"Having a Wonderful Time"

What's been bugging me over the last week is how very British we have all been about the complete closure of all UK airports (and most of the rest of Europe's).

There has been such a surreal sense of acceptance, a kind of things happening over there to other people while the rest of us carry on. I've had two people in the office stuck overseas, one is now back and the other still missing. But no-one has panicked, no-one has died, we've all just got on with it.

What it reminds me of more than anything is JG Ballard's short story "Having a Wonderful Time", where holidays makers in the Canaries end up having their holiday's extended apparently indefinitely, with more and more people arriving all the time. The premise being that governments across Europe are shipping underemployed off to the Canaries for good. This is accompanied by an acceptance of their fate and people making the best of their situation. Read it if you get a chance, it is in "The Complete Short Stories: Volume 2" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Short-Stories-v/dp/0007245769/ref=sr_1_16?ie...

This is a theme re-visited by Douglas Adams later in his Hitchhikers Guide series where all of the "less useful" people, the Telephone Sanitisers, Middle Managers etc. are shipped off-planet on a mysterious mission. Albeit without Ballard's sense of normal, unreality.

Posted via email from james downes' preposterous nonsense