Profit from the upheaval

‘If somebody from 2019 had time-travelled here, would they notice anything different?” I asked my wife Janine, while out at a funky restaurant/bar recently. We were spending a few days in Sydney’s glitzy eastern suburbs during a house swap with some friends.

Apart from the mandatory hand sanitiser and QR code check-in upon entry, the only other noticeable change for someone who’d never experienced Covid-19 would be the spacing of the tables. Instead of being jammed in elbow-to-elbow in the narrow terrace building, the tables were comfortably spaced, which we enjoyed.

Wearing the poo-brown face mask Janine had bought for me (matches my beard, she says), I visited a nearby grocery store the next day. A few