2020 - My Year of Corona, Cheezels and Cheap Wine

By Janelle Ross

What happens when a humdrum, potty mouthed, V8 Supercars fan of a mum starts writing a 2020 diary about her past and present and then all of a sudden, booooom, the COVID-19 Corona virus turns up unannounced on Australian shores? Oh there'll be tears, many eye rolls and swearing, yes lots of swearing. There will be supermarket toilet paper wrestling wars, Bin Night Dress Ups, grocery shop aisle dancing, Zoom celebrity interviews, everyone working from home wearing underwear or pyjamas and then there was, dare we mention it, home schooling. An AFL Football Grand Final taken away from Melbourne?! Who would have predicted that?! 'Secret Santas' privately paying off toy store Christmas bills! There were people who grew hair, people bought pets and some people just kept quietly observing and taking notes, just like this Aussie mother did. So, jump aboard her crazy trips down multiple memory lanes. Please ensure your hands are sanitized, we are all kept 1.5 metres apart and you have ample supplies of chilled cheap wine and Cheezels, fine Aussie delicacies for a 'Corona-coaster' journey like none other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Oct 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685830304

Book preview

2020 - At war with something we cannot see …

   Okay, I know, you haven’t read a word from this diary as yet and I am tremendously sorry for butting in way too soon, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that the next four paragraphs of seriousness will be short and sweet. Not every thing written about the COVID-19 Corona virus is going to be well and truly smothered in all sorts of seriousness and death knell narration. You are very welcome to have the likes of James Earl Jones to narrate your seriousness. I would much prefer Renee Zellweger’s Bridget Jones voice narrating this historical yet hysterical trip down ‘Corona Crescent’. I do admit that I did add splashes of seriousness, here and there, I also drop F Bombs a fair bit, okay a lot, and play the role of Mother Hubbard way too many bloody times but ‘seriousness’ does not rate highly in this diary of mine. I mean, come on, this 2020 diary commences with a mention of The Village People, not much seriousness happening there! But since you wonderfully went to the time and effort of buying or borrowing this book, I shall go to the effort and at least provide you with four paragraphs of wholesome seriousness, with or without James Earl Jones narrating. The rest of the book I make no apology for. I won’t even apologise for my brilliant ‘bogan dancing’ in Aisle 11 at the local supermarket during a pain-in-the-arse pandemic. So, now, you may continue to read. On your marks, get set … seriousness commences … now!!!

Take Two – 2020 At war with something we cannot see…

For at least the past century our Australian Defence Troops would embark on numerous missions and wars across the world. They were provided with the very best in armour and technology; radars and equipment, pin pointing exactly where the enemy was. When the troops and technology combined it ensured our country remained secure and safe.

A variety of warning systems also come in very handy when ‘Mother Nature’ inflicts her weather wars upon us all. Here in Australia we endure the toughest of weather conditions whether its fire, flood, drought or cyclonic severe storms. With thanks to today’s technology we are warned within hours if not days that these systems are developing let alone approaching. The various warnings are issued and we prepare to battle the approaching ‘weather wars’. Due to these warnings and preparation many properties and lives have been saved.

But who or what will warn and protect us all from an enemy we cannot see approaching? Who will protect us from a virus that does not recognise boundaries, government orders or instructions? Sadly there was no radar or modern technology to prewarn us about the invisible war that was to hit us all in some way or another, worldwide in 2020. It was the arrival of COVID-19, a Corona Virus, originating from markets in China in late 2019, so we’re told. 

It was a ‘war’ none of us saw coming. Even the fortune tellers, psychics or astrologers did not predict this bizarre yet deadly era in modern history. I did not hear one ‘forecasting the future’ expert alerting us to a world wide pandemic. Not one of them pre-warned us that we would spend Easter, school holidays and my birthday of all things in complete isolation at home. Not one of them predicted ferocious yet feral hoarders who would fight us all for shopping trolleys full of toilet paper and then by the end of the day end up on Nightly News Bulletins all because they didn’t want to play nice. And certainly none of these ‘predictors’ announced that in 2020 that us parents would suddenly be forced, I mean, transformed into teachers, principals and counsellors to our oh so precious, full of attitude kids as they were made to ‘learn from home’. What frustratingly months of hell that was to our livers, ahem, sorry I meant to us all.

