Mortality Archives - thegoodwills.com

In the event of something happening to me

Nothing quite focuses the mind on mortality more than a family bereavement. It’s been a long time between our family’s episodes of sorry business. However, I headed to New Zealand on pure instinct, arriving in time to support my sister as she said goodbye to her husband of 62 years. They say that 95 is a ‘good innings’, but it is no less hard for the family when the time comes.

The manner in which one can choose to shuffle off has changed appreciably since 1991 when our Dad died. So many people now are eschewing the formal funeral/wake process in favour of simplicity, affordability and privacy.

But first we need to be prepared, and statistics show that only 40% of Australians have a Will.

She Who Has a Plan has been ‘encouraging’ me to make an Advanced Health Care Directive. She has progressed her own, but it is still not completed. Apparently, you (a) need a doctor to sign off that you are competent and (b) wish to make a compelling argument for not wanting to lie incapacitated in an aged care home for years after a catastrophic stroke.

My next older sister (also a widow) has moved closer to her family as she approaches 80. The recent events led us to talk about not much else than ‘what if’. She has ‘The Folder’ tucked away in a place where her kids can find it. In such a folder – and we all should have one – there’s the Power of Attorney, a copy of the Will and the AHCD (sometimes known as a living will). Some even leave cash for a wake!

As I discovered quite a few months ago now, the age of technology adds more complexity to ‘getting one’s affairs in order’. In our case, SWHAP pays the bills, interacts with Centrelink (sigh. Ed) and plans around things we need to do to the house, car and caravan. I look after our self-managed super fund, the music business (such as it is), technology, lawns, firewood, feeding the dog and cleaning up the kitchen.

I guess at a pinch I could sort out the bills – there is a spreadsheet after all. As for the SMSF, that is a a different challenge. SMSF Trustees deal with a dozen different organisations and the responsibility for stuffing things up falls on them. I also administer two websites and our online music business with its links to streaming services. Not to mention having to report songwriting royalties to Centrelink.

I started work on my (incomplete) Estate document in October 2022. If I were to pop my clogs suddenly, SWHAP would at least have access to all the accounts and websites you need when maintaining a SMSF portfolio (Ed: you changed the bloody passwords again, didn’t you).

As I hinted earlier, we should all have a Will and, even if you do, they probably need to be reviewed. Like, I left everything to my kids and then I met Vera!

Comparison website finder.com.au did a survey last year of 1054 participants, 60% of whom did not have a will. That’s 12 million Australian adults who have no estate plan. Were they to die today, their estate would be locked up interminably, tagged as intestate. If you die without a Will or it is invalid, your next of kin will have to make an application to the Supreme Court.

The law then decides who gets the estate (your assets). This is done with no regard to what you or anyone in your family wanted or thought they were going to get. Vera versus the kids – not a great scenario.

It doesn’t cost much in the scheme of things to have a lawyer draw up a will. Or you can buy a DIY kit from a reputable newsagent.

Even if you have a will, it will not be settled until probate. In the meantime, your spouse’s bank accounts will be frozen.

My point about Wills is that you would not want your loved ones to struggle with your slackness when they are consumed by grief.

At this point, if what I’ve written so far has galvanised you to action, we should all stipulate what is to happen to our mortal remains once we have died. These days almost 75% of us want to be cremated, which is simple enough. You can pay to put the ashes in a memorial wall in the cemetery, take them home in an urn or scatter them at the departed’s favourite fishing spot.

Remember that scene from The Big Lebowski?

What we most commonly call ‘the arrangements’ should be handled by a professional undertaker. There are many options today for a ‘simple’ funeral/cremation and it is likely to cost far less than a traditional funeral service with a burial. More people now are opting for a direct cremation.

A blog by Anton Brown Funerals in Brisbane set down some of the most recent trends in funerals. The big change has been the switch to live streaming of funerals (36%). That is, close family and friends are probably present but the extended family and friends who couldn’t make it can watch live or later. This evolved from the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, forcing the funeral industry to adapt.

One thing I did not know is that 50% of Australians are likely to be in hospital at the time of their death; 32% are likely to be in an aged care or respite facility and 15% are likely to die at home. Most funerals (85%) are conducted on a spontaneous basis while 15% are pre-planned. I know people in this latter category who have not only pre-planned, but pre-paid. Whether or not the next of kin will be called upon to read Mum or Dad’s self-penned eulogy is a matter of conjecture.

Meanwhile, I have made an appointment for a check up, will look into the living will and finish the Estate document (which should go into The Folder). My sister says The Folder should be bright and visible – tie a bow around it, even.

As a report by Inside Ageing observed, death affects almost all Australians over the age of 35, with 95% of all respondents having attended a funeral, and 60% being involved in a funeral arrangement.

That trend is expected to grow, as the 4.2 million Australians aged 65 and over increases from 16% of our population to between 21% and 23% by 2066. Increasingly, this cohort are going to be baby boomers with views and attitudes shaped by the Summer of Love. You can read all about it here.

If you’d rather laugh about death, try Billy Connolly’s 2014 series, The Big Sendoff, where he explores death and funerals around the world. The series was made after Connolly discovered he had Parkinson’s. It is a far from morbid, illuminating look at attitudes about death. (Try Apple TV).

The last word goes to Billy, who once said: “I’d hate to have been born and died and nobody noticed.”

B Positive – not just a blood group

blood-donor-positive — Image: Ahmad Ardity, Pixabay.com

That cute but corny aphorism came to mind as my friend Mr Shiraz misinterpreted my recent trip to Brisbane as a blood donor emergency. He wanted to know why we were braving extreme weather and I texted (flippantly) “Appointment with Dracula.”

What I meant was we had tickets to Dracula, a production by Queensland Ballet. Dracula aside (one of that company’s best IMHO), you may have noticed there is a bit of a blood donor drive happening in Australia.

The Australian Red Cross (Lifeblood) and individual State health departments are assisting in the drive to replenish blood stocks, as demand reaches a 10-year high. As a recent Facebook post by Queensland Health noted, the shortage is of the greatest importance when it comes to rare blood groups. The post encouraged people with A negative blood to “roll up their sleeves and give generously”.

