THE HANDMAID'S EMMA

I sat and watched the latest version of Emma tonight.  It had a paper thin cutting edge to it which previous adaptations lacked.  Margaret Atwood was walking across each scene in hobnailed boots.  The image of girls wearing red, aka handmaidens, ready to be at the bidding of the men, was ever present as they walked across the screen, against the backdrop of the most exquisite countryside.  Every image was exquisitely framed, like a huge expensive expansive one dimensional work of art. And the trees, magnificent, the most romantic thing about it.   And then the relationship itself, and plot which seemed to show the shallow spiteful snobbery and class system and elitism of identifying who would be suited to whom.  This was a more honest version and closer to what Austen was describing when she wrote her 'romantic' novels. They were not romantic.  They were not romanced. They were calculated swipes at the ugly gentrified sneering society.  The societies of Bath she abhorred in much the same way Virginia Woolf abhorred the affected society of Richmond.  How women were at the beck and call of men, just as they are in the Handmaid's Tale.   Margaret Atwood famously took a swipe at Austen for allowing women to put themselves in situations, allowing them to believe and seek out arrogant men who they could somehow 'fix'. But actually I feel Austen was all to aware her heroes were nothing of the sort, she just chose to illustrate the status quo within the confines of what she was permitted at the time.

There is oddly or perhaps not so oddly a connection between this adaptation of Emma and the film Parasite.  The same acceptance of class system applies. And the working classes are used as spare parts for the upper classes. The parasitic nature of those who have money to those who have less.  Everyone accepts their place, and is put in their place.  Teachers tell me how the education system is designed and structure to keep everyone in their place. How despite the huge slogans writ large about kindness and honesty in schools, even public ones, it is cunning and connection, not talent nor intellect, which allows those to get to the top. It annoys me that those in the public eye at the moment spouting out about being kind should realise that those at the top of their profession, in every profession have not got where they are because they are 'kind'.  Even the eleven year olds I teach realise that. They are telling the populace to be kind, when actually they already are.  They should look at themselves before spouting off about kindness to those who've spent too much time people pleasing.  Only those at the top have used their time pleasing themselves.  If someone tries to step out of their place, we call it revolution, chaos, disruption, anarchy.  Actually its not.  Its just not playing the game.  Just stepping out of the frame.

THE SURREAL AND SERIOUS WORLD OF TRAVEL

I find myself in an interesting time at the moment as a travel journalist. In the same week I was asked to write about romantic breaks and read through the latest travel reports, I also focused on the climate change issues and the ever-growing lethal impact of the virus on the travel industry.  Not to mention the future of man and womankind as we know it. In times like this the perfume counter that is travel journalism seems at its most puerile. For nearly thirty years I have been writing about destinations, and journeys, adventure travel, trekking in the Yukon and bungy jumping in New Zealand, when I was yfs (young, free, single), ten tip spotting when I was with child (Tom), identifying why kids clubs were passé even when they were allegedly on trend, and why the English don’t like children.  Now son is at university, and I teach yoga, I’m focused on everything wellness, and as everyone from Royal to pop star, to politician to earnest CEO claims they are weighed down with mental illness, having made the rest of us sick with their celebration of neurosis, wellness holidays seem to be a growth trend in travel on a viral scale as most are coming out as being mentally ill in some way. Boom time for therapists, life coaches and psycho experts of every shape and size. 

But most travel ‘trends’ as such are flawed.  There’s food travel – travel on your stomach, and eat what the locals do, although obviously not in China.  The alternative is to eat what you know – and the coastal resorts of Spain are full of the full English eating the full English.   Then the fastest growing trend in travel, wellness and fitness travel, although with the virus again, this seems a nonsense.  With the baby boomers now free to travel in style, many are cruising although - as the cruise shored off Japan and Hong Kong will testify, they are unable to leave the 'sinking ship' in a Year of the Rat, an animal best known for being able to leave a sinking ship. 

Coronavirus has taught us we are a global community of travellers whatever Brexit or the political machinations of our politicians, or those in Davos decree. We are all in this together.  This situation has given us more reason to go vegan, and stay hygienic. The coronavirus started in November in China (it was first reported in December but started in November my sources say).  This should have effectively cut off travel to and from the country immediately to contain the virus but because of the nature of the economics of doing this and the economic repercussions, this didn’t happen. Our greed will literally kill us.  As I write, there are still flights to and from China and in my opinion, there shouldn’t be.  We know too little about this virus at the moment and what everyone is being told, people – including the British – do not believe.   

As for climate change, there are numerous doctorates investigating sustainable tourism (I was told about one at Surrey University last year) but this is irrelevant.  Intellectual property would be better used for climate change initiatives. Culling the fashion and textile industry and limiting the internet hours will have more impact than cutting the number of flying hours or stopping cows from farting.  Ironically I did a report on Brazil for the Sunday Times over fifteen years ago, which has a thriving textile industry, and this is also the country which is currently cutting down the Amazonian rainforest, an initiative which forty years ago, the Paris Climate Convention decided would cause the ice caps to melt, the coral reefs to disappear and large areas to be flooded.  Forty years ago.   Twenty years ago the same Climate Convention deduced the greatest enemy of the earth was not in fact climate change – but politicians.  We never learn do we.  

So I read the recent feather weight reports on future trends in wellness and romantic travel with intrigue.  Eco travel and romantic travel has been re termed to be ‘ ‘guilt free’ travel,  encompassing the fact you don’t harm the culture you are visiting and you don’t harm yourself either.  The report which I ploughed through this week (fifty two pages of it by Mr and Mrs Smith), also claimed that the fluid nature of gender and relationships, would become situationships (quick flings/no commitment), fluid relationships (serially knowingly unfaithful) open mindedness would mean hotels would be offering triple beds as opposed to double beds.  Guilt free travel indeed for a baby boomer generation who enjoy cruising in all its guises.  I thought there were many which catered for this market already, but perhaps it is just my imagination.  

With all that is happening in the world, talking about where to go to for a romantic break, and how to immerse yourself in the culture, seems fatuous when there are more important and pertinent issues to address, like will there be a planet to travel round and animals and beauty to admire when we’ve allowed the lungs of the world to be destroyed? 

The best journalists out there are the children I've met and work with in schools.   I have become aware of how teachers are doing their best to give children calm, simple, answers to their increasingly perceptive questions (Ten year old ‘Are the Chinese honest about the numbers? ‘  Fourteen year old, ‘What are they doing with the dead bodies?) These kids should be in charge of the national media.   And certainly the travel pages.  I do think curriculum classes on civil and civic classes rights, how to identify narcissists, thinking classes (learning how to think rather than what to think)( and languages would be more useful than many of the other things we learn.   Also travel classes.   Not tourism, but travel. How to travel well.  It starts in childhood. The children teach the adult not the other way round. I realised that as soon as I had my son. 

The quickening speed of the virus proves there is no escape. Travel is geography, it has never been an escape, you still are the same person you started with unless you are open, and we still largely goldfish bowl our adventure travels despite what the brochures claim. Using the internet a few hours a day, not buying clothes has more impact on climate change than stop flying to far flung destinations.   I’ve stopped eating all meat and fish not because its good for me, but because it is good for the world. Not for the economy but for the natural world.   And if we stop demanding it, they will stop producing it and will have to find alternative ways to live. I have always felt the earth will get rid of us before we get rid of it.  Donald Trump, the comic book baddie, is ironically, the one person who can change the way things are happening. I know he’s not all bad. He has the same birth date as me.