Getting on the donuts

3 minute read

The Back Page

By

Penny Durham

It may be a school night, but we suspect Melbourne is celebrating a victory of public health by getting batfaced.

Congratulations, Victoria.

For those of us in NSW, which has lived through winter and part of spring in a kind of open-but-not-really twilight zone, it’s impossible to appreciate what our southern friends have been through since the hotel quarantine fiasco sent them back into stage 3 then 4 lockdown.

Curfews and 5km radiuses (radii?) are a surreal concept up here, and we’ve been back in the pubs since June.

So it was a delightful and highly Strayan moment at Premier Dan Andrews’ Monday press conference (and after more than 100 of these straight, even his worst detractors would have to admire his stamina) when a journo immediately asked the important question:

“Is what you’re saying, that we can finally get back on the beers?”

Andrews: “I don’t know that I’ll be drinking a beer tonight. I might go a little higher up the shelf.”

Far be it from the clean-living Back Page to celebrate the imbibification of alcohol. Or the ingestion of junk food.

But this week, for getting their new infections and deaths recorded down to a double zero – donuts – we think Dan and Melbourne at large deserve a bit of a party. An awkwardly sparse party with no hugging or singing into each other’s faces.

A callback to a darker moment around Easter when the Premier used this phrase with a more censorious tone, the #getonthebeers question and ensuing hashtag promptly blew up Twitter.


But if you think we in Sydney are out of touch with Melbourne’s woes, check them out in Perth, with their smug <800 cases, where they’re having actual music festivals and dancing to this subversive remix of Dan’s admonition not to get on said beers.

Cheeky.

If you see something stupid, say something stupid … send your top-shelf tips to felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au.

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