Such exhortations make my skin crawl, bringing back memories of a daily blood test over a lengthy stay in hospital. My blood group is not that rare, and, despite my life being saved by a blood transfusion in 1969, I have never donated my blood to anyone. Dad, on the other hand, had such rare blood he was on a list to donate in an emergency.

It didn’t happen often, but he would at times get a call (typically at 2.30am): “Mr Wilson, we’re sending a taxi…”

Lifeblood, the donor agency of Red Cross, is on a mission to replenish its blood supplies. It appears that through the pandemic, blood donor numbers had dropped off.

As lockdowns lift in Victoria, New South Wales and ACT, elective surgeries will start again and meanwhile we are just weeks away from holidaymakers taking to the roads, with the inevitable spate of accidents.

The impact of Covid-19 has been felt among blood agencies around the world. A study published by the US Library of Medicine noted the rise of concerns, confusion, and misleading rumours with regards to blood donation during the pandemic period.

“Additionally, due to the government’s interventions such as home sheltering, mass lockdown, and curtailment strategies towards public gatherings amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the arrangement of the voluntary blood donation drives has been debarred. Likewise, there has been a general reluctance of the public to come to the blood centres to donate blood.”

Lifeblood Executive Director of Donor Services Cath Stone said half of all blood donation appointments in Australia were not being attended, while hospital demand was at its highest point in a decade.

“Our donors have shown us incredible support over the last two years; however, as life moves to COVID-normal, it’s important that people continue to donate to help ensure hospitals can continue to treat patients.”

Lifeblood’s reserves of O Negative blood are being challenged, with the number of O Negative donors falling during the pandemic, despite increased hospital demand. O Negative is a universal blood type and can be given to anyone in an emergency.

“Only 9% of Australians have O Negative blood, but it makes up 16% of orders from hospitals because it saves lives in emergencies.”

While Australians are being persuaded to donate, here’s the status of blood supplies around the world.

It is comforting to learn that 97.5% of the global population is covered by organised collecting. Almost 120 million units of blood are donated every year, but as the World Health Organisation data shows, donation rates differ wildly. Some high-income countries see seven times more donations than in low-income countries.

If you have ever been involved in a motor vehicle accident, a brawl or a workplace mishap, you will know that sometimes victims lose too much blood. Transfusions are needed for health conditions including anaemia, complications during pregnancy and childbirth, severe trauma (accidents) and surgical procedures and transplants. Transfusions are also used regularly for patients with conditions such as sickle cell disease.

The WHO and Lifeblood are vigilant about screening donations for HIV and Hepatitis A B and C, to name a few diseases.

A survey in 2018 found that 72 % of countries had a national blood policy. Overall, 64% of reporting countries, or 110 out of 171, have specific legislation covering the safety and quality of blood transfusion. National blood policies are most prevalent in high and moderate-income countries.

There are great variations between countries in terms of age distribution of transfused patients. For example, in high-income countries, the over-60 transfused patient group accounts for up to 75% of all transfusions. In low-income countries, up to 54% of transfusions are for children under the age of 5 years.

In high income countries, transfusion is most often used for supportive care in cardiovascular surgery, transplant surgery, massive trauma, and cancer therapy. In low and middle income countries, it is used more often to manage pregnancy-related complications and severe childhood anaemia.

The WHO has been campaigning to persuade countries which allow blood donors to be paid to switch to a voluntary system. In countries including the US, Austria, Germany and some Canadian provinces, individuals can earn about $50 a time for donating blood. The collecting and warehousing of plasma has become a multi-million dollar business. The main commercial advantage is that plasma can be frozen and kept for up to a year.

Blood is usually separated into three major components: Red blood, plasma and platelets. Red blood has a life span of 42 days and is used for emergency transfusions. Plasma is the colourless liquid separated from blood. It is most often used to treat burn victims and those with bleeding disorders. The main function of platelets is to stick to the blood linings and prevent bleeding. Platelets have a shelf life of five days and are most often used for organ transplants and surgeries.

Musician Mal Webb has been a blood donor for “at least two decades”.

“I recently switched to donating platelets, which means I can do it more often.”

Sometimes even when you want to donate blood, the tight regulations around blood quality can rule you out, as a friend who used to give blood found out.

“Unfortunately, they changed the rules some years ago so if you had been in England for any length of time you might have Mad Cow disease and so couldn’t donate.

“I was disappointed as I felt good giving blood, knowing I was helping other people.”*

There are examples of physicians experimenting with blood transfusion on animals as far back as 1668. The current system can be traced back to the early 19th century, In 1918, British obstetrician Dr. James Blundell performed the first successful transfusion of human blood to treat postpartum haemorrhage.

Lifeblood and State health departments face an uphill battle trying to convince Aussies to give blood. Although one in three Australians will need a blood donation in their lifetime, only one in 30 give blood every year. It seems it was always thus, though. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald in September 1949 spoke of a ‘blood donor crisis’. The article quoted a NSW Red Cross spokesman.

“Our most urgent need is to make members of the public realise that their blood is worth bottling,” the spokesman said, hijacking a WWI term more often used as the ultimate compliment on a job well done.

If you haven’t donated blood for a while or had never even considered it, here’s a handy link: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/blood

Tell them FOMM sent you.

*People who lived in the UK for more than six months between 1980 and 1996 are ineligible to give blood due to Mad Cow disease.

Time for advance care directives

advanced-care-directive — A Covid worker taking a break. Image by Mario Hagen, pixabay.com

Today I thought it wise to mostly bypass the relentless onslaught of negative news about Covid-19. Instead, let’s talk about Advance Care Directives, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders and organ donation.

I can’t imagine anyone under 50 who has given these topics a moment’s thought, but read on. Twenty years from now you’ll say to your partner – ‘Remember that piece Bob wrote about DNRs? Maybe the time has come?’

The topic arose as the Covid-19 death toll in New South Wales reached 132, including 80 since early June. The Australia-wide death toll since 2020 is now 989.

