Last week, the news was dominated by a surprisingly small number of stories – and one of those was to do with a tennis player. Novak Djokovic went to Australia to play at The Open. This is when things started to go wrong.
Firstly, it was claimed the tennis authorities had given him an exemption from being vaccinated against Covid-19. Then the Australian authorities detained him due to problems with his paperwork. A briefing war from both the Australian government and Djokovic’s camp ensued – ending up in court. An initial win for Djokovic due to a procedural error from the Australian authorities led to him being allowed to stay.
But just days later, his visa was cancelled again – this time due to “health grounds”. This is presumably due to rules stating anyone entering Australia must be fully vaccinated, and the list of exemptions doesn’t apply to self-entitled tennis players. Djokovic is now back in Serbia, licking his wounds after discovering money couldn’t solve his problem.
Am I alone in noticing how silent the dance music world has been on the entire subject? Even dance music’s anti-vaxxers – and there are far too many of these to count – have been unusually quiet on the subject. And even more odd is the fact Danny Rampling didn’t latch onto the latest anti-vax cause célèbre.
Why the lack of loquacity? Could it be something to do with the fact a number of big name DJs are strongly suspected of having failed to abide to varying coronavirus regulations around the world? Every week, I receive stories about DJs reportedly not following quarantine guidelines – proving people’s movements being notoriously difficult is the only reason these stories remain unpublished.
As we know, the dance music world is essentially a big old boys network, where everyone scratches each other’s backs and few dare to upset the apple cart. Most of them are in each other’s pockets, in other words – and one of them speaking out on issues could put all of them under the microscope from people like me. Hence the collective silence.
I’m also aware of a few people in the dance music world who are publicly anti-vax, yet somehow still manage to gain entry into nightclubs where proof of vaccination is required by all patrons. And these are places which typically won’t accept negative Covid tests or recent infection with the virus to gain entry – so how exactly are they getting in?
Either a lot of venues are accidentally leaving the emergency exit open these days, or these people are pretending to be anti-vax when in reality they’re fully vaccinated. Now if anyone wants to explain to me how this isn’t a form of deception, I’d like to hear it…