Wow, that was all way too serious for my liking. The four paragraphs of seriousness conclude right now. Please allow me to change the mood for you in the next three hundred or so pages. Welcome to my 2020 Diary. A diary I started as we farewelled 2019 and welcomed in what we hoped would be a better year for all of us. This diary was supposed to be about a humdrum recollection of a boring, middle aged, stay at home mother, which of course is me. Then THAT virus unexpectedly gate crashed onto our planet and my humble little ol’ diary took off in many completely different and crazy directions. At times it was utterly exhausting keeping up with every single piece of information being thrown at us from many levels of government as most of the world commenced closing down in March 2020.

Every one of us has a different story to tell from our 2020 Year of Corona experience. Whilst most people only caught quick grabs off the TV bulletins or social media, I was taking notes as the information flowed through from many government press conferences and local talk back radio shows. At times I felt like I was the only loser, sorry, lonely and bored housewife paying attention to the official talking heads at those many MANY press conferences held every single bloody day. No matter how big or small or good or bad these news items were I was determined we were all not going to forget about the year of the pandemic where we saw shopping aisle craziness, ‘Bin Night Dress Ups’ and that one sunrise in April us Australians showed the utmost respect on ANZAC Day from our own drive ways or balconies.

So, here I present to you my 2020 Diary, full of Corona craziness, toilet paper hoarders, ‘Karens’, and most importantly crates full of cheap wine and Cheezels. Let me drag you down some rather bizarre yet dark and emotional memory lanes. We’ll even take random breaks away from the continual monotonous world of Corona as I reminisce about my upbringing here in my hometown of Brisbane. If it wasn’t me reminiscing, it was social media platforms such as Facebook keeping us all entertained as they replayed sports matches we were actually at … 25-35 years ago!! Times when I wore that spectacular spiral perm quite nicely thank you very much. Oh what simpler years they all were! No world wide pandemic back then! Absolutely no hand sanitizer or social distancing either! So, grab those Cheezels and your chilled cheap wine and enjoy my memories of the year 2020, a year we will never forget and never want back, ever again. Oh and remember to keep washing your hands, lots.

Wednesday 1st January 2020

Quite a while after the clock struck midnight… 

Happppppy Newestttt of Years and welcome everyone to 2020!! Many hours ago clocks around Brisbane suddenly struck 12. (Many hours later I think I still have alcohol pumping madly throughout my veins). Midnight thankfully arrived before I nodded off! Good riddance 2019, Merry Hellos to another year. As usual at the stroke of midnight the vintage yet traditional song of Auld Lang Syne filtered throughout the lounge room, courtesy of local Brissy radio station 4KQ. At least they still play the original Auld Lang Syne, unlike the FM stations that dig out and play U2’s New Years Day. BORING! Anyways, where was I? Oh that’s right, hugging my children, well stealing a couple of hugs from my teenage sons to put it politely. These days I have to steal hugs from them because as soon as they became teenagers those smothering cute hugs I used to get from them were officially taken off the menu. It seemed that my sons had more care factor for their electronic gaming things than they did for any type of New Years celebrations. To say they were immensely frustrated that I had dragged them away from their gaming time in their dungeons was an understatement. They were also rather perplexed and confused as they attempted to listen to the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne. Of course they had to ask me what the song was all about. Oh come on, have I got the word Google stamped upon my forehead?? During the night I had most probably enjoyed and consumed half a winery and suddenly these children of mine wanted an education lesson in regards to the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne?? Ask your father kids. Speaking of whom, he was of course playing the role of my bar tender at times during the night as he handed me more chilled glasses of champagne. After our first New Years kiss of 2020 we clicked our glasses and made a toast at surviving another year and starting another. It was then his attention for me was stolen by my nearby TV. He started to laugh then rolled his eyes at the movie scene playing before him.

