Happy Lockdown Easter. I’ll bet it wasn’t too difficult for the kids to find the Easter Eggs this morning. But, never mind, only another three weeks to go – maybe.
It was inevitable that the lockdown would be extended, because nobody actually knows what this appalling Covid-19 is capable of. Maybe it looks as though it’s going away and then suddenly makes an unwelcome return in a second wave of infection.
As I said to my lockdown partner this week, this is a bit like being trapped in some awful soap opera with absolutely no idea where the script is leading us. Speaking of soap operas and sitcoms, I’m guessing that production has come to a grinding halt on all of them worldwide and yet another side-effect of the lockdown will be soap-opera deprivation.
My friends in the UK are already complaining that the long-running radio series ‘The Archers’ (which began in 1951) only has enough pre-recorded episodes to last until the end of April. Starting on 4 May, there will be fewer episodes per week and far fewer characters involved.
Joys, or otherwise
What is left will largely be about the handful of characters who are still involved, no doubt revealing their inner thoughts about the joys, or otherwise, of lockdown in the fictional farming village of Ambridge in the fictional county of Borsetshire.
Obviously the existing storyline will not be able to be continued due to social distancing, so this will present a unique challenge to the scriptwriters and allow them to get rid of a few superfluous villagers. My guess is that a vaccine for Covid-19 is developed in Ambridge, made from lamb’s intestines, big Pharma move in, and the entire village is demolished to make way for a gigantic Chinese-owned laboratory.
You can probably get away with keeping a somewhat reduced radio soap going, but that isn’t going to be possible with TV. The lockdown is also going to affect the movie industry in what some are calling ‘Harvey’s Revenge’. My guess is that very few new movies are going to get made this year, particularly if they involve various exotic locations around the world. The new James Bond movie, ‘No Time to Die’, was due to be premiered just before Covid-19 started in Europe and has been optimistically postponed to November.
it’s going to take a long time to erase the memories of this virus
That’s fine if this is all well behind us by then and people feel comfortable about sitting in a crowded cinema with others coughing in the darkness.
Personally, I think it’s going to take a long time to erase the memories of this virus and people’s behaviour is going to change dramatically. Every cough will be seen as the spreading of a potential new virus.
The Covid-19 paranoia will extend to cruise ships, I fear. For many, this is the ideal holiday and I have done a few myself. I once went on a 10-day musical-themed cruise from Lisbon to Venice. Various international musical artists were on board and the legendary Rodney Trudgeon was there to give us lectures on the music and to keep me company in the bar when he wasn’t lecturing.
Perked up
Unfortunately my wife became seasick even before we had left Lisbon and had to be dosed up with medicine to help her endure the 10-day voyage. She perked up on day seven when the cruise was almost over. Since then she hasn’t been too keen on the idea and even the offer of two weeks on the Queen Mary didn’t excite her.
The great attraction of cruising is that you only unpack once as you sail around the world, stopping off at various glamorous destinations. In a normal world it is a fabulous holiday because everything is provided for you and you don’t have to worry about where to go out to eat or what to do in the evening.
At the upper end, the cruise market tends to appeal to moneyed retirees, but I doubt many will be booking after hearing about people’s Covid-19 cruise nightmares.
The memories of being trapped on a ship with sick people, sailing aimlessly and being refused rights to berth because you are regarded as a floating petri dish of contagion will live on for years.
it will be some time before passenger numbers return to pre-Covid-19 levels
Air travel is going to experience similar problems. Assuming the airlines that survive financially do get up and running later this year, I’m willing to bet that it will be some time before passenger numbers return to pre-Covid-19 levels, if indeed they ever do.
Complete confidence that the virus has been well and truly beaten and that there aren’t any other nasties on the horizon will have to return before too many people risk travelling again.
Business travel (which funds economy-class travel to a great extent) will be considerably reduced as cash-strapped companies realize that much of it is just an unnecessary perk. This will push up the overall cost of air travel and you can probably say goodbye to all those cheap international flights that we loved so much.
The hassle of travel will also be off-putting. It was bad enough after 9/11, with stringent security measures that continue to this day and take much of the pleasure out of flying.
Quarantine camp
Post-Covid, you will almost certainly join a long queue to have your temperature taken at your destination and, if things look suspicious, you will be swabbed and may find yourself spending the fourteen days of your holiday in a government quarantine camp. The days of swanning through passport control with a biometric passport are behind us.
I have no doubt that we will all eventually get through this terrifying experience, but no country is going to emerge unscathed and a very different world awaits us.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the script for this dystopian soap opera is still being written. Since we can do nothing about it, the best advice given to me by a wise friend is to live in the moment. Please stay safe.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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