Well, I'm out. I'm out of COVID isolation. I'm out, baby. I made it. I did it. I came out the other side. Here I am. In the rain, which is what Sydney and much of the east coast of Australia is enduring in ridiculous quantities at the moment. This is the thing about Australia. We are either on fire or we're underwater.

Those are your two options. That's all you get. Maybe an occasional third option is we're being

eaten by a crocodile or bitten by one of the world's deadliest spiders or snakes, but that's

really infrequent. What we are not doing is riding to work or school on the back of kangaroos. That's a popular

misconception. But what we are doing is either self-igniting in an ungodly firestorm or being

swept away by floodwaters as we currently are. And this is summer, ladies and general persons,

summer. So my thoughts go out to everyone around Australia if you're being affected, if you're home

or your livelihood is affected by the floods. I think it's a first world problem for me to

whinge about being stuck inside in the rain with COVID,

but allow me to whinge nonetheless, it's my damn show, I'll whinge about what I want.

It's been interesting having COVID.

It was mild, very mild, as I hope yours was as well, if you've had it.

Nonetheless, unpleasant.

A lot of tiredness, fatigue, grouchiness, grumpiness,

irritability. Those last three factors might just be my personality, I'm not sure. But the disease

certainly didn't help. Let's put it that way. I certainly feel like I'm living in a position of enormous privilege in comparison to the calamity

that's unfolding on the other side of the planet, which is going to be the subject of not

only this episode, but a number of episodes in the near future.

I'm trying to line up as many interesting voices about Ukraine as I can,

as many interesting voices about the mindset of Monsieur Putin as I can.

And I certainly don't think that this is a time for us to be engaging in,

second-guessing whether or not the West has

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