Although we have wills and have given each other enduring power of attorney, there’s something about DNRs and Advance Care Directives that sounds, well, permanent.

I came to this topic after counselling someone whose two life-long friends are simultaneously succumbing to terminal illnesses. As we age we start to experience more episodes of friends and relatives dying or being inflicted with infirmity through strokes or dementia.

The advanced care directive gives individuals the power to state what should happen to them should they be in a comatose state.

How many times have you heard someone say ‘if that happens to me, take me out the back and shoot me?’ It’s a fine philosophy. But unless you stipulate in a legal document what you want to happen if you are incapacitated but still breathing, you will remain hooked up to machines that keep you alive.

A common law Advance Care Directive allows you to specify your wishes about future health care and medical treatment. A Directive can only be followed when a person no longer has the capacity to make decisions and the direction relates to the medical treatment or health care situation that has arisen.

DNR orders have been around since the 1970s, but problems remain communicating the wishes of loved ones. For example, a resident of an aged care home is found unresponsive and not breathing. The carer believes the resident has a DNR order in place, but it’s not documented. So they have to decide whether to leave the resident while look for the correct documentation, or stay with the resident and begin CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation)

This example, cited in a National Seniors magazine article, describes it as a medical and ethical problem dogging the aged care sector. While a documented DNR is legally binding, it has to be found before it can be acted upon.

“Nurses report residents being resuscitated even when a DNR order is in place, and the family and the resident (after he survived) came away angry and disappointed he was put through such heroic measures”.

The problem arising from the example cited is that CPR can injure people, especially the frail or old. Worse though, if the person’s heart has stopped beating for a long enough period it can lead to brain damage and a lingering and undignified end of life.

So we all know this; we have all heard similar stories. Yet here we are in our early 70s, still procrastinating about what we want to happen should we be found unresponsive and not breathing.

Those who follow any number of religions may choose to bypass the choice to have a say in what happens in their dying days. While my mother sought such treatment as there was for cancer in the 1960s, she firmly believed the outcome would be “God’s will”.

When you do get around to making a Directive, you may also wish to donate your organs, or those organs which are still in good enough shape to give away.

This is where younger people come into the picture. If you had a bad car accident and died of head injuries, what would you want to happen to your perfectly healthy heart and lungs?

Too dark for a sunny Friday afternoon? Songwriter Loudon Wainwright III put it all in droll perspective in a two and a half minute song, Donations.

“In case of an accident, who could they notify – would it be alright if they notified you?” he begins.

After discussing his lonely life as an ‘unmarried orphan’ he envisages someone fishing out his wallet and looking for a donor card:

“As for my corneas, I don’t care who gets them, but all other organs and parts are for you.”

But Bob, you’re saying, spluttering into your cappuccino or your first cocktail – this is no laughing matter.

No, it isn’t, but neither is lying in a coma, intubated and kept alive by a machine when a signed and witnessed document could save everyone a lot of heartache.

There’s a global debate around the ethics of dealing with DNR orders during a pandemic, where ventilators are in short supply.

The journal Frontiers in Public Health says DNR was only discussed amid the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, with clear global recommendations.

“The unprecedented condition of the COVID-19 pandemic leaves healthcare systems worldwide confronting tough decisions. DNR has been implemented in some countries where the healthcare system is limited in capacity to admit, and thus intubating and resuscitating patients when needed is jeopardized”.

Most of the 988 Australians who have died of Covid-19 were in the 70-90+ age groups. In the absence of local research, here’s an example from the US that sheds some light on the prevalence of DNRs among older people.

Of 1270 patients (median age 66), admitted to two New Jersey hospitals over three months in 2020, 640 died with death certificates attributing COVID-19. Of these, 570 (89.1%) had DNR orders.

The proportions were similar in a study carried out by Sheffield University in the UK. We could also have a debate about whether the term ‘resuscitate’ applies in Covid. Intubation is often used not to resuscitate but to keep the patient oxygenated and reduce respiratory distress.

In my teens I had a fair interest in philosophy and comparative religious studies, which probably explains why I am out here today on the agnostic high wire. I remember someone using a word which I misheard as ‘Youth in Asia”. These were the days when research was done in a library using an index card system. Eventually I discovered that euthanasia had nothing to do with rebellious teens in Asia. Fifty years or more later, the notion of assisted dying, or aid-in-dying as it is called in the US, is strongly resisted in many countries. The degree of resistance is usually linked to how devout the population is and the strictures of dogma.

Nevertheless, when faced with a terminal illness diagnosis, many people take whatever treatment or palliative care that is on offer. Towards the end, this is typically morphine and its derivatives or, where it is legal, medicinal marijuana.

Palliative care, which has been in use since the 1960s, skirts between aid-in-dying and palliative sedation.

The boundary is “fuzzy, gray and conflated,” according to David Grube, of the advocacy group Compassion and Choices.

“In both cases, the goal is to relieve suffering”.

Thomas Strouse, a psychiatrist and specialist in palliative care medicine at the UCLA Medical Centre, believes there is a difference.

“The goal of aid-in-dying is to be dead; that is the patient’s goal. The goal in palliative sedation is to manage intractable symptoms, maybe through reduction of consciousness or complete unconsciousness.”

Be that as it may, you are less likely to get what you want without an advance care directive.

More reading;

(NB: Herman Wouk, who is mentioned here. died on May 17, 2019 aged 103)

Long live the Green Man

john-thompson-grief — Green Man camphor laurel carving by Sarah-Jane Abbott (Facebook page Chisel & Bow). Reference to the song, Long Live the Green Man (John Thompson)*

Today we’ll be talking about death, grief and hypochondria (mine). So if any of those topics catch you at a bad moment, look away.

We lost two good friends last week and, to misquote Pink Floyd, we’re feeling uncomfortably numb.

Many FOMM readers would have either personally known or known of the renowned Australian folk-singer, John Thompson. John had been battling cancer for several years until his death last Wednesday, aged 56.

