Time Slowed

While the dates of 29th June to 12th July might seem a long way off, there will be no Wimbledon this year suggesting the shutdown still has a while to run. Even further out, with a scheduled start date of August is College Football, and the possibility of a cancelled season is now being openly discussed.

What was once unthinkable, even as recently as two weeks ago, is now being discussed openly throughout college sports: coronavirus could force the cancellation of the 2020 college football season.

College football brings in about 80% of the revenue for college sports so the loss of this would have a huge impact to those lower profile sports.

The NFL still plans to start its season in September, with a new play-off format meaning 14 teams will now play in the post-season, up from 12. Wild-Card weekend will now have six matches instead of the usual four. Time will tell whether the season actually takes place as scheduled.

The unprecedented shutdown of all sports and sports betting last month hasn't slowed the number of visitors to this blog, with last month seeing the highest number since October. I know at least two people are using this downtime to read through the blog from the start, which is a very productive way to spend your time in my completely impartial opinion.

For those readers stuck at home with spouses and / or partners, Malaysia's Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development advised the nation's women to help with the country's partial lock-down by not nagging their husbands.

The ministry also advised women to refrain from being "sarcastic" if they asked for help with household chores. And it urged women working from home to dress up and wear makeup.

Not sure that advice is totally PC, but feel free to share it if you don't mind getting slapped. For unknown reasons, the campaign has since been abandoned. 

We're probably all aware that our perception of time changes as we age. A term at school takes forever, whereas a year passes in a flash when you get old (so I am told).

A post from Collaborative Fund suggested that:

Time slowed in March because for the first time since childhood many of us are being bombarded with new and surprising experiences.

The writer goes on to say this:

I’ve heard people say the economic damage this leaves depends on how long the shutdown lasts. The idea is that if, in theory, everything reopens tomorrow we’d go back to business as usual; only if this drags on for another six or 12 months will we be forever altered.

But I think the amount of surprise we’ve all felt in the last month means this is already a life-defining event. The consequences will be different, but I believe more than ever that Covid-19 will end up similar to the Great Depression, World War II, and September 11th in its ability to reshape the world, driven by a generation that will go on to view everything else in life through the lens of their experience. Too many critical assumptions of the future have already been upended for it to be any different.

I have to agree. All of us will remember these weeks and months forever. The Spanish Flu pandemic was something of a footnote to the end of the Great War, and although most of us knew that something similar could happen again, I'm not sure many of us thought it ever would happen again.

My trip to South Africa seems to have marked the end of an era and seems a long time ago now. I returned with a pretty firm retirement date of March 2021 in mind, but after a first quarter loss of 10.2% (a record) and a poor start to Q2, that date is looking unlikely. We'll see. One of the consequences of COVID-19 may well be an appreciation of what is really important in life, and while accumulating money is certainly important, it's only important to a point. It can't buy time.

As bad as March was, perspective is maintained by seeing that I am simply back to where I was last June, and last June I was pretty happy. In other words, things could always be a lot worse.

Those of us who like our numbers and who have been looking ahead will know that April will be a depressing month with the below prediction for the US:  

I have the peak slightly later and slightly higher, but others have better data than me so I'll follow along. I'm not betting on it so my interest is purely academic. 

Stay safe, and stay home.