Life has changed for the whole world with The Virus. For some more than others at present, but what lies ahead? If you are retired and used to pottering around at home, the biggest change so far may be NOT going to the garden centre for coffee with your friends. For those who have lost their jobs the future is uncertain, for those who have lost loved ones their lives are changed forever.
But life goes on despite personal or national tragedy, it always has. We know that because we are still here despite giant meteors, earthquakes, plagues and two world wars. But how will life go on this time? Some changes will be good if we can all agree on what is a good change.
The lockdown has done for the environment in a short time what endless green protests couldn’t. The skies are clear, wildlife wanders empty cities, but can we keep that change?
At the Port of Southampton, huge top heavy ocean liners sit motionless at their berths, fog horns silenced. Since the Covid 19 scare started cruise ships have been called floating petri dishes or prisons and blamed in some countries for bringing the virus. There are ships still anchored at sea in limbo, their crews among the most forgotten people in the world wide pandemic.
If cruising is for the rich the elderly and the idle, NOT cruising provides an instant solution for the homeless and young workers trying to leave home. Most of the large passenger ships look like floating blocks of flats, so what’s not to like about the idea? Venice will be happy these behemoths no longer swamp their precious city. Beautiful islands will not miss the tourists who go back on board for their lunch and never spend any money.
If cruising and dining at the captain’s table present a problem for social distancing, that is nothing compared to the aviation industry. British Airways planes are lined up at Bournemouth Airport, no parking space left at Heathrow; who needs a third runaway at Heathrow now? Is this the golden opportunity to save the environment, will jumbos suffer the same fate as airships and sea planes? Will passenger flights only be possible if you wear a space suit or fly like this?
Redundant aircraft would make fantastic homes, plenty of room, windows a bit small, but flower tubs and vegetable trugs on the wings would be perfect for outdoor living. Ropes and ladders could transform the fuselage into an outdoor gym for the children.
Many thousands of jobs are at risk if we lose the world wide aviation industry, but no problem, people can just go on staycation at airports, without the stress and dangers of flying. Plenty of hotels and terminals full of shops mean job opportunities aplenty. Outside, holiday makers could cycle and roller skate down the runways and the lovely wide grass verges could be used for golf.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 
I travel a lot for work as do most of my colleagues. I know when we get back to it… there will be a change in how we meet our global colleagues.. I am sure many businesses will realise you can get much done by using technology instead of flying so much… let’s hope ☘️🎈
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Yes let’s hope it’s been a positive learning experience.
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I like your ideas!!
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I’m happy where I am, but I can’t help but think that all those cruise ships could be arranged in a circle around Branson’s island to stop him getting off it, and no planes allowed there either. That would be one improvement for mankind 😉
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That’s a novel use for the great ships Clive!
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Hard to think of a more deserving cause 😉
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I like your ideas for change if it must go that way. I’ve never taken a cruise so I can’t miss it, but I do rely on air travel when vacationing. In the U.S., flights are resuming and we’ve already seen news clips of packed planes—no social distancing. I am glad the Earth is healing but I am frightened what will become of our futures and economies.
Still, it is lovely to envision cruise ships or airplanes as accommodations, especially when there are so many homeless.
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Hello Mae, passengers obviously are not nervous about flying.
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I would never, in a 1000 years, go on a cruise. I just can’t think of anything worse than vacationing with all those other people. I hated Disney World for the same reason. I would not like no aeroplanes as how would we travel. I don’t want to never visit Europe again.
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PS, it not just the aviation industry that would suffer, think about the tourism and hotel and leisure industries, the shops and restaurants that all survive on tourism. We are looking at massive world wide unemployment and less tax revenue to pay benefits and pensions. This is the problem and is why governments have dragged their feet on implementing change.
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All our family have worked at Heathrow Airport along with 80,000 other people so I know all too well how big the aviation industry is. And of course we need a few planes for my sister to come over from Australia and our son and family from USA. It’s easy to speculate in a blog that isn’t real life…
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I hope there will be good changes coming through after this lock down, and that we can arrive at a decent compromise between humanity and the environment. It is going to depend on who are leaders are. I read a great article about the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon during the 18th century and how the King and his advisor turned that into a great opportunity for massive change and progress when they rebuilt the city and country. That is what we need but I don’t know if we’ll get it.