Mr Thompson packed a lot of achievements into five and a bit decades, including a career as a criminal barrister and later, as a folk-singer/comedian. He also worked in professional theatre as the Songman in the touring play, War Horse. In his last decade, John become known to the wider community for his services as a civil celebrant at weddings and funerals.

But what he was best known for was a splendid, wide-ranging tenor voice and a brilliant ear for harmony. He had spectacular skills as a presenter and comedian.

A Maleny musician friend reminded me of the time John handed him a postcard on which was written: “Folk music – it’s not as bad as it sounds”. That is a good example of the wit John could display on any given day but no more so than when performing as a duo with Martin Pearson. The last time I saw them regaling a crowd was at the National Folk Festival in 2019.

Though not officially on the festival bill, John was invited to participate in Pearson’s daily ‘brunch’. The hour of what seemed to be unscripted comedy was endearingly funny as the two old friends kept trying to have the last word.

We all knew how unwell he’d been and how much worse it would get. But John took every opportunity to wring music and love out of the situation. His was arguably the most publicly documented case of terminal bowel cancer. He would post detailed summaries of his treatment and reactions to it on Facebook. Hundreds of friends and friends of friends left messages of love and support. Late in the day, he posted a selfie from his last stay in hospital while doctors were adjusting his pain medication.

Before then, musician Steve Cook posted a message, ‘Thinking about my friend John’, which a few people construed to mean John had already passed. At one point John popped up among the ‘RIP’ comments with, “Me too”.

Maleny people would remember John from the numerous times we featured the band Cloudstreet at our home. John, his partner Nicole Murray and later band member Emma Nixon never failed to entertain and amuse.

John and Nicole stayed with us when they were recording Dance up the Sun at Pix Vane-Mason’s studio in Conondale. Laurel (aka She Who Edits, etc), asked John if there was anything he didn’t eat.

“Elephants,” said John.

Though we were from different generations, I valued John as a friend, mentor and musician. He was the first person to give me practical tips to warm up the body and the voice before performing. Everyone wanted a piece of John, but I was always happy just for him to know we were there.

Hard as this was, last Friday we got completely unexpected news of a dear friend who died suddenly. Rob (Oss) Simcocks was a Stanthorpe district identity, known for his work with the rural fire brigade, the local pipe band and a long association with the bluegrass group, The Bald Rock Mountain Boys. In his last few years, Oss formed a new band, Too Much Fun and they were all of that and more. Long-time friend Mr Shiraz described Oss on Facebook as a ‘ bush polymath’ because of a string of interests and achievements including building his own home in the bush, working on landcare projects, gardening, viticulture, pottery, blacksmithing and making large iron sculptures.

He learned some piano when he was young and was taught bagpipes in high school at Scots College, Warwick. He also taught himself to play many instruments including banjo, mandolin, guitar, clarinet and spoons. He often found a way to turn various household items into music. His wife Teri tells me he once even ‘played’ an electric fan.

Oss was an artist. He painted, created found object sculptures, exhibited his works and in recent years wrote songs, poetry and short stories. He was an irrepressible gardener and almost always sent visitors home with a plant.

Curiously, these two sad events happened in the same week I received a communique from a local council in Scotland. I had inquired as to the state and status of our family burial ‘lair’.

In Scotland, the tradition is that a family owns a burial plot in perpetuity and it is passed on to the eldest son.

My father’s parents and his two younger sisters are interred in this lair. Dad’s parents died in the mid-1930s of bowel cancer and his young sisters died earlier still of scarlet fever. The plot, marked by an 86 year old sandstone tablet, is in the old part of a cemetery in a small coastal village. The Angus Council referred me to a local stonemason who quoted $800 to clean the headstone and re-letter it. Grandad Wilson was himself a stonemason, so there is some irony there.

There is some hide-bound Scottish tradition in play here that puts the onus on the eldest son (me) to do something about it.

These are four people I never knew and Dad’s ashes have since 1991 resided in a crematorium wall in Hastings, New Zealand. What I will more likely do is spend the money refurbishing Mum’s plaque, next to Dad. Mum died of cancer in 1966, so the lettering has faded.

But, as I wrestle with this, and feelings of grief over my friends Oss (met him in 1978) and the honourable Mr Thompson (early 1990s), there is a more pressing matter.

I did say at the outset I would write about hypochondria. It is 90% certain that sporadic palpitations which come upon me for no rhyme or reason, are likely to be psychosomatic (Ed: though no less serious).

Nevertheless, the GP has checked me out (normal) but because this happened once before (also normal), he referred me to a specialist.

Apparently I have to wear something akin to a bra for 24 hours. The chart will then go to a cardiac specialist who will review the result and report back.

At times like these one should drag out a Cloudstreet CD and play life-affirming songs like Thousands or More, Time is a Tempest or John’s quirky song, the Homeless Beaver. This three-minute parody of the sea shanty Drunken Sailor, necessitated a three or four minute droll introduction about Idaho Fish and Game employee Elmo Heter and his efforts to re-home a colony of 76 beavers. (They ended up putting them in self-opening cages and parachuting them into their new location). True story.

Meanwhile, I’m using my ‘idle’ palpitations as an excuse to avoid mowing, gardening, housework lifting or anything more strenuous than sitting here reflecting on mortality.

Yours and mine.

A private family funeral was held for John Thompson earlier today. It was live streamed and can be viewed via this link at a later stage.

https://mailchi.mp/42d987343acc/vale-john-thompson-online-funeral-link/

A public memorial will be held in April.

Splendid isolation in the time of COVID-19

Isolation-COVID-19 — Two wallabies practising social distancing (in Wodonga, Victoria)

As we drove 1,200kms in haste from Albury NSW to the Southern Downs, trying to escape Queensland border chaos, I was grateful for readers’ insights into COVID-19 and isolation. First of all we should credit Sandy W with the witty caption for this week’s photo.

Realising I’d be spending three days driving home before resigning ourselves to self-isolation, I asked FOMM readers for their thoughts on this health crisis. I was overwhelmed with responses, so will keep some back for next week’s quarantine episode.

