Terry Prone: Southern Africa treated unfairly? You can be the Judge Judy of that

So the European Commission may have devastated tourism — the only industry many of southern Africa’s countries have — without concrete evidence attesting to the danger of Omicron.

SUNDAY

I pick up a copy of People magazine because it has a picture of Judge Judy Sheindlin on the cover. 

This is the woman who has been clever, rude, and precise on TV for 25 years, passing judgments on a small claims court series starring people who — if not being told off and humiliated by her — would be ringing radio programmes to complain about their lot.

Judge Judy’s show attracted 9m viewers a day up to five months ago, when, after 12,000 episodes, it ended its run having made her worth $460m (€406m) through paying her close to $47m a year. 

She’s pushing 80, but she’s also pushing her new show which has just launched on Amazon’s free streaming service.

That, in itself, is a story the like of which you are not going to see in in Ireland, where, despite the best efforts of females like Valerie Cox, broadcasters — particularly of the female persuasion — get put out to grass, no argument, in their mid-60s. Plus guards. Plus — Oh, don’t get me started.

Judge Judy’s unique selling points are twinned: High-level intelligence matched by direct authoritative communication. 

At no stage in her career did she ever want to be “relatable”. She never needed to be. Which explains her useful advice to anyone trying to negotiate a rise: “You have to make yourself indispensable — and that is irrespective of what you do. 

"Once you’ve done that and have leverage, make a reasonable demand ... women have trouble negotiating for themselves and it’s primarily because they are nurturers. 

I’ve never thought you couldn’t have both likability and respect, but if I had to pick one, I’d rather have your respect. ‘Oh, she’s such a nice girl.’ What an idiot. Who wants that?”

MONDAY

A steward on the Aer Lingus flight offers to put my carry-on bag in the over head bin and nearly gives himself a hernia in doing so, it being stuffed with books bought on the trip. My big suitcase in the hold is probably lighter, it being stuffed with new shoes. That’s what you call living a binary life.

TUESDAY

In the early days, the Nphet guys were treated by mainstream media as public health experts. Somewhere along the line, a radical change happened, so that now they’re treated no better than slightly upmarket politicians. It’s assumed they have some kind of sneaky agenda and catching them out or proving them wrong is a key part of the transaction.

WEDNESDAY

Nothing makes your day like being on the exit ramp from Donabate when the radio traffic guy announces that vehicles in Donabate are static. Just why Donabate, which is some distance from Dublin city centre, should be so exceptionally favoured by the consequences of the truckers’ demonstration is unclear. 

Not surprised the main trucker umbrella body is repeatedly described as “distancing” itself from this daft demo. Sensible of them not to get involved in something with such small prospects of success. The protesting truckers will get to meet a Minister or two and be told how concerned is Cabinet over their issue and that will be the end of it.

I find myself, nonetheless, ridiculously sympathetic to the drivers. This because I have just finished The Secret Life of Groceries, a thriller-like non-fiction paperback about the American food trade. It devotes considerable space to what has happened to truckers since the halcyon days of the seventies when they were the heroes of country music songs and of crappy movies like Smokey and the Bandit, Convoy, and Breaker! Breaker! 

Then came deregulation at the hands of Jimmy Carter, the outcome of which was cheaper groceries in supermarkets, which was good for the consumer, and an horrific diminution in the lives of truckers, who now produce, according to one quote expert, “twice the amount of measurable output, compared with the late 1970s, for wages that are 40% lower.” 

EU regulation would seem to provide European truck drivers a reasonable way to make a living, in contrast with the squalid exploitation and daily terror experienced by their US counterparts. Even if the fuel costs are unhelpful.

THURSDAY

The conversation between the pair standing on the yellow distancing pavement lozenge ahead of me in the queue to get into the supermarket is audible to everyone in the line, which is lightly entertaining to us all. 

We figure they must be hearing impaired and are used to yelling at each other. What’s riveting is how rude the yells are. They are sneery, smartarse, and snappy, even squabbling over whether they’ll use hand sanitizer on the handle of the trolley when they get inside. 

She’s eager to do so, he’s rubbishing her intention on the basis of Covid being a respiratory disease and how many people breathe on their trolleys? 

The two represent the latest edition of Alan Bennett’s category of “ancient couples who have spent a lifetime honing their skills at scoring off one another.”

FRIDAY

The one good thing is the WHO rubbishing the possibility of the new southern African variant being called Nu. Although a virus doesn’t exactly have to sell itself, Nu would have been a brand name as weak, watery, and pointless as “Eir.”

Instead, it’s called Omicron — although if you listen out over the next few weeks, my bet is that you’ll frequently hear it pronounced as Omnicron.

The EU reaction to Omicron demonstrates speed rather than judgement, closing down flights so that when the Department of Foreign Affairs sensibly orders Irish people in South Africa to get their asses home, it’s not clear how they’re going to do it. 

The EU action was bluntly short-sighted. The precipitate close down carries the dread prospect that people wanting to get out of southern Africa will find ways to get themselves to whatever country they can and proceed to their homeland from there, thereby multiplying the possibility of seeding that first host country with the new variant.

The question the EU doesn’t seem to have asked before it panicked was “How sick does Omicron make you?” Sure, it transmits better than a 5G signal. But that doesn’t matter if people who pick it up don’t get seriously ill — and the evidence, thus far, is that they don’t.

So the European Commission may have devastated tourism — the only industry many of southern Africa’s countries have — without concrete evidence attesting to the danger of Omicron. Because South Africa has high-end surveillance systems and ‘fessed up responsibly, they’re being punished to a degree unrelated to the danger thus far revealed.

SATURDAY

It doesn’t matter if the tickets are long-haul or short-haul, families all around Ireland who four days ago were mentally ticking off the days to the point of embarkation are now filled with the fear of having to spoil everyone’s Christmas or post-Christmas by postponing the trip.