What the hell are you watching?! Dear lord, that’s not 'The Village People’, is it?! Oh yes it was. You see, once upon a time, many moons ago, an Australian television network, very late on New Years Eve, televised the 1980s camp yet cult of a movie Can’t Stop the Music which of course features 1970/80s band ‘The Village People’. And since then it has become a tradition to show this movie EVERY New Years Eve. Just like National Lampoons Christmas Vacation which appears on our screens every Christmas night. 

Oh, that’s the dude out of the Police Academy movies, Mahoney! Who’s that guy with the floppy hair wearing the tight denim hot pants? Oh lordy, the hubby was dissecting the movie…

Bruce Jenner?? Have you seriously not heard of … I looked at my husband as he vaguely blinked back at me ala Homer Simpson style. After the amount of alcohol I had consumed there was no way in the world I would be even attempting to discuss the ‘Life and times of Bruce Jenner’. There was only one way for the hubby to go to study about the Jenner family …Never mind, Google is your best friend.

And ladies and gentlemen that is how us ‘almost middle-agers’ rock in the New Year. The years of squashing into public transport like sardines just to watch a half hour fireworks display was long gone for us. We had officially reached the ‘boring old fart’ age where getting dressed up to go to a jam packed noisy nightclub became an expensive New Years Eve nightmare. Stay at home celebrations was much kinder to our blood pressure count, our feet, as well as our bank balance.

But sadly one thing was missing this New Years Eve. It was the fireworks display that normally exploded into the skies above our local football club down the road. Every year from our front porch, with glass of wine firmly gripped in my hand, we would watch the fireworks launch away. But this year due to the horrendous fire conditions our country had been enduring since September, many New Year’s Eve organisers cancelled their fireworks displays. Instead, the clubs donated the fireworks funds to the local fire brigade volunteer agencies. However cities such as Brisbane and Sydney did not cancel their big, expensive fireworks displays. Apparently ‘the show must go on’.

Fireworks or no fireworks, ‘us ol’ folk’ stayed home and by 12:10am I was celebrating the New Year with just me and a chilled bottle of champers sweetie darling. All the male folk had dispersed and returned to their individual man caves, AGAIN! The last thing I remember from our New Year’s fun was attempting to figure out why there was no fireman in The Village People line up? Now that would have been the delicious icing on top of a scrumptious cake right there if they included a well endowed, sorry, very muscular fireman! 

So here I am, many hours later, desperate for a ‘nanna nap’. Is there a cosy couch upon this 2020 bus and where will bus travel to? I have no bloody idea. Is there a giant mini bar on board? I do bloody hope so! Dearest 2020: Please be gentle, we mean you no harm.   

Wednesday 8th January 2020

    Dearest Diary: Good bloody grief. I truly thought writing every day would be easy as. How wrong was I?? No wonder I don’t have many written recollections of my life because I must have almost died of boredom every time I started! I was never intending to write a novel the size of Gone with the Wind. Just a simple day to day diary, a book my children and their children could read. See what life was like back in 2020; see how their wacky ancestors took on a heat, humidity and horrendously stupid people. Do you think I can sit here, in this hot sauna of a house, putting up with this crap summer we have and write about day to day things?? No I can’t. The sweat under my palms and arms is truly shitting me right off. Is there any chance in the world I can set up office in a Bottle Shop refrigeration room, along side the chilled cartons of beer and wine casks?? ‘Write anything’ well known authors say to budding new authors. So, do you all REALLY one want to read about raising teenage boys and how ‘exciting’ grocery shopping is?! My life is boring as a 1970s television test pattern. (Google it youngsters!). So why even contemplate writing a diary if it causes me so much angst you may ask? I want my sons and their children to know more about their ancestors than I do about mine. I currently pay an ancestry web site to search names and places and all I get back is, well, names and places. I want to know if Uncle Fred was a bank manager or robber. I want to know if Great Great Grandma Selina was a bible-basher or a ‘lady of a night’. Where am I going with all this drivel? Just for once I want my kids and their kids to know something about our lives in the 2020s, even if it is just a year’s worth. Better than nothing which I basically have about my parents and their parents.