Two readers sent me the same meme which essentially says:

“Your grandparents fought in a world war. All you’re being asked to do is sit on the couch. Don’t fuck this up.”

The meme memo was a bit too late for the hapless authorities who allowed 2,700 people to disembark from the Ruby Princess and mingle amongst the crowds in Sydney’s streets, shops and nightclubs; 130 passengers have since tested positive to COVID-19.

Yesterday we began 14 days’ voluntary home detention, mindful that we have been travelling through rural NSW in recent weeks.

King Richard of The Village said self-isolation is ‘great’.

“I’m enjoying the time to do all those jobs at home that I put aside for another day. We visit the IGA late in the evening when we need to and keep in touch with friends by phone. It’s a bit like my childhood memories of World War II and self-sufficiency.”

I asked our musician friend Silas Palmer how his gigs were going: “Six major festivals and a lot of small events, all cancelled but we’re in the same position as everybody else.”

“But we’re practicing a lot,” he added gleefully.

Katie Bee self-deprecatingly said: “So far the trickiest thing for me is that with so many things I CAN do, and so much time to do them in, my procrastination knows no bounds!

“But I’m finding myself a little more often on FB, and keeping in touch with friends by phone or email, and am gradually doing jobs that normally never enter my consciousness, after which I reward myself with some Netflix.”

Superchip from Calgary said that having been raised on a remote prairie farm in southern Alberta, isolation was not something that caused him great angst.

“I do not consider my formative years as being spent in social isolation, but I did spend a lot of time alone. I learned how to make my own fun. I learned how to just sit and try to take in my surroundings. I enjoy the company of other people, but I don’t need it on a constant basis. Given the state of the world at present, I feel I am one of the lucky ones. Getting past the pandemic will not be a mental challenge for me.”

Anne and John are self-isolating, which means missing out of physical contact with grandchildren.

“We are missing our music session, our book clubs and exercise classes,” Ann said. “Our little granddaughter (supposed to be keeping to her school routine at home), Zoomed us this morning and tried to teach us some origami to keep us occupied…..argh!”

Barbara is coming to terms with strict tests and limits in her home, the Independent Living Unit section of an Aged Care Facility.

“The impact of the virus has radically changed our lives in the past couple of weeks, but particularly in the past couple of days. All entrances other than the main one to our Residential Care Facility were closed last week; entrance restricted to two only visitors at a time (who have their temperature taken and are then asked to use hand sanitiser). This test has now been extended to delivery drivers visiting the facility.

Despite the constraints, she does not feel out of touch with the world.

“My IPhone is in full use. I can have uke jam sessions with friends; enjoy the light hearted Facebook posts and many, many things to keep my day full.”

A few of my readers appear to belong to the introvert club (we are apparently supposed to teach extroverts how to handle this).

Roger Ilott has been a professional musician and sound engineer for more than 30 years and is not fazed at all.

“As the ultimate stay-at-home, this is fulfilling a lifelong ambition of mine – I’ll never have to go out again!

“I actually always just wanted to be a session musician and did quite a bit of that in the 1970s and 1980s. Since Penny (Davies) and I started our own folk music label back in 1982, I’ve been able to do loads of session work as well as performing. I’m happy all my days sitting in the studio recording (and in cricket season, streaming the Sheffield Shield while I record!).”

After eight days in isolation, Ruth realised this was very similar to how her life has been for the past eight years, caring for her husband who had a serious stroke.

“I have come to this realisation after speaking to family and friends on the phone, some of whom are expressing angst and frustration. On listening, I realise I don’t feel like this at all. I am actually loving it. Loads of time in the garden( work and pleasure), heaps of time for photo sorting and sending, enjoyment in doing things I NEVER do, eg, cleaned all our windows inside & out the other day!”

Choir enthusiast First Soprano said that self-isolating for a couple of weeks would be easy as long as you prepared appropriately.

“Social isolation, as we know, is not a healthy situation (and unfortunately, unlike the Italians, we don’t live in high-rise flats; Italian city folk have been able to continue “socialising” from their balconies, which actually looks like lots of fun and would certainly keep spirits up), but happily in this day and age we have Skype and FaceTime so we can still easily keep in touch with family and friends.”

Jim from Albuquerque said life in the time of Corona had made a difference in his working class neighbourhood.

“Both friends and neighbours with either high or low paying jobs are on furlough or worse. Some better compensated than others in time-off but all paddling the same boat. Neighbourly relations are conducted at a safe remove but with a higher content of cordiality: Hey, howya doin’?; Feelin’ OK?; Need anything? Toilet paper?”

“Mercifully, no one is sick.”

Jon from Vancouver Island says there is always plenty to do on his little farm in what is often regarded as Canada’s Riviera.

“Spring has just arrived, which means preparing the garden for the upcoming season. Like many, I shudder when reviewing my market stocks but this brings with it a modicum of patience, realizing that fixing this up effectively is beyond me.”

Ms Proodreader, who lives alone, said she is enjoying the interaction with virtual choirs and musicians sharing online.

“I’m mostly staying upbeat but I’m prone to little bursts of panic. I’m very much keeping away from all media….. especially social media…… as there is so much misinformation and I just need to know the basics not the analyses and the what ifs.”

Yeh I’m with Proodie on that one. There is a lot of misguided and possibly inaccurate information being spread on social media by people who should know better. The mainstream media is completely obsessed and helplessly looking for any new angle.

As for the free papers left in the letterbox – wash your hands after reading.

Postscript: You might enjoy Erin Sulman’s Apocalypse Playlist. If you do have a listen, track 30 is Warren Zevon’s Splendid Isolation. It was recorded live in Brisbane in 1992 – you can probably hear us and Prince Richard of the Village cheering.

Hoarding, Free Vaccines, Panic Buying

Hoarding-vaccines-panic-buying — Image of COVID-19 by iXimus from Pixabay

Life goes on, amid news reports of panic buying and hoarding, as reporting of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to terrify the masses. We have seen manifestations of this terror in the past fortnight with an (ongoing) share market correction, led by the US and blindly followed by investors in Australia and elsewhere. So far it is no more dire than the corrections during the GFC. The popular theory is that global share market investors fear the effect the coronavirus could have on business, imports and exports and the ever-valuable tourism market.

