions of grandeur, but that was another matter ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 2nd Day

Twas the second day of the lockdown. The Great People's War against the terrible Coronavirus Monster escalated!

Border closures, lockdowns and general uncertainty forced 3.2 million workers to file unemployment claims in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe. The Oceanias closef the borders of their islands to visitors and locked down their populations.

The Oceanians even banned gatherings at temples weddings and funerals. This was a remarkable departure from their settled customs but these were unsettling times.

Tribesmen of all tribes found themselves trapped within the borders of other tribes. The Chieftains of the Teutonic tribe began sending sky canoes to the Land of the All Black Tribe to rescue the 12000 Teutonic tourists trapped in the suddenly dystopian Antipodes.

Cone Man was powerless to do anything more noble or heroic than halve his food portions and institute an daily exercise regime. "28 days is a long time to be trapped in a house with the terrible Middle-aged Midlife Mounting Midriff Monster" he mused ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 1st Day

Twas the first day of the Lockdown and Cone Man reflected that God Zone had morphed into the Twilight Zone. The vast majority of sky canoes were grounded and no longer burned through Ozone. Every warrior was confined to his Own Zone, excepting those who had cone maidens, in which case they were confined to Her Zone.

Dwelling alone in what was definitely His Zone Cone Man cone-centrated on his literary endeavours. "After all" he reason "why should I be bored when I could be busy boring other people?

Cone Man had heard it was permissible to leave his man cave to ride forth on his not particularly mighty steed, so long as he gave the answer 'exercise' when questioned by the Tribal Enforcers. "Thus does a man remain sane during an insane time" he mused ...

Corona Saga: The Gathering Storm

The terrible Coronavirus Monster raged across the globe. Global trade was adversely affected andconsequently the share markets crashed. The mightiest of e-coin mavens was perplexed and knew not what to counsel. The mighty beer mug of Cone Man kept its mugly calm ...

Twas the first day of the Lockdown and Cone Man reflected that God Zone had morphed into the Twilight Zone. The vast majority of sky canoes were grounded and no longer burned through Ozone. Every warrior was confined to his Own Zone, excepting those who had cone maidens, in which case they were confined to Her Zone. Dwelling alone in what was definitely His Zone Cone Man cone-centrated on his literary endeavours. "After all" he reason "why should I be bored when I could be busy boring other people? Cone Man had heard it was permissible to leave his man cave to ride forth on his not particularly mighty steed, so long as he gave the answer 'exercise' when questioned by the Tribal Enforcers. "Thus does a man remain sane during an insane time" he mused ...