The government is determinedly looking after our health, or at any rate, that’s what they would like us to think. No smoking in outdoor areas of pubs and restaurants, hospitals and so on is the latest proposal. It sounds like quite a reasonable idea, especially when the outdoors area of the pub means the area around the entrance so that anyone going in has to go through a cloud of smoke. Some of the people who work in the hospitality, however, are saying that it’s another nail in the coffin for them - quite an appropriate expression to use about what slang used to refer to as “coffin nails”. And here’s columnist Daisy Jones declaring how it will put a damper on flirting with and chatting up potential partners when you nip out for a quick nicotine fix. The joy of socialising in the cold and damp outside the pub will disappear!
I do sometimes wonder how young people, and the not so young singletons for that matter, get boyfriends and girlfriends these days. When I was a young teenager, our social life and intermingling centred on “socials” organised by the church youth club. As far as I know many / most / almost all of those have disappeared. Then, with so many people working from home the workplace romance must be hard to develop. Flirting on a zoom office meeting is not easy and a bit public. From what Granddaughter Number Two tells, even university romances are problematical as many lectures and classes take place online. It’s like a strange dystopian future scenario for a novel. We’ll be back to arranged marriages for all before we know it.
Here’s another odd element of the modern world: tourism is a double-edged sword it seems. As more and more people seek interesting and picturesque places to visit on holiday, those destinations are becoming overcrowded. Life becomes difficult and sometimes intolerable for local residents; more and more places are trying to set restrictions on how many people can go there. It’s a fine balance between making money from tourism and being able to live comfortable with tourism.
Even the mega-rich have their tourism problems, with a huge cruise ship, the Villa Vie Residences' Odyssey, which was due to set off from Belfast at the end of May on a three-year round the world, stuck in Belfast for the last three months because of mechanical problems.
I can’t imagine spending three years on a cruise ship but one couple, Lanettte Canen and Johan Bodin, have apparently been documenting their life on the ocean liner on their social media page called Living Life on a Cruise. The pair claim that their cabin on the Odyssey will be their home for the next 15 plus years. Good grief! And they will have paid a lot for that, in my opinion doubtful, privilege. I hear that passengers have paid £680,000 for their lavish cabin and, by all accounts, that’s just a start. They need to pay something extra each year. Now, I wonder how much the crew members are paid.
There are two contrasting headlines about water companies in this morning’s Guardian newspaper online. “Thames Water lobbied Whitehall to press Ofwat on allowing higher bills”, says one article.
“Many protected landscapes owned by English water firms in disrepair, data shows”, says another.
So, not only do water companies struggle to ensure that we all have clean water and that our rivers are not polluted more than is absolutely necessary but they can’t manage to look after the Sites of Special Scientific Interest for which they are responsible. And they want to charge customers more. They probably manage to pay their shareholders’ and investors’ dividends though.
It’s a strange world we live.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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