Coronavirus Australia: What we all think of toilet paper hoarders

The COVID-19 crisis is enriching the language but a supermarket director didn’t need words to answer a hoarder seeking a refund.

John-Paul Drake confirms the limit of one on some items. Picture: YouTube

An Adelaide “supermarket director” — I digress, but when did managers become directors? — John-Paul Drake has become the hero of men and women with dirty bottoms everywhere, after making a YouTube video in which he explains why he flatly refused to refund a man for the hundreds of litres of hand sanitiser, and the thousands of rolls of toilet paper he bought to sell online.

Drake said the hoarder had 20 people tasked with buying products, and when he found he couldn’t sell them on eBay, he trucked them back to the shop.

Drake’s response? We’ve blurred it for you (pictured above), but you get the picture. Watch the video below.

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Add ‘illegal dinner party’ to the list

It was truly lovely to hear from so many logophiles after yesterday’s item on the new terms being coined for the COVID-19 crisis, and yes, thank you, we did know about “self-quarantine” and “the rona” and “social distancing” and “patient zero”.

Some folk are claiming “cabin fever” as new, but not if you’ve ever flown long-haul, economy, on United (and doesn’t the idea just make you misty?).

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy links the outbreak in Tasmania’s north-west with a gathering of medical staff who failed to self-isolate.https://t.co/1rryAKwjQf

— The Australian (@australian) April 14, 2020

Peculiar to Australia is the “illegal dinner party” coined by Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy to describe a ghost-gathering of now COVID-19-positive medical workers (it apparently never happened) in Tasmania, but to our mind, also a cracking name for a band. Illegal Dinner Party surely also gives rise to a new game: who to invite? Julian Assange? The bloke from Tiger King? And also, what to serve? Corona chicken! And then, of course, some pangolin pie.

Perfect guest for an illegal dinner party? Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage from Netflix’s latest hit, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. Picture: Netflix

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Pick-up lines pick up

Tinder has, of course, been banned, but here’s two more pick-up lines for when you’re allowed to resume your search for love in the time of corona. “I’m just a girl, standing six feet away from a boy, asking him to maybe move back a little.” “If the coronavirus does not take you out, can I?”

Makes you think... 🤔 https://t.co/Y3TRA4xd8e

— Tinder (@Tinder) April 14, 2020

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Generation corona  

Are you packing the COVID-10? Picture: File

Also new, these terms for all the babies just bound to be born as a result of all this hunkering down: they’re the coronials, they’re the quaranteens, they’re the cutie little coronababies.

And if all that weren’t enough, we’ve also now got “The COVID-10” which refers to the roughly 10kg you’ve stacked on, going back and forwards to the fridge.

Now it’s obviously important to own this one. Try it out now. Pat your tummy, turn to the wife, and say: “Look at me, darlin’, I’m packing the COVID-10.”

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Bondi takes to airwaves

No suburb has been scapegoated quite like Bondi during this crisis, and you can kind of see why: it’s a hot spot, full of hotties.

Remember when Bondi looked like this? Picture: Tim Hunter.

But now Old Bondi — they’re the slightly crusty ones who have been there forever, and lament its demise into Instagram showy-offness as much as anyone — is fighting back.

Two long-time residents, Christopher Zinn and John McNamara, have launched a COVID news show at Eastside FM. They’ve already had the member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, on; they’re fishing for NSW police to come and explain the guidelines about the beach; they’re talking to surfers, and beach volleyballers, probably.

Catch them like a wave, daily at 3pm.

Now Bondi just looks like this. Picture: AAP

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A virus walks into a bar

OK, OK. Here’s your daily coronavirus joke: Heard the one about the man who asked for a jigsaw puzzle to help him survive quarantine? “I thought they said four to six weeks,” he told his wife, in despair. “This box says three to five years!” (Are the jokes getting worse? Yes, I think they are.)