Hang on a moment, I wrote something!!!! It’s a miracle! Okay then, let's write some more! Next up, who am I? I am a fifty something year old, rather quiet yet insane, stay at home mother, living the hermit life here in Brisbane. Sharing this space under the roof with me is ‘the hubby’. Yes he has a name, it is Homer Simpson. Seriously he does have a name, with the initials of Chris Hemsworth. Okay, okay, yes I was not meant to be a comedian but when I mention ‘hubby’ I am speaking of, well, my hubby. We have been enjoying ‘togetherness’ for over two decades and what an exhausting, brain blowing, frustrating yet an enjoyable couple of years that has been. During those years I self appointed myself to the roles of Co-Chief Executive Officer (aka Wifey), as well as Manager (aka Mum) to two grunting, sometimes strange smelling, adorable, potty mouthed teenage boys who I refer to as Mr16 and Mr13. Yes, hubby and I successfully created two beautiful sons who are right now 16 and 13 years of age. Job wise, well, nothing to see here, move along, as unemployed me attempts to take on the many curve balls of life.

My creative writing attempts are a bit like when I start diets, on and off and on and off … across many decades. Way back in the early 1980s during my Hendra High School school years, I started to put ‘pen to paper’ when I started a diary. No computers or laptops back then to use! Ahhh yes, school diaries meant for school and homework reminders but actually contained boys' names and cherry red love hearts throughout it, as well as Tiger Beat magazine pictures of Christopher Atkins and Duran Duran.  And of course  I had the biggest school girl crush on a boy in my class. This blonde haired spunk rat loved to surf. (How Aussie are those words ‘spunk rat’?! ). I even wasted precious money on surf magazines because I utterly adored him, with every single piece of my heart. True love it was (even thought he rarely spoke to me). But, alas, it was not meant to be, heavy sigh. This love story came to an abrupt end after he was told I liked him, and his response was that he didn’t like me. SNAP!! My 15 year old heart was torn apart (cue the heartbroken Days of Our Lives slow violin dramatic music) and crushed like ice in a bartender’s well used cocktail blender. With my heart shattered into many pieces, those surf magazines met up with my parents’ backyard intensely hot incinerator. Viciously I tore page by page out of those stupid, waste of money, magazines. My chubby fifteen year old hands powerfully pitched every page into that roaring incinerator fire. As the magazine ashes drifted upwards into the night time Nundah sky, I cried tears of heart break. Darn straight it was the end of the world right at that precise moment! I promised myself that I would never develop another ‘crush’ on anyone in my life again! Ha! I think that promise lasted a month, LOL

But as well as diary confessions, my hormone filled imagination also had me creating some very dreamy yet amateur somewhat steamy romance like stories. My ‘novels’ were about a high school girl (me) coincidentally becoming the back up singer to Duran Duran (as you do!). I would go on to live happily ever after with John Taylor, (of course I would!), the drop dead gorgeous bass sex god of a guitarist, because that’s what us 13 year olds only wanted to do in the early 1980s, LOL. Oh there was some brilliant imaginative writing happening there, however, as I was also a virgin at the time, the raunchy sex scenes with a rock star were a tad, okay, immensely immature. One can only have one breast fondled so many times if you know what I mean!