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Me too Robbie, the Bar Fleur from Poole, Dorset to Cherbourg in France – five hours – is my idea of a cruise and I have never wanted to go to Disney anything!
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Unlike She Who Must Be Obeyed (and Never Ever Mocked), I never want to do another cruise. Forgive me, Janet, but using these bloated tugboats as alternative accommodation would simply make them stationary petri dishes. As for planes, as someone who once travelled 250,000 km a year in those metal test tubes for business, I think I would lose what’s left of my sanity if I had to live out that nightmare daily or holiday in the shopping malls that airports have become. From the two choices you provided, I think I’d prefer a bat cave in China.
‘Better’ ideas will always be the readers’ judgment call but here’s some offerings:
– Make opening windows compulsory in all office buildings so that we are not all breathing in others’ germs, farts, cheap aftershave etc
– Keep the streets empty of moving cars and repurpose the parked ones into garden beds and sites for Morris dancing
– Turn pubs into libraries so at least if you are going to contract something you’ll die happily educated.
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I’m sure there are a few vacancies in Chinese bat caves Doug! Excellent ideas; a headache for health and safety officers – wide open windows on the eightieth floor! My next blog will probably be turning cars into ploughshares and keeping them off the streets. Some of our pub lounges already look like libraries.
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Some entertaining ideas…Taking a cruise let alone living on a cruise ship would be my worst nightmare…I don’t like being in close proximity to crowds anyway…maybe a longboat complete with a tiny island would better suit me…I agree air travel and corporate business should be better served by using technology but I could not completely forgo travel to foreign climes or indeed Koh Samui…I think better, cheaper public transport should service cities and surrounding villages also only pedestrians or bikes should be allowed in city centres,… which would make for a healthier population as a bonus…
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Hello Carol, yes I would rather have the long boat and island. I haven’t flown for years but have flown across the world a few times. Everyone in our family flies for work or leisure – some more than others and we all want our own family to be able to visit us!
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I have no answers, but I truly hope that any environmental improvements may be built upon and continue “after” the virus (assuming there will be such a thing)!
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Hello Becky, yes it’s a dodgy situation with people being told not to go on public transport for example, fine if they jump on their bikes, not if they jump in their cars!
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I think you’ve solved the housing crisis!
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Yes Jim, just need the government to listen to me. I was just seeing Southampton on the news tonight. There are no cruise ships with passengers anywhere in the world at this moment. A lot of businesses are losing a lot of money – but I’m sure the cruise lines would be happy to change their ships into apartment blocks.
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it’s a shame to see so many businesses being hit so hard by this pandemic, and sometimes it’s an entire industry…
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I thought maybe I was the only one that gave any thought to the environmental impact of the coronavirus lockdown. Well said
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Thanks, there are going to be many environmental aspects to the pandemic, good and bad.
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I can count the times I’ve been in a plane on the fingers of one hand … and still have my thumb left over. 🙂 … and have never felt the urge to go a’cruising, especially when I learned, long before this pandemic, just how unsavoury, unhealthy, and guilty of environmental thuggery, cruise ships truly are.
The thing that is ironic about countries being ‘dependant’ on tourism is that if all the citizens who went somewhere else and spent their money there, did that in their own backyard, the economy would balance out, especially when you throw in a culture of ‘buy/eat/grow/manufacture/etc local’. Globalisation was never going to be the boon that was promised, except to the very few at the top of the food chain.
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Yes that sums it up well. I have friends who have never been on a plane or ship, but they are in a minority. We need a rethink on everything.
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I like to fly and to cruise, but that is a personal choice and it is not for everyone I will be cautious and take precautions when this is over, but I do not want to live my life in fear. If the everything was made to change after the Flu pandemic in 1920, I wonder what the world would be like today.
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