The seven-day share market correction was followed at home by reports of panic buying of non-perishable groceries. Shelves were cleared in supermarkets, amid assurances by retailers that their supply chains were solid. Hand sanitiser is at the top of a curious list.

Toilet paper was one of the items bought in bulk, prompting one Australian supermarket chain to limit sales of dunny rolls to one four-pack per person. Social media gurus have been busy making memes of Aussies swathed in dunny paper, speculating about what sorts of things one needs to hoard, assuming the worst (global contagion, financial mayhem, collapse of law and order).

I looked but could not find references to food or toilet paper in this list from a survivalist website. There are lots of solid tips about water filtration, fire-lighting, charging batteries (with solar), emergency lighting, fishing equipment and a multi-use gadget called a Spork. Oh, and they list a variety of weapons for hunting and self-defence including a crossbow.

By happenstance, last week I picked up a battered copy of The First Horseman by John Case from a public library sale.

The plot involves a virologist (and a journalist), who is trying to locate and exhume five miners who died of Spanish Flu in 1918 while working in the Arctic. The bodies are buried in ice, so the plan is to harvest the hopefully preserved Spanish Flu virus and develop a vaccine. You guessed it, there’s a bad guy; a megalomaniacal cult leader who thinks there are too many people in the world.

As I continued to read The First Horseman, cases of coronavirus increased world-wide. As of 1^st of March, there were just fewer than 80,000 cases in China (3.5% death rate) and some 7,000 cases in other countries, with a death rate of 1.4%). In Australia, the number of reported cases rose to 41. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has previously said the mortality rate of coronavirus varies from 0.7% to 4%, depending on the quality of healthcare and the urgency of the response in affected countries. This week the WHO upgraded the mortality rate to 3.4%, which brings us back to comparisons with the Spanish Flu which had a mortality rate of 2% to 3%, although it afflicted some 500 million people around the world. Author John M Barry put it in perspective when he said in his book The Great Influenza that the flu killed more people in 24 weeks than HIV/AIDS did in 24 years.

A major study done by Chinese researchers said that 80.9% of people diagnosed with Coronavirus exhibited mild symptoms and recovered. Only 13.8% of cases were described as severe and only 4.7% as critical. The highest fatality rate is for people aged 80 and older, at 14.8%. The majority of people who died suffered pneumonia-like symptoms.

Pneumonia is a lung inflammation caused by bacterial or viral infection. (Have you had lunch yet?).The air sacs fill with pus and may become solid. Inflammation can affect both lungs.

Patients usually spend a few days in hospital hooked up to intravenous antibiotics and oxygen/nebulisers to help them breathe. Some forms of pneumonia are contagious. You didn’t know that? Yes, it spreads the same way as the common cold and other viruses.

Pneumonia in the elderly happens fast and the prognosis is poor. The elderly are more susceptible to severe pneumonia, which has a mortality rate as high as 20%. Of the 2.6 million pneumonia deaths in 2017, 1.13 million were aged 70 or older.

Egad! Now where did I file that letter from the medical centre – the one offering (free) immunization for pneumonia? Yes, it’s true; there are advantages to crawling over the peak of the hill, past the 69 sign. I am eligible for a bone density scan ($125), a shingles vaccine ($217) and a vaccine against catching pneumonia ($133), free of charge.

I recommend this reliable website to track the escalation of coronavirus. Of the 52 Australians diagnosed with the virus, 22 have recovered, two have died and six (including health workers in aged care facilities), are the only patients who did not have a recent history of travel to high-risk countries.

It’s not so easy tracking the health of the global share market.Global investors are second-guessing themselves, ignoring Tuesday’s rally (after a seven-day selloff which hacked 11% off the value of the market). On Wednesday, the all ordinaries index was down 113 points after Tuesday’s Reserve Bank interest rate cut. It bounced back again on Thursday by a similar amount and yes, down 111 points on Friday morning.

The volatility is a finger in the air to the world’s central banks, which seemingly colluded in a co-ordinated campaign to cut rates. The conundrum for investors is this: invest in term deposits or bonds and let inflation erode your capital, or trust the share market to claw back value, restore confidence and keep paying dividends.

Despite the clear fact that losses on a share portfolio are paper losses unless physically sold, a major market correction triggers certain events.

The young and brave who hold ‘geared’ share portfolios probably faced a ‘margin call’ last week. Gearing means borrowing money from a financial institution to buy listed shares.

The main catch with borrowing money to buy shares is this: if your portfolio (valued say at $100k), drops in value to $85k, you, the borrower will have to find $15,000 in cash to cover the lender’s risk.

A major study of investors carried out by the Australian Stock Exchange concluded, inter alia, that only 5% borrow to buy shares. Nonetheless, in a survey asking investors this very question, up to 60% of those aged between 25 and 44 seemed keen on the idea.

The other event triggered by a share market collapse is that those retirees receiving part pensions from the government have to report what Centrelink describes as a ‘change in your circumstances’.

So if your part-pension is calculated on assets, you duly report a 10%-12% decrease in the (paper) value of your share portfolio. This should increase your part-pension proportionately. As usual, if you don’t sell, nothing changes apart from the balance on a spreadsheet.

So, of these two global contagions, which will first be healed?

As the ABC’s Alan Kohler pointed out, despite the correction, Australian shares are still over-valued. My take on the share market volatility is to say that when a market is down 200 one day and up 120 the next, day traders are making a killing.

But market volatility is a risk in itself as the fear contagion wafts down to Mums and Dads investors, who all may decide to hide it under the mattress.

As for the coronavirus, senior citizens’ organisations are taking modest steps to ensure their constituents (the age group most at risk) follow simple but effective rules to avoid spreading viruses.