By the time I reached 18, my obsession with ‘sexy bass god’ had diminished but my social life had improved immensely. The year was 1988 and by day I was a full time clerical worker inside the city concrete walls of the Health Department but by night I was shaking my groove thing at inner city  nightclubs such as Tracks, Sibyls or Manhattans. If I wasn't clubbing I was either supporting the Brisbane Bullets basketball team out at Boondall or hanging about at the extremely popular World Expo 88, possibly doing a Chicken Dance or three or perving at the Aquacade divers in their incy whincy dick togs, sorry, I meant swimwear! As you can see I had no time at all for any sort of writing, or as my mother called it back then ‘that childish crap you write’. Alas, she was not the best cheerleader I had in my life. I was so ashamed after her ‘supportive words’ slam dunked me that  I buried all my ‘manuscripts’ and diaries in the back of my wardrobe. The most ironic thing decades later all that ‘childish crap’ is now called Fan Fiction. Today’s high school students studying English are now being taught about it, including my teenage sons. I wish I knew about this in my high school days! I could have made a sweet fortune and been as rich and glamourous as Jackie Collins! And maybe just maybe could have actually ‘met up’ with sexy bass god John Taylor to have that one breast fondled, oh lordie, sorry, where was I? Am I blushing madly or is menopause visiting me for the day, again?

For many years that harsh criticism from my mother made me back well away from any sort of writing.  Maybe she was right, I kept silently asking myself, that was until April 1997. My writing ‘mojo’ was about to return in full force, just as my QANTAS 747 jumbo jet departed for the United States of America. I had boarding pass still in left hand and brand new travel diary in the right.  I had embarked on a six week coach tour on my own  across America, yes, all alone and my diary heard all about it. The first two weeks of ‘coach life’ compiled of nice, lovely and colourful descriptions of grand American historic monuments such as the park bench in Savannah where Forrest Gump/Tom Hanks sat on, waiting for that bus that would hopefully take him and his box of chocolates to see Jennnny. Damn straight that park bench is historic to us movie watchers! The tours were great but not awesome, it felt like I was on a bus tour full of the over 50s. I was single and I really truly needed to ‘mingle’. The powers above must have sensed my ‘frustrations’ and suddenly arriving at our Anaheim Ramada Inn was  a 14 day Contiki ‘Wild Western’ coach tour, a coach full of party people from around the world, ready to have the time of their lives.  We visited the usual holiday destinations such as San Diego, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, up to San Francisco. It didn't take long at all for my travel diary to go from a G up to a ‘oh my god I can’t believe you did that' MA-15 kind of rating. Most of my entries were being written whilst still half drunk, hung over or very sleepy. And of course you guessed it; I successfully ‘fell for’ another Aussie, a very well built and loved to surf Aussie. Yep, I kid you not. Suddenly that diary went from describing how pretty the Disneyland castle looked to how darn hot my travel crush was and how annoyed I was that he was trying to pick up with every girl but me! LOL. So after two weeks of being on the road and our tour coming to an end, what possibly could ‘Mr Travel Crush’ and I do? We drank vast amounts of alcohol,  down too many alcoholic jelly shots and took over the karaoke machine and then much later did the unsober meander back to my Santa Barbara motel room. What possibly could go wrong?! Yes, of course, in the midst of wild, yet drunken, passion I just had to slur out those vodka filled romantic words of "I roooolllly love youuu maaaate ". Of course he awkwardly laughs and tells me he didn’t like me ‘in that way’. Shit, not again! Seriously?! At 28 I was way too old for this school girl crush crap but me ol’ heart still smashed apart! This time around Travel Diary avoided death row as incinerators were very hard to find in the Santa Barbara township. And I am very sad to say that was my first and last overseas trip I have taken. Somehow marriage, mortgage and motherhood stepped in BUT the diaries and school girl manuscripts/fan fiction still exist and well, incinerators were banned in Brisbane many decades ago.

So many moons later, here we are in January 2020, attempting to reboot my diary writing without any more soap opera style high school/Contiki crushes from now on. Right now I make a vow to myself (no, not a pathetic wanky New Years Resolution that will never bloody stick) that this is the year I will stick with writing a diary, yet again. I vow that there will be no more excuses or school girl crushes. I’m too old for that shit, oh and yeah and I’m married.

