Safety and social distancing, Strayan-style

With Melburnians in lockdown and numbers rising, Australians are letting off steam they way they do best: with a lot of *&^%ing swearing.

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With five million Melburnians in lockdown and the rest of the country on edge, Australians are coping in the way they do best: swearily.

Today’s edition of The Back Page contains language some readers may find offensive so if swear words hurt your eyes now’s your moment to CLOSE THE BROWSER… command/ctrl+W…

Ok, first up – The cheeky ‘CU in the NT’ ad campaign has a close rival with a series of tourism posters asking citysiders to stay the f**k away from regional Victoria during the pandemic:

This “Do not visit Victoria” project was created by a Melbourne-based ad agency called Fenton Stephens.

“We were just spit-balling ideas as to what we can do in this situation, and were reading about how people from Melbourne were fleeing to regional Victoria, either to their holiday homes or just trying to shack up in hotels,” said copywriter Jess Wheeler who created the campaign with designer Guillermo Carvajal.

“It was quite distressing for the towns that don’t have the infrastructure to handle an outbreak,” he told the ABC.

But many of these small towns are reliant on tourist income for survival and leaders in some of the towns spoke to the media about how damaging this joke campaign could be.

Elsewhere in Oz, a mouthy hoody is giving one dude in the Bunnings queue the protection he desires… rude but effective?

Hello world, this is how we do #SocialDistanacing in Australia. Of note, this gentlemen is standing outside a major national monument. pic.twitter.com/yZh4h6XfVt

— Dr Vyom Sharma (@drvyom) July 16, 2020

And while Sydney train riders have turned distancing stickers into a mural to civil disobedience (see main image), rather the opposite is happening on the other side of the world. Star street artist Bansky has decorated the London Tube with a pandemic-themed spray paint masterpiece with a public health message, just to have it promptly removed by Transport for London cleaners.

“It was treated like any other graffiti on the network,” the cleaning team said, according to the BBC.

 

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. . If you don’t mask – you don’t get.

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Jul 14, 2020 at 6:30am PDT

And finally, if you’re not swearing yet, here’s an update from everyone’s favourite chef-turned-medical-expert Pete Evans.

 

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Another part of our ongoing journey of health discovery is red light therapy. We will have this available as an option to use at @evolvehealthlabs in Byron bay in two weeks time. We can’t wait to see you there. We will also be offering opportunities for others to open their own Evolve clinics globally also, so stay tuned for more information. Here I am between two full length @joovvsocial elite units. Follow @evolvehealthlabs to find out more information as we launch. ?????

A post shared by Pete Evans (@chefpeteevans) on Jul 15, 2020 at 9:03pm PDT

 

If you see something stupid, say something stupid… Send all your tips for The Back Page to felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au