MMT has been busy collating a series of happy snaps and social media memes as a record of COVID-19 and its impact on Melbourne. Most of these photos have been taken whilst MMT has been out and about on his bike. Speaking of which, MMT is quietly chuffed at doing over 1000 km in June.
So the photo below, isn’t included in the gallery as it was taken in Sydney. MMT thinks it perfectly captured the insanity of what was occurring in Australia’s grocery stores back in March 2020.
Chapeau!! to the Newtown branch of NSW Fire and Rescue service. Readers you can find MMT’s COVID Gallery <-here.
MMT managed a 75km ride on a glorious winter morning. It was so good to be outside in the sun. Clearly, every cyclist in Melbourne thought the same thing, as there were literally thousands of cyclists of all shapes and sizes on Beach Road. The general mood at Tour de Cafe, Mordialloc, this morning was quite festive. MMT enjoyed a warm strong latte, while discretely ogling 2 Litespeed Ti framed bikes.
Opps! That was shamless plug no.1 and here’s a photo of that cafe 🙂 MMT doesn’t need to promote this cafe too much, its pretty much an institution in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Yesterday with 20+ cyclists standing around on sunny but cold morning, it was a small slice of heaven.
This is one of the few photos MMT has seen of this cafe without cyclists milling around outside waiting for coffee 😉
That brings MMT to shameless plug no.2 for Get to the Greek in Port Melbourne. MMT has been collecting pick-up lamb gryos and souvlaki as a Friday night treat for Team MMT. It is quite inexpensive and very tasty. There’s a decent picture of the place, acquired care of Google.
yep, another photo liberated from the WWW, without any credit given to the photographer…opps!! 🙂
Last Friday night, MMT rolled up to pay and collect, when the resturant manager offered MMT a free beer. Since the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne started, MMT couldn’t rememer the last time he had a beer. So it was gratefully accepted. The order arrived seconds later, and manager provided the free beer in a takeaway cup. How good was that??
All over the world, a lot of people are having incredibly shit experiences with worst global event since World War 2. People are sick, dying, unemployed, suffering from extreme social distancing and wondering what happens next. MMT is no different. Europe’s death toll is slowly abating and has been overtaken by the USA. At least here in Australia and in our next door neighbour New Zealand we have been spared the worst.
In MMT’s small part of the world, he’s been deeply concerned, seemingly struck down by the common flu after his last ride on Good Friday. Stupidly, MMT rode in the wind and wet for nearly three hours and by Sunday afternoon was feeling pretty average. His youngest daughter has a much milder version of the same thing. Given the asbence of a few key symptoms its seems unlikely that either of us have COVID-19. Daughter No.2 has had a couple of trips to the ER with breathing difficulties attributed to Croup. However next week, once the worst of this is over, MMT plans on visiting his GP and having a chat.
So last blog MMT shamelessly stole a couple of graphs documenting the infection rate in Victoria and in Australia overall. The latest version of the graphs spell out how effective Australia has been contact tracing, isolating oversea visitors or returning Australians and controlling cluster outbreaks. If the Ruby Princess cruiseship debacle hadn’t occurred it could have been better.
This is Victoria’s:
This is Australia’s:
The curves in both graphs have experienced the required flattening. The cost of which is likley to paid for by generations of Australias, present and future.
So to tie back to were MMT started, MMT has been revisiting the music of his youth via a social media platform, that he refuses to name on principle. One of those albums was Document No.5, which contained the song and lyric, ‘Its the end of the world and I feel fine’. MMT is not sure about the ‘fine’ part yet.
It’s been nearly 4 weeks since MMT put fingers to keyboard to write a blog and the world has irreparably changed in that time. The SARS COV-2 virus has taken the lives of over 40,000 people worldwide. Life as we know it has stopped. We are confined in our homes due to stage 3 restrictions. A very large portion of us will be without employment. When the health crisis passes, all of us will be facing a very uncertain economic future.
Through the selfish lense of a cyclist, MMT is horrified by the images and statistics coming from Italy, Spain, France and the UK. Its difficult to see how any of the remaining grand tours or monuments will be run. It beggars belief that the ASO group still think that it may be possible to conduct the 2020 Tour de France without crowds. It seems unlikely that any team based outside of France would attend, given restrictions on international movements.
Here in Australia, it seems that we have been spared the worst, so far. Our case count is relatively high but thankfully the death rate has been low. MMT has been keeping a watchful eye on the the https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-update
It’s these two graphs that he’s watching and hoping will get better, or rather as our medical experts explain flatter.
This one is for Victoria
This one is for Australia
The one he can’t bear to look at is this one, provided by John Hopkins University Global COVID-19 Cases. Its just too grim…
So for those of you out there, in self-isolation and practising social distancing, MMT wishes you ‘God Speed’ and that you and loved ones emerge from this catastrophe, alive and well.
You must be logged in to post a comment.