Mid - January-ish 2020 - Ferocious Fires

   Yes, I know, diary writing not as regular and up to date as one had hoped for. But I have a good excuse as my eyes have been glued to yet another disaster. Right now something terrible is happening here in Australia and if I don’t write about it I don’t deserve to be an author of any kind. Most of rural southern Australia is burning to the ground. These disastrous and deadly bush fires, have been brutally burning throughout our country since September 2019.  Many families down south spent their New Years Eve either escaping their homes to a safe place as the fire storm approached their properties or staying at home protecting it from the ferocious flames. There were no celebrations to be had down there at all. As Australia continued to remain bitterly hot and horrendously humid, southern parts of our country continued to burn, destroy and kill. Billions of farming and wildlife animals sadly burnt to death. Buildings and homes destroyed, millions of hectares of land scorched. Human life tragically taken. This was not a happy new year at all.

As the fires roared on, well known people started to take notice on what was happening Down Under. Suddenly big named celebrities were kindly donating massive amounts of their money towards fire fighting and animal welfare charities. My favourite woman in the whole wide world, rock star P!nk, wonderfully donated half a million dollars, in which by the way she does every time this country encounters a disaster. Elton John & Chris Hemsworth donated one million dollars each, as did Kylie Jenner. Right now the Australian Tennis Open is happening down in Melbourne and all the big names in the tennis world are coming together to help out with raising money for fire victims. Big names such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Ash Barty, Nick Kyrgios and many others hosted a tennis fundraising night which was also televised worldwide. This bushfire crisis was international news, including the USA. In normal times Australia rarely appears on U.S. screens unless the story involves a Hemsworth or an Irwin. Crikey!

However, bushfires were not the only very scary moment that occurred in this very somber first month of the year. We almost lost the original Yellow Wiggle. Oh come on, you do know what a ‘Yellow Wiggle’ is. For almost thirty years the Australian children’s band The Wiggles have entertained millions of children all around the world whilst they firmly entrenched every one of their boppy songs into parents’ heads. There were catchy songs such as the wonderful Hot Potato, Big Red Car and Fruit Salad. Just recently on the 17th January the original The Wiggles reunited to perform at a charity concert to raise money for the fire victims. Much to everyone’s shock Greg Page, the original Yellow Wiggle, collapsed as he left the stage near the end of the concert. Well, he didn’t step by step walk off stage; he collapsed down the stairs and crashed to the floor. He had suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Medical professionals there at the time later stated that Greg had actually died. Thankfully he was brought back to life by a nurse in the crowd and a band member using a defibrillator near by. To everyone on that night who had a part in saving Greg’s life I send you all massive thank yous. You are brilliantly awesome. Now, go eat some ‘fruit salad’, because I hear it is ‘yummy yummy’… sorry, I couldn’t help myself there.

But whilst Yellow Wiggle Greg recovered from his terrifying health scare and our hero fire fighters continued to bravely compete against the destructive deadly fires, there was news filtering through that a little ol’ virus over in China was beginning to brew and sadly spread. The virus was called something like COVID-19 Corona virus. Of course us Aussies as per usual had to christen it with the nickname of simply Corona because that’s what Australians do. This virus had claimed its first victim back on the 9th January 2020, after they had travelled from Wuhan, China. But most of us Aussies remained unworried and unfazed about it all. Probably because so many times in recent history we have heard the media become hysterical about past deadly viruses, most of these viruses named after farm animals eg. swine, chicken or bird flu. Every time there is a virus, the media whips up a frenzy, we panic and within a week or two everything settles down. The hysteria is hosed down and we all continued on our merry ways. As February was approaching our care factor for Corona was wobbling between the levels of Corona, what Corona?! and She’ll be right mate on the virus care factor gauge.