I actually think this set of rules ought to apply in general, adding: “If you are sick, stay home until you are not.” (To which the bolshie Ed aka SWPT adds, that’s one of the many problems of a casualised workforce- even if you’re sick, you can’t afford to stay home – ‘do you want germs with that?’)

Life on the planet in 2040

Vision-for-2040 — Melbourne school strike, photo by Takver https://flic.kr/p/2dfY9tt

On days when the woes of the world are too much with us, do you ever think what life on the planet in 2040 will be like? That’s the year the Doomsayers say will be the End Times or the Apocalypse. The theory is that by 2040, planet earth will no longer be able to sustain its estimated population of nine billion.

There are serious arguments for that proposition – extreme weather events caused by climate change, lack of sufficient food and water and ever-worsening pollution. There is the ever-present threat to life on the planet of nuclear war and a rolling series of civil wars which have driven millions of refugees into other countries, with consequent social and political disruption.

Imagine 2040, then. I’ll be 91, Nibbler will be 29 (which is old for a dog); Donald Trump will be 94, ex-wife Ivana 91 and current wife Melanie a spritely 70. Sir Paul McCartney will be 97 (should his long and winding road last that long), and Justin Bieber just 46!

More importantly, children being born now will be 21 in 2040 and quite angry about the state of the world they have inherited from their parents. Those who currently are angry teenagers will already be in their mid-to late 30s and maybe producing children of their own.

The key concern for life on the planet in 2040, just 21 years away, is the ever narrowing prediction about the effect of climate change on weather patterns and sea levels.

Most scientists and some futurologists will say the No 1 problem (I call it the giraffe in the wood shed), is over-population. Bluntly, the world just will not have the resources to feed nine billion people. Already futurists are saying that in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be getting our daily protein from faux meat and insects.

It’s tempting to lean towards flippancy in a 1,200-world commentary on what the world could be like in 2040. Let’s imagine two affluent Poms meeting for breakfast at a café in downtown London 2039 (having got there in minutes by Vactrain from their bucolic suburbs 60 kms away). Smashed avocado on toast will cost something like 29 Europounds, a flat white about 8 Europounds. The waiter already has the order as Paul texted (by thought) while Vactraining. Henry will want to talk about the EU and how long can it last – surely one more year? Paul, feeling guilty about a story he read on the Vactrain newsfeed about six million Brits living in poverty, mutters about Brexit and what a disaster it was.

“That’s ancient history, Paul,” says Henry, adjusting his virtual-specs so he can scan headlines while having a conversation, as you do. Meanwhile the waiter returns (on his hover board) to say there are no avocadoes, despite reports of a glut, but they can do smashed grasshoppers.

Someone with a flair for satire could easily take a similar lead from the occasional quirky statistical forecast in futuretimeline, a community database/blog maintained by futurologist William James Fox.

For example, the autopsy report for Elvis Presley will be made public in 2027, thus scuppering the obsessions of the Elvis-lives club. By 2035, Millennials will be enjoying an inheritance boom, just ahead of a 2039 forecast that scientists will have found a cure for ageing!

By 2039, Alzheimer’s will be fully curable. This will be too late for some people already affected, but should I start to become forgetful at 87, whoever is in charge can take me along to the clinic. Hopefully, it will be bulk-billed.

Flippancy aside, most serious science-based forecasts focus on climate change, because of its potential to ruin everything.

Forecaster quantumrun.com cites an optimistic number for 2040 – the rise in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels will be 1.62 degrees. That’s just above the 1.5 degrees limit recently set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

That won’t impress Sweden’s Greta Thunberg or her generational cohort. Born in 2001, she is part of what Forbes Magazine calls Generation Z, people born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s. In 2015, Gen Z represented 25% of the US population, a larger group than both Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Then aged 15, Greta sparked an international movement when she started a 20-day strike outside Sweden’s parliament in August 2018. News travelled fast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. By November 30, the movement had gone viral. In Australia, 15,000 schoolchildren went on strike to call for action (despite much blustering in Parliament). In January this year, 35,000 European teens invaded the European Parliament in Brussels. Over the next fortnight more than 50,000 Belgian teens walked out of their classrooms.

You’ll see more of this next Friday (March 15), when the Youth Strikes for Climate movement stages a global walk-out.

Thunberg, who has since been the target of social media abuse accusing her of being a Green plant (har har), resolutely dug in. In an editorial published in the Guardian Weekly recently she told readers “Adults need to act like their house is on fire – because it is.”

She has pledged to continue her protest until global leaders act to meet the IPCC call to reduce carbons emissions by at least 50% within 12 (now 11) years.

Greta’s lone vigil outside Sweden’s Parliament led to her being invited to give a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland.

“Some say we should not engage in activism,” she told delegates. “Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will?”

Meanwhile I’ve started watching Season Two of a Netflix political thriller, ‘Occupied’. The plot (set in the near future). envisages a ‘silk glove’ occupation of Norway by Russia (in cahoots with the EU), to ensure Norway’s oil and gas pipelines continue to service Europe.

In the first episode of Season One, Norwegian PM Jesper Berg announces that Norway will no longer produce or export fossil fuels, instead favouring thorium* energy plants. The series (based on an idea by Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbo), shows how conflicts might arise should a brave, futurist politician defy the status quo.

*thorium is a weak radioactive element that can be used in a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Climate change aside, one of the great challenges for life on the planet in 2040 is what to do with old farts like me! In 2017 the United Nations estimated the number of people in the world aged over 60 will double to 2.1 billion by 2050. The UN also expects the cohort of people aged 80 years or over to increase threefold to 425 million by 2050.

Susan Muldowney, writing for CPA Australia’s newsletter, said that by 2040, one in five Australians will be aged over 65 and 1.2 million of them will be older than 85.

“Australia’s aged-care sector has been largely government-funded and dominated by not-for-profit providers,” Muldowney wrote in the accounting association’s newsletter, In The Black.

“However, this may change over the next decade. The number of private, for-profit start-ups is expected to grow in line with the new regulatory push toward consumer-directed aged care and the generational shift from the frugal post-Depression generation.

