h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm trying to compile a list. Feel free to add your own observations

1: If you are living alone you can save on the deodorant

2: If you are living alone you can save on the batteries for your hearing aids

3. if you are living alone, then the family pack will be too big for you, unless you want to have the same product ten or twenty times in a row.

4. When people tell you to self-quarantine, you can say that you are already self-quarantined.

5. Transportation costs drop dramatically when quarantined.

6. Your pets feel especially happy you're not leaving them alone each day.

7. You notice that the price of gasoline has dropped more than sixty cents per gallon.

8. You look at the traffic going by on the highway, and realize that there's less noise because there's less traffic.

Re: panic buying of toilet rolls

At my local stop, a lady said - now a days "they" don't know about when "we" had to use newspapers
I replied - I remember, but I don't buy newspapers anymore, I get my news from the internet etc and I can't really wipe my rear end on the keyboard can I

Well, you wouldn't but maybe there are idiots who might.

It would probably be less than effective, but then other animals never use toilet paper so there is that.

But I'm guessing it would be a bigger problem to flush the keyboard out ...

Years ago there was a massive walkout here in Denmark. Hundreds of thousands of employees went on strike because they were dissatisfied with their wages and working conditions.

This caused a lot of people to hoard yeast because they thought they would have to bake their own bread for some time.

So in no time there was no yeast to be found anywhere in shops. And people were sitting at home guarding the fortunes in their fridges.

Some Norwegians caught wind of this and organised a nation wide collection of yeast to send to their fellow Scandinavian sisters and brethren

Let me get this straight. There was a shortage of yeast, and the Norwegians rose to the occasion?

Exactly!

There is a bit more to this story: In Norway and Sweden alcoholic beverages stronger than our weakest beers can only be bought in special stores of which there is only one in every town. And the town has to be of a certain size. Plus the goods there are quite expensive.

So what do our Scandinavian siblings do? The same thing that sensible people have been doing everywhere for eons, of course: They make their own. No problem: Their vast forests are perfect for hiding distilleries.

This means that if you want to compare alcohol consumption in Scandinavian countries you also have to take into account how much yeast, sugar and essence people buy.

You won't find much essence in Denmark (apart from vanilla, rum and a few others that people use for cakes or desserts) but Norwegian and Swedish super markets have an impressive amount of many varieties.

Thus follows that they have an impressively large production of yeast. But we have the sugar! My island and its twin are famous for growing a gazillion acres of sugar beets and at one point there were no less than nine sugar factories in Denmark.

Maybe the Norwegians thought about this when they shipped a little of their yeast to us?

9. The house is clean even though there are no visitors ccoming.
10. You get to try out recipes with the weird and wonderful stuff at the back of the cupboard.



I have had that thought about the deodorant, too, Pierce. Who's going to notice. And you're hardly doing anything to work up a sweat anyway.

Yup. Petrol has gone down in price enormously. Our tank is full, though.

The advantages run out after a while, though. If it's a real quarantine, that is. If you're allowed to leave home to buy supplies, you won't run out unless the markets are out of what you need.

Nowadays, a lot of people order stuff online and have it delivered. That takes some of the pressure off, but pretty much everyone on the planet wants face masks and thermometers right now.

I feel like a dodo for not getting around to ordering these until the last few days. China has repurposed some factories so they can make hundreds of millions of face masks. Who knows if they're all of good quality? I've ordered some, and they won't arrive before May 1. A thermometer is being shipped to me. I may get it on April 17. Then again, who knows?

Just getting into my HMO, I have to answer questions about any symptoms I might be having. How do I know I have a fever unless I have a thermometer?

I actually should be working up a sweat, TC. My lawn needs mowing and since I skipped the last mowing last year it will probably be a challenge.

I hear most face masks are more or less useless anyway, paulh, so I don't bother.

And I bought a thermometer years ago but have never had any use for it yet. Let's keep it that way

One council area over here, are having to unblock sewerage drains, because of some folk NOT having any toilet roll (due to panic buying )and are using "wet-wipes/kitchen towels/newspapers" etc!

Panic buying in general!
Just shows! How many "humans" are 2 brain cells behind plants!

Those of us who are crazy about plants (or just plain crazy) like to sit around wondering where plants would have brains if they had brains. The consensus seems to be that the brains would be in the roots.

As the plants around here are waking up from their winter siestas, are they wondering where humans would have brains?

I saw that at least one shop in Pierce's part of the world had a good solution to limiting the panic hoarders. The first bottle of hand sanitizer is at the usual price of 40 kroner. The second bottle is 1000 kroner. (Roughly $4/euro to $100/euro.)


I actually managed to pick up a thermometer from my local supermarket (HEB). I did not see any sanitizer even though they're supposedly limiting purchases. No biggie, Mom had plenty of sanitizing wipes she purchased before this mess.

We will all end up cleaner.

How about: Getting into contact (Phone, mail, skype) with people you should have contacted ages ago but were to busy to do so

It was sensible to not contact some of them.