Putting aside all these bad news stories there was light at the end of parents’ tunnels at home. At tunnel’s end was a massive tsunami wave of relief and happiness. Our ‘little darlings’ (cough cough) school children, grade by grade, were returning to the classrooms for a brand new year of schooling. For parents THIS is ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, not Christmas time. After more than six weeks of Summer school holidays, mostly spent in our old un-airconditioned house here, our wonderful little darlings return to their place of education and us parents and carers all rejoice as one! (Insert ‘Doctor Evil’ laughter here! Bwah ha ha ha ha …)

Hello February 2020

Goodbye January. You were hot, humid and brutally horrendous. Bush fires are still burning through southern parts of Australia, mainly in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. Money is pouring into charities, money for victims to rebuild their lives, their houses, replace animal stock. Famous celebrities and sports people have been auctioning off their own memorabilia to raise funds for charities. V8 Supercar drivers auctioned off their racing suits and helmets to raise thousands of dollars for bush fire relief. Sadly my money tree had not yet blossomed so I had no hope in bidding for any thing a celebrity had put up for auction. However, these celebrities and sports people have my full respect and I praise them for all for their generosity.

So I guess it is hello and welcome aboard February! What shocks and surprises have you got for us during the next month? How we hope you treat us better than January did. January was a feisty angry monster destroying everything in its path.

Family life here in Brisbane is returning to some sort of normality as spouses return to work and the hormonal teenage school children reluctantly commence their 2020 school year, no guesses on who those school children belong to! With all the males in this house now back in the office or at school, I have peace and quiet and can listen to 4BC, a Brisbane talk back radio station, without any interruptions whatsoever. Majority of the callers chatted about the fire recovery/disaster, politics and day to day life. However one anxious caller had a completely different topic to talk about. She refuses to return her children to school because of ‘that nasty virus that could be brought into our country’. She was extremely anxious and somewhat scared that Asian International Students were going to spread the disease into Australian schools. I could visualize many listeners all rolling their eyes in unison, reacting to the hysterical mother and her concerns. It was hard to comprehend that there were people that worried about something from Asia after our own country had been decimated by either drought or bush fires. She was sounding a bit like ‘Chicken Little’ with the ol’"the sky is falling, the sky is falling" . Or if you are a The Simpsons fan, I am visioning the Helen Lovejoy character with her panic screams of "Will someone think of the children????!!! " But no matter what any radio announcer or member of society said to this mother she was determined to keep her children at home where she knew the virus wasn’t contagious. The feedback from callers was not so kind. They thought she was ‘mad’, ‘hysterical’, ‘blowing it all out of proportion’. Time would tell. 

Sunday 16th  February 2020 - We are the Champions …

As most Australians started to get ‘into the groove’ of 2020, fundraising events and concerts were in full swing to benefit the people who had lost their homes, animals, even their loved ones in the horrific bush fires. Local and International media outlets provided us all with wall to wall coverage of our fire fighting heroes who were still at war with the raging fires.

Fire Fight fundraising concert schedule

But out of the tragedy rises the good faith and brilliant hard work of many. Concert promoters and music artists, from here and overseas, have joined together to create a concert of a life time. Last time I saw a music line up this huge was back on 13th July 1985 when Sir Bob Geldof organised Live Aid over in London and Philadelphia. However this time around music artists such as Queen with Adam Lambert, Olivia Newton-John, Alice Cooper, Michael Buble, K.D. Lang had signed up to perform. There was a fine blend of local Australia music acts as well as the big named overseas artists. Hell, K.D. Lang wasn’t even touring here, but as soon as she heard this concert event was being planned and she immediately flew from Canada to Sydney so she could be a part of something so special. Queen even allowed the promoters to use their own stage for the gig as it was already in place at the Sydney Olympic Stadium for their own concerts. And brilliantly perform they all did. The concert started around lunch time and was beamed live out to Australian and overseas audiences. Delta Goodrem passionately sung We are Australian. Tina Arena roared when she performed one of The Divinyls biggest hits Boys are Back in Town. And of course Daryl Braithwaite sang The Horses because, you know, ‘that’s the way it’s going to be little darrrrling’ LOL. Queen’s playlist was