Are you buying the companies of the past, or the future?

I got on a train, this morning.

In more normal times, that isn’t newsworthy.

But a check of my Opal card activity (I’m based in NSW) confirmed what I expected: I hadn’t used it since February 20, last year.

It is – like the half-price face masks on special when I was at Woolies yesterday – a reminder that life, in Australia at least, is getting back to something approaching normal.

Yes, the train carriage was emptier.

Yes, I expect the city to be less busy than last time I made a peak-hour visit to the CBD.

And yes, we’re only 2 weeks into the post-JobKeeper world, and I’m sure there are second-order effects yet to be felt.

And yet, it feels pretty normal.

I know that’s tempting fate.

I know we’re only one hotel…