“The culture-changing baby boomers are used to having choice – even if they have to pay for it,” she added.

Right, then, I’m off up town to order smashed avo on toast. Enjoy it while you can, I say.

I’m not dead yet

The world’s media has a poor track record when it comes to reporting the deaths of celebrities, going early often enough to invoke the classic Python-esque protest, “I’m not dead yet”.

Singer and actress Olivia Newton-John was the latest victim of tabloid hyperbole, when reports described her as ‘clinging on to life’. The star of Grease took to Facebook to cheerily confirm her existence, even though it is known she is ‘battling cancer’ for the third time. Reports said Newton-John was privately upset by the reports which emanated from the US supermarket tabloid National Inquirer.

Earlier this month a report on the BBC quoted Scottish comedian Billy Connolly saying that his life was ‘slipping away’. Billy, who has been enduring Parkinson’s Disease and prostate cancer for some years, posted a video on Twitter a few days later, playing the banjo and singing that he wasn’t dying just yet and sorry if he’d made everyone depressed.

In regional media circa 1980s, it was drummed into us that one should not report the death of a person without double-checking with the police, the family and/or the undertaker. But that was when newspapers could afford the luxury of a second and third line of checking and, moreover, there was only going to be one, unretractable edition, so you had to get it right.

Now, obvious errors can be corrected in an instant online, although probably not before thousands of people have shared and re-posted the original erroneous report.

Such was the case last year, when multiple publications carried reports of rock star Tom Petty’s death, some hours, as it turned out, before his actual demise from cardiac arrest. In that case, the media outlets which gave Tom an early exit cited Los Angeles police, which just goes to show that official sources are not always spot on either.

So numerous have been the instances of inaccurate reports of people’s deaths, prematurely published obituaries and so on, Wikipedia has a whole page devoted to the topic, hundreds of examples, arranged in an A to Z format.

Australian country comic Chad Morgan should be aggrieved that premature reports of his death are not included.

Chad has twice been reported as dead. In 2008 a regional radio station reported Chad Morgan’s death, which led to him coming out with the classic comment ‘I’m not dead yet’.

(The phrase might well reference a scene in the classic film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Python Eric Idle and others are wheeling a cart through a village calling ‘bring out your dead’. John Cleese emerges with a villager over his shoulder. The villager assures the collectors he’s not dead yet and a comic three-way conversation ensues until Idle’s character smites Mr Not Dead Yet with a cudgel.)

Rock star Tex Perkins and director Janine Hosking subsequently produced the 2011 documentary of Chad’s life on the road, fittingly called “I’m Not Dead Yet”.

Last year the rumour of Chad’s demise surfaced again, the Courier-Mail reporting that it came about through misinterpreted sharing of a social media report of jazz musician Chuck Morgan’s death.

It ought to be funny but it’s not if you have been the victim of erroneous reporting. The prime retort still belongs to author Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), for the oft misquoted ‘reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” (he actually said: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”)

As you’d imagine, large media companies pre-prepare obituaries of famous people and archive them for the appropriate day. This explains why, on the sudden death of David Bowie, hundreds of in-depth obits appeared so quickly in publications around the world. In large news organisations, an individual is often assigned to manage the obituaries section. This person manages the delicate business of persuading people to supply tributes and photographs.

Some mis-reported deaths have occurred as a result of accidental publication of pre-prepared obituaries. In 2003 CNN accidently released seven draft obituaries of major world figures. Gaffes like this have been associated with three premature obits published about Pope John Paul II. There’s been no shortage of examples. Steve Jobs, Ernest Hemingway, Karl Marx, Paul McCartney, Beyonce, Whitney Houston and Charles Manson are among those killed off early.

Folk musician Dave Swarbrick’s obituary was published in the Daily Telegraph in April 1999 after he was admitted to Coventry hospital with a chest infection. Swarbrick, who died in 2016, saw the funny side. After reading his own obituary he quipped: “It’s not the first time I have died in Coventry.”

Australian media outlets alarmed and upset monarchists in 1993 by reporting that the Queen Mother had died (eight and a half years early as it turned out). Even the national broadcaster got caught out, with an ABC news bulletin attributing the news to ‘unconfirmed reports’.

Perhaps cashing in on the familiarity of the phrase, variations on the phrase ‘I’m not dead yet’ have been used as band names, album names, song names (I found three songs with Not Dead Yet titles – Styx, Bullet for my Valentine and Jen Ledger) and the titles of at least three movies. This year rock drummer and singer Phil Collins, 67, is touring the world with his ‘Not Dead Yet’ show. The tour itself is named after Collins’s autobiography released in 2016.

In addition to the Chad Morgan-Chuck Morgan confusion mentioned above, celebrity-spotter website avclub.com identified a few misreported deaths involving similar-sounding names.

In 1998, James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader), was reported dead (it was Martin Luther King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, who had died). When comedian Jerry Lewis died, several outlets announced the demise of rockabilly pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. Rocker Bob Segar (Silver Bullet Band) also suffered a similar fate on the death of activist songwriter Pete Seeger. Urgent text messages to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office (during a 2009 tour by former British PM Baroness Margaret Thatcher), were resolved when it was established the texts referred to the death of then Transport Minister John’s Baird’s cat, Thatcher.

More soberly, a national grassroots disability support group in the US and UK has taken the name as part of a protest movement. Notdeadyet.org opposes the legalising of assisted suicide and euthanasia, saying it is an extreme form of discrimination.

In this era of instant social media ‘news’ some of it fake and much of it un-vetted or corroborated, I’m picking we haven’t seen the last of Not Dead Yet.

You might wonder what led me down this path. She Who Plans Ahead has been suggesting we make advanced health directives. You know – where you instruct doctors to take or not take heroic measures if you are incapacitated. I went for a lone stroll through the old part of Hemmant Cemetery (see photo above) on Tuesday to ponder this unpalatable development.

Part of me wants to resist, worrying that perhaps someone will misinterpret notes on a chart and pull the plug, just as my brain is trying to get my mouth around…I’m not dead yet.