The Productive Pessimist

As soon as air travel began to become more affordable, Britain's small museums, and other smaller tourism attractions were in trouble. The problem was that, being British, those organisations didn't consider that they were  in trouble. Their entry fees were still a lot  cheaper than a plane ticket, and flying abroad was so much hassle , wasn't it? And besides, they were British.  You could have a conversation  with the lovely, British volunteers working in lovely, cosy, local British museums, you could enjoy the bracing British seaside, or the beautiful British countryside, whilst exploring quaint, quirky tourist businesses, and - the really cool  payoff - keeping your money in the local economy! And, for a while, the British public agreed with all of this. They pottered, they provided endless 2ps, 1ps, and 5ps, they brought quirky knick-knacks that would sit on a windowsill for a few weeks, then be moved to the mantlepiece, before finally being scuttled off to ...

If you have any experience of teenagers, you'll be very familiar with the response of "nothing" when you ask them "What did you do at school today?" They're not being sullen, uncommunicative, or rude. They're not 'so addicted to their screens they've forgotten how to have a conversation with real people!'   They're not keeping secrets. What did you  do at work today? What did you do when you went out earlier? What did you do at the weekend? I suspect a significant number of you, at least initially, thought "nothing" or "nothing much". Clearly, 'nothing' doesn't actually mean nothing , either when we say it as adults, or when children say it. A proof of this: Ask a five year old what they  did at school - but make sure you have at least an hour to listen to the answer! Ask a teenager, without judgement, what happens in a gaming stream, or what's going on in the book they're reading, or how their late...