Those of you who’ve been reading for a while will no doubt know I don’t particularly have a problem with mocking DJs. This especially applies to the ones in the higher echelons, most of whom don’t have the talent to back up their slick social media profiles which get them booked for the big events.
That said, I think criticism should be fair. Which is why I have to step up here to defend DJ Dimension, otherwise known by the very English name of Robert Etheridge. It turns out that Etheridge is the man who brought the Omicron variant of Covid to New Zealand. Yes, they have him to thank for it, it appears.
He arrived on a flight to New Zealand on December 16th. Under the country’s rules, he had to spend seven days at an Auckland quarantine facilitity, followed by three days of self-isolation. But the 30 year old DJ decided to be a naughty boy and left self-isolation on day nine of the process – to go clubbing, of all things.
Just hours later, the result of his latest Covid test came back positive. This despite the fact that three previous tests were negative. And the labratory has been able to confirm Etheridge has the highly infectious Omicron strain of the virus, meaning that New Zealand’s people are not in the least bit happy.
Their press is currently going to town on him, with the country’s Stuff entertainment website running an article called “Are DJs worse than Covid? The answer is quite possibly yes”. And to think Annabel Ross once had the audacity to say this blog was guilty of histrionics!
As I said earlier, I have no issue laying into DJs when they’ve done something they shouldn’t. And whether Etheridge likes it or not, he has behaved badly. When in Rome, you do as the Romans do – he should have completed his 10 days of isolation in accordance with the country’s rules.
Yes, there’s no question his decision to go clubbing was truly moronic and displays a very entitled streak to him. But let’s get this into perspective here. As bad as his choice to break the rules was, it’s hardly his fault he comes from a country where Omicron has effectively been allowed to run rampant.
Whilst Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have chosen to impose what few restrictions they can to slow it down, Etheridge’s native England has decided otherwise. And cases were going to find their way into New Zealand, one way or another – it was always a simple matter of when, not if.
So on this occasion, I’m inclined not to be too harsh on Etheridge. The New Zealand press have well and truly lost their minds over this one. Although in future, he might want to actually follow the rules which apply to the rest of us…
I live in NZ and after spending 25 odd years overseas, returned in 2009 to witness a media obsessed with rich people and fake celebrities, most of which have no importance in the rest of the world whatsoever, so it’s no wonder they chose to pick on the guy. Having just come out of a particularly hard lockdown ( well by NZ standards anyway) , why not have a go at someone semi famous…It will get the morons out there angry at entitled poms, who come here once a year or so to play at drug fueled festivals, where people die. (yes they do…at the festival Dimension was to be playing at (Rhythm and Vines), a person did die in 2021…he was a friend of mine and died of a heart attack, asleep in his truck, and after being a roadie for 40 odd years, you know, lifting bassbins and the like for all that time, these things can happen….and the media blamed his death on drugs) , it seems like an easy scapegoat for these wanna be Sun or Mail journo’s. The Delta outbreak in this country, which caused the lockdown, was bought upon by some tradesperson, who had been on the lash in Melbourne, and decided not to self isolated and went out on the lash in Auckland, travelled 100 miles to see a rugby game and visted multiple building sites,cafes,nightclubs and supermarkets over the next few days, unleashing 3 months of lockdown…he has never been named, nor has carpentry, plumbing or building, but those are professions we need in this country, not bloody drum and bass DJ’s…he was never named and none of those professions were put into disrepute…..SO in a nutshell, the media down here are a bunch of cunts and personally I stick with the Guardian and the NY Times….