That's true but then in Australia most people live in the 3 or 4 cities. And within those cities in a few suburbs. For example my city has a population density of 21,900 people per sq km compared to the Australian average of 3.3 people.

I think population density is a factor but then masks and lockdowns are what fixed our problems. I notice now we are relaxing those restrictions stuff is starting to flair up again too.

I just don't get why they've politicised this stuff overseas...to me it just seems like medical...you have a disease shared by droplets from the mouth...so you cover your mouth as often as possible and you move around town as little as you can until we have a cure..I honestly can't see why people have turned it into this big thing...like it just makes logical sense to me.

I wondered if it wasn't published because it could be improved.

Matt's take and story are interesting to fans - but to be honest it did read a lot like a draft in places - a lot of times a chapter seemed to end right at the point where you were interested in what would happen, while other chapters seemed to waste a bit of time before getting to the point. It's a solid basis for a book - but I felt like the ghostwriter needs to take another pass at it. Chat with him a bit more and tease out a few more fun stories for it.

Mind you a lot of the books are a bit content light I guess - Slash's was similar. The best one I felt was "The Dirt" by the Crue...not so much the tv adaption - but the book version was great.

On one hand what he did in the solo section was cool and moody like gives it a cool horror movie kinda vibe - like it creates a disturbing mood in a cool way.

On the other hand I can kinda see why Axl changed it as its not really functional as a lead guitar solo in the traditional sense. Buckets version is more of a soundscape art project feel, while the bumble version is more of a song to perform in a band.

Interesting to hear this type of stuff though and get a window into the kinda choices Axl is faced with when creating these things.

I was pondering the other day what would have happened if Trump had been president a few decades ago too.

Like would Trump in the pre-social media age be different?

Negative for him would be it would be much harder to reach out to his base he'd be reliant on the media more, on the other hand, a lot of his abrasiveness comes from zainy tweets and apparently off the cuff responses to stuff too. It's interesting to think about what he would be like if substituted into say the ronald regan era - where he'd be more reliant on a TV image and not only that but a less 24/7 and less live TV image where he could be more 'handled' or something...

Another thing I was thinking about is I think it might have been different if it hadn't been Hillary he won against. Like assuming he still won that is.

Not sure about over there but over here there was a lot of shock around that he won. People had assumed he was kinda a joke candidate. The sports betting place here had him at 5 to 1 against him winning. It was considered a done deal. Then there's how hillary would have been the first female president. There was a whole feminism thing warming up here around "it's time" and that kinda stuff. Women I know were basically celebrating in advance. Then of course the whole "grab em by the pussy" thing kinda made it even more of a gender issue. To me it was kinda like a large part of the public and the media sort of never recovered from that shock and in poker terms kinda went "on tilt".

I know there's good reasons people both like and dislike the guy so I'm not really taking sides, I'm just saying I wonder if the fact that the first female president thing didn't take off was part of how things got so combative so early. Cos to my eye it was like a partisan war from day one on both sides. Much more so that other presidents.

yeah it does sound kinda old, like both from the arrangement (classic rock - no cd influence, no sign of Mel/Diz etc) and even Axl's rasp (although who knows what he can do after a rest and in a controlled setting), also the guitar didn't sound as advanced as most Slash stuff does. All very curious though - cos I can't help but think if its old how has it only come out now and not like 1000 years ago.