Linger, cloud! Your silver lining can set us free

NEWTON'S OPTIC:COME, FRIENDLY ash drifting over Krakow. We are not fit for travel now. We need a chance to forget how. Linger, cloud!

Come, ash and blow to smithereens. The plans of all those Daves and Bridgeens. For suntans and ouzo and shopping for jeans. The lower-middle crowd.

Mess up the plans of the backpackers too. Of Daniel and Emma, Of Nathan and Sue. The Thais have done nothing to merit this crew. Ground them at last.

Force those who have bought an apartment in Spain. To get there entirely by boat and by train. Perhaps then they’ll admit it was cash down the drain. Depreciating fast.

The couple who wanted to wed in the sun. Have time now to realise what they should have done. A service at home and a week in Dundrum. Love conquers all.

And the family who saved up for years just to go. On a Florida trip with their glum kids in tow. They can have a day out on the bus to Arklow. They’ll have a ball.

No more office bores with their snaps of Mauritius. No more tales of how all the food was delicious. No more stags from Prague scratching something suspicious. All dearly departed.

No more needless shuttling of management types. They can sort out their business by video-Skypes. And as for officials of various stripes. Don’t get me started.

Don’t tell me either of how we all gain. From averaging out the whole world by jet-plane. We go looking for difference and make it the same. Though prices may vary.

And is the economy really in peril? We import the planes and the aviation fuel. Then we export ourselves for an annual ritual. Is it necessary?

Is a package flight out and a package flight back. Your idea of exploring, adventure or craic? Are you Hemingway, Conrad or Jack Kerouac? You are not.

Instead, you are spam in a can in the air. Squeezed into a seat half the size of a chair. Counting the minutes until you get there. Unless your veins clot.

So make travel again the domain of the rich. Or the poor and romantic with feet that do itch. They can take their own yachts or else they can hitch. They’ll still arrive.

The rest of us have any number of picks. Rent a house on the beach or just out in the sticks. Pitch a tent, ride a bike, climb a hill, or a mix. We will survive.

Spend the weekend in Ireland to be patriotic. Take a ferry to Wales if you’re feeling exotic. Or just stay in bed and do something erotic. The choice is ours.

Real choice, to declare ourselves finally free. Of the paranoid cult of faux-security. With its scanners and shoes-off and biometry. Our way it bars.

To go forth bearing liquids, sharp objects and glass. Letting nobody tell us that we shall not pass. They can stick their full cavity search up their ass. We are not afraid.

And the light! Was it ever as sharp and as clear? Did the sun ever seem quite so bright or so near? Take a deep breath, oh cheap-flight mutineer. The Earth exhales.