Andy Richardson: 'Times have changed'
Two piglets for a kayak. Three cakes for a whisk.
Vegetable seedlings for homemade pies and an old carpet for a professional photography session. Such are the trades taking place in Fiji, where bartering has returned. With money all but gone, locals are trading fresh flowers for an afternoon’s gardening and hot cross buns for online tutoring.
The system could take off and Richard Branson might exchange a used airline, with one careful owner, for an idyllic tax haven in the British Virgin Islands. He could throw in an old record company, if pushed.
Donald ‘Toilet Duck’ Trump could barter a weekend at Mar-a-Lago with as many disinfectant chasers as you like for the ability to think before he speaks.
Kim Jong-un could trade an impressive collection of really, really, really big bombs for a fabulous new train set and Ant Middleton could trade foot-in-mouth pronouncements on Covid-19 for time travel, so that he could go back to the past and erase his ‘carry on as normal’ advice.
Monday used to bring the opportunity to discuss the weekend’s sports fixtures at the office water cooler. Times have changed. There is no water cooler. There is no sport. But there are sportsmen videoing themselves playing video games. To whit: we have learned that trash-talking boxer Tony Bellew is rubbish at FIFA while Southampton’s Michael Obafemi is a king.
After two long months, South Korea remains ahead of all nations. Football is back and the BBC provided live commentary on 2019 Korean FA Cup winners Suwon Bluewings and their rivals Jeonbuk Motors. Four months from now, the UK should return the favour by streaming footage of Tipton Town versus Wellington Amateurs directly to Seoul.
League tables are being produced for Governments rather than football teams and Malta tops the list of most generous Covid-19 bail-outs. Japan, Luxembourg, Belgium and the USA are not far behind but the UK lags at 47th, preferring businesses to take loans.
Lockdown is predicted to cause a baby boom as stay-at-homers bore of the TV and find something more interesting to do. It’s to be hoped they have surnames a little less complicated than the newborn fathered by Tesla boss Elon Musk. He opted for X Æ A-12 as the name for his child. It’ll be interesting to hear him yell that across the supermarket when X Æ A-12 runs off.
