Coronaspeak, the language of languor

What to wear when you’re enjoying an after-work coronarita? When it comes to quarantine chic, Julie Bishop is setting the trend.

Julie Bishop ‘'working from home Covid-style’’. Picture: Instagram

Oh say, do you speak corona? Lovers of language will be delighting in the new words sparked by this crisis, some of them completely made up — covidiot, for example — and some borrowed from our infected friends abroad. It’s my absolute pleasure to make these additions to your lexicon:

Geisterspiel: That’s German for “ghost game”, meaning the football, soccer, cricket, whatever you play, with a result that counts but no spectators.

Hamsteren: That’s Dutch for stuffing your cheeks like a hamster, except that it’s mostly used colloquially to mean hoarding and, according to The Economist, it came into use during COVID-19 when a Dutch sign language interpreter was seen on TV translating a cabinet minister’s warning not to hoard, and did so “with a pinched nose and rodent-like clawing with her hands”. It’s that delightful? Although in English I think we’d go for hamsterin’, as in:

“Of course I became a little rounder during the pandemic; me been hamsterin’.” Or: “Oh, we have plenty of toilet paper. Mum’s been hamsterin’.”

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Quarantini anyone?

To toast our new words, we will need new drinks. Anyone fancy a coronarita? That’s a margarita made with Corona beer. If not, how about a quarantini? That’s literally any alcohol you’re drinking right now. And if you’re looking for something to wear, well, let’s not go past “quarantine chic” as worn by erstwhile foreign minister Julie Bishop, who posted this hot-pink shorts and matching toenail polish ensemble on her Instagram.

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Redemption

Brazil’s Christ the Redeemer statue was dressed up in fancy lights on Easter Sunday to look like a medical doctor, in a tribute to frontline healthcare workers battling the pandemic. Lovely, said some. Sacrilegious, said others, and then came the wit who wanted to celebrate the true saviours in these troubled times: “Next week they should turn him into a pizza delivery guy.”

That’s some makeover. Picture: Getty Images

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No parking

Strewth has unconfirmed but please-let-them-be-true reports that one local council dispersed the covidiot crowd in a city park yesterday in the surest way possible: it turned the sprinklers on.

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The dim blue line

More reports of police heavy-handedness: there were the cops who poked their noses into an old lady’s shopping bag to see if the goods qualified as “essential”; there was the Victorian couple fined (since retracted) for posting year-old photographs of their trip to Lakes Entrance on Facebook; and how about the cops who entered the church during a Greek funeral to count the mourners in the pews as the coffin came down the aisle? Question: does the departed count?

Illustration: Johannes Leak.

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Dylan still doing it

Dylan tragics will know that his Bobness has released a new track, Murder Most Foul and made it available, for free, during the pandemic. “Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you,” he said.

Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years.
This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting.
Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.
Bob Dylanhttps://t.co/uJnE4X64Bb

— bobdylan.com (@bobdylan) March 27, 2020

Unanimously, it is agreed that the song is a masterpiece. For confirmation see Nick Cave, who has written about it on his Red Hand Files blog this week: “It is a perplexing but beautiful song and, like many people, I have been extremely moved by it,” said Cave.

Nick Cave. Picture: AFP

“There is something within his voice … It is as though it has travelled a great distance, through stretches of time, full of an earned integrity and stature that soothes in the way of a lullaby, a chant, or a prayer.”

For those interested in the fate of Dylan’s Never-ending Tour (yes, we know it’s not really called that but, gee, it has been going a long time), the Japan leg was cancelled but Dylan is booked to appear at the Sunlight Supply amphitheatre in Ridgefield, Washington, in June.

Could it happen? Well, why not? He always did know more than the rest of us.

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Poor taste?

Yes, we promised, so here is your COVID-19 joke of the day: “Whoever said one person can’t change the world never ate a bat … and I appreciate that may not be to everyone’s taste.” Two jokes in one! Boom boom.

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