The trouble with the future is that it keeps getting closer and closer, especially at this time of year when optimists like me look ahead while the pessimists keep a weathered eye on all the chaos that lies behind them.
I’ve just popped round to our local soothsayer, old Grannie Fiddlediddle and asked her to read the tea leaves from my ‘I’ve just been on a cruise and loved it’ mug. She had to cut open the teabag first.
I see the sea
‘Hubble bubble toil and trouble,’ she moaned, until I crossed her Palmtop with silver Euros. ‘I spy, with my little ageing eye, something beginning with B.’
‘Boats?’ I enquired, hopefully.
‘Britain,’ she said. ‘Fourteen cruise ships sailed round the UK in 2010, and there will be 17 in 2011 – for Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Hebridean Island Cruises and Holland American Line are getting in on the act.’
‘Blimey! Grannie,’ I said. ‘How do you know that?’
‘The Daily Telegraph. It’s on the chair beside you if you’d only bothered to look.’
Red-faced, I pulled myself together and inquired, ‘Is there anything else you can predict that’s not actually in a newspaper or on the Net?’
‘Are you sure you really want to know?’ she muttered, stroking the black cat that was purring on her lap and eyeing me up for lunch. ‘The man who thinks most of the future is usually the man who has no future to think of.’
And the sea sees me
‘I only want to know the future of cruise ships’, I said, ‘not the future of my blogs…I know where they’re heading…to the recycle bin.’
‘We-e-ll,’ she dawdled, until I handed over more of the folding stuff, ‘the future ain’t what it used to be but there will be more and more older people taking cruises. Half of the increase in the world population over the next 40 years will be among the over-60s, while the number of children will go down slightly.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Some cruise ships will be given over to other purposes than simply taking travellers for a trip, especially in disaster areas.
‘And more cruise ships will look at alternative sources of energy. Talking of which, I’m getting another attack of the Oracle of Delphi vapours…’
I handed over more dosh.
The future arrives faster than it used to
‘And,’ she muttered, with a sly smile while she pocketed the cash, ‘ we will soon see the first – small – floating zoo on a cruise ship, for some endangered species – probably fish and birds rather than large mammals. That ship will be known as the SS Noah’s Ark….ah, the vapours…’
I emptied my wallet and handed over the contents.
‘…are drifting back again. Somebody, somewhere, is thinking of ways that cruise ships could help bring different people from different backgrounds – including those in poverty – together.
‘And there will be a new cruise ship computer game that will prove very popular with Silver Surfers.
‘But my final prediction is the most important of all,’ she said, pointing at the door, ‘I’ve got information overload and it’s time you went out and created your own future.
‘For what the future has in store depends on what you place in store for the future.’
‘Thanks, Grannie,’ I said, ‘and a Happy New Year to you too. You certainly saw me coming.’
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1 Comment
Jan 12 2011
0:27
Somebody once told me an optimist thinks the glass is half full and a pessimist thinks the glass is half empty, while an environmentalist thinks it’s twice the size it needs to be.