Bill Maltby, Castlemaine

Recently the metro newspapers carried a story of Melbourne councils moving to ban the backyard fire pit and pizza oven, citing complaints of offensive emissions “of smoke and odour”. Really?
As we live more on our properties due to Covid many people will be looking at ways of enjoying life by being adventurous in outdoor entertaining, like cooking the family a homemade pizza or a charcoaled cooked spit roast, or just the simple barbecue, yet we are seeing a bureaucratic attitude being espoused to a simple way of being creative and socialising with our families (and hopefully soon with our friends) because, just maybe there will be a waft of smoke and an aroma that some of us mightn’t like. The sensational smells of cooking, especially from some of our immigrant families, is a part of our cultural learning. I sincerely hope our current and future Mount Alexander Shire councillors don’t follow this thought process, they should have more important issues on their agendas, like assisting businesses and sporting clubs to get back on their feet when the current pandemic subsides.

It was a drive through a world of masked avengers, marauders, superheroes. Many generic. Old Man, Young Girl. Middle-aged Woman. But many specialists too. The Hunter (power: stealth) was masked in leopard-skin, the Bishop in shining pink satin. A bad bastard, The Bishop (power: evil). An arch-villain. Paisley Woman (power: gorgeousness). 
At the hospital in Bendigo, superheroes were everywhere. This time the look was mostly surgical. Patient Man and Patient Woman (patience). Or perhaps, just perhaps… they were all Surgeon Woman and Surgeon Man, (Power: can cut anyone, anywhere, anytime, go deep and save lives. You’ve got the look, now live the dream. “Nurse. Scalpel!”). Patient Boy (Glee) with arm in sling bounded gleefully ahead of his mum across the pedestrian crossing, almost becoming Casualty Boy, again. Masks, mask, masks. As they stepped out of their cars the superheroes donned their secret identity like Superman running into a phone box. The only face I saw outside was Forgetful Man running back from the Ravenswood servo to his car with an apologetic handwave (Power: to be human and make you think, “that’s me, inner chuckle, warm glow, shared human experience”.) Good power that one, if a bit common. 
I err about the non-mask wearers, A******* Woman (ability to burst one’s bubble) had also forgotten her mask. She had three Nurse Women and Men (courage) at bay inside the entrance to the hospital with her walking stick, beating them from her borrowed wheel chair (also lazy!) and demanding to go out for an effin’ smoke. Top superheroes, Nurse Man and Nurse Woman, but they needed a touch of the Bishop in that moment.
Inside the hospital the cavalcade of masked magnificoes continued. Humble Self Effacing Woman making sure her request to retrieve the phone she had left in the ward did not get in the way of Super Efficient Busy Woman on the front desk (power: ability to rip the Husqvarna out of the back of the ute and cut a load of firewood, if her full face-shield mask was anything to go by). 
Upstairs, Renal Specialist Man with the alluring eyes (power: ability to deliver great news, and whose eyes aren’t alluring these days?) was pleasantness itself, although he, like me and everyone else, had lost his lipreading power and was a bit deaf. 
In the carpark, pushing the help button on the car park boom gate, I said, into the steel grill, “Hello. I lost my ticket. I am going to have to pay full price”. Now, cynical readers may struggle to believe this bit. The Invisible Man, (power: top bloke) said, “Have a good day mate’, and put up the boom gate. 
I drove into out of the carpark gloom into the sunlight, out of the of narrow and crooked valley of despair in into the sunlit uplands of hope and freedom. The steroids, maybe. 
This is better than State of Origin. Go Vics! We will beat this thing. Just have to keep doing the right thing. And if you don’t, we’ll send The Bishop round to your place. 
* Name supplied.