One of the insane acts of the current coronavirus epidemic is the hoarding of toilet rolls by many members of the public. Dot and I were becoming worried as we were beginning to run short of toilet rolls, but we found local supermarket shelves empty of this item. Nor could we find boxes of tissues or kitchen rolls, which might act as substitutes. I imagined a point would come when we would have to wipe ourselves with discarded newspapers!
It might seem odd to you, but this is exactly what happened on one trip I took in about 1982. One of the dreary features of life in the former USSR was the timely delivery of essential items ... like toilet paper. And I once took a railway trip in the Soviet era from Moscow to Khabarovsk - a distance of 8250 km (5125 miles). That's a long way to go and what alarmed me almost from the outset was that the toilet in my railway carriage had no paper! So I did what others taught me and used old copies of Pravda instead ... not the entire journey, but a good part of it. Yes, some Russians spoke English, including a science professor whose compartment I shared. Pravda, by the way means 'Truth' and it was then the newspaper of the communist party. Since its contents were far from the truth, I had little concern about putting to a more practical use!
The train, by the way, was often short of good food ... although on one day I was offered caviar for three consecutive meals! Back to toilet rolls. Last week our major supermarket chains came up with an interesting strategy. They decided (a) to open at 7 am and (b) to restrict entry to persons of pensionable age or with serious handicaps. This commenced for Woolworths last Tuesday and I arrived at the gate at 6.50 am expecting to be first in the queue. No way! In fact I must have been at least 20th in the queue and I gathered that many people in front were heading for the aisle containing ... guess what! Toilet papered stack overnight.
Here are all ready with trolleys in front.
The barriers to entry were removed right on time and we filed in without any fights breaking out. However, most of the elderly people were not too agile on their feet and plodded in column to the relevant aisle. I adopted another strategy. Rather than following queue, the I ran up an adjacent aisle to the top pushing my trolley, took a sharp right bend and raced to the top of shelves containing the paper. I was just in time to seize one of the few remaining four-packs (we were restricted to one each) ... and beat a hasty retreat to seize some other items in short supply.
In desperate times one has to be agile both physically and strategically! Perhaps I've not revealed the best side of my character! Apologies for all the exclamation marks.
Oh! I have one postscript. How come I took that Russian trip? Well, I was at a conference in Moscow en route from England to Australia. I found out that train travel was absurdly cheap and that I could travel to Khabarovsk for A$14!! So instead of flying with a Japanese airline from Moscow to eastern Siberia I junked that tick and took the train. I took a couple of days off at Irkutsk to look around that city and ride the hydrofoil down the river to Lake Baikal. I even found a couple of US colleagues staying in the same hotel! By the way, on the final leg to Khabarovsk I was arrested for illegal photography and had film confiscated! Luckily, I was allowed to check in for my flight to Niigata on the Sea of Japan. From there I flew to Tokyo, walked around the city and the Imperial Palace, took a trip to the base of Mount Fuji, and eventually flew back to Sydney and Armidale. One other memory. In Tokyo I stayed in a capsule hotel! Look that up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel .
AS
It might seem odd to you, but this is exactly what happened on one trip I took in about 1982. One of the dreary features of life in the former USSR was the timely delivery of essential items ... like toilet paper. And I once took a railway trip in the Soviet era from Moscow to Khabarovsk - a distance of 8250 km (5125 miles). That's a long way to go and what alarmed me almost from the outset was that the toilet in my railway carriage had no paper! So I did what others taught me and used old copies of Pravda instead ... not the entire journey, but a good part of it. Yes, some Russians spoke English, including a science professor whose compartment I shared. Pravda, by the way means 'Truth' and it was then the newspaper of the communist party. Since its contents were far from the truth, I had little concern about putting to a more practical use!
The train, by the way, was often short of good food ... although on one day I was offered caviar for three consecutive meals! Back to toilet rolls. Last week our major supermarket chains came up with an interesting strategy. They decided (a) to open at 7 am and (b) to restrict entry to persons of pensionable age or with serious handicaps. This commenced for Woolworths last Tuesday and I arrived at the gate at 6.50 am expecting to be first in the queue. No way! In fact I must have been at least 20th in the queue and I gathered that many people in front were heading for the aisle containing ... guess what! Toilet papered stack overnight.
Here are all ready with trolleys in front.
In desperate times one has to be agile both physically and strategically! Perhaps I've not revealed the best side of my character! Apologies for all the exclamation marks.
Oh! I have one postscript. How come I took that Russian trip? Well, I was at a conference in Moscow en route from England to Australia. I found out that train travel was absurdly cheap and that I could travel to Khabarovsk for A$14!! So instead of flying with a Japanese airline from Moscow to eastern Siberia I junked that tick and took the train. I took a couple of days off at Irkutsk to look around that city and ride the hydrofoil down the river to Lake Baikal. I even found a couple of US colleagues staying in the same hotel! By the way, on the final leg to Khabarovsk I was arrested for illegal photography and had film confiscated! Luckily, I was allowed to check in for my flight to Niigata on the Sea of Japan. From there I flew to Tokyo, walked around the city and the Imperial Palace, took a trip to the base of Mount Fuji, and eventually flew back to Sydney and Armidale. One other memory. In Tokyo I stayed in a capsule hotel! Look that up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel .
AS
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