It’s going to be April soon. More specifically April 1st.
There will never be a better time. We’re all down here. They’re all up there. Down here with us is the Coronavirus!
Oh come on! You have to see the practical joke potential in that for God’s sake!
Hang on. Rewind a bit. Just make sure we are all on the same page. The ISS is a big spaceship (International Space Station), which, at 357 feet is about the size of an American football pitch. It’s big, always occupied and orbits the earth 16 times a day. There are usually 3-6 astronauts there at any given time, floating about, doing all sorts of experiments and such, but it has been continually inhabited for the last 20 years. In total, 239 people have lived there. There’s a ton of other facts and figures about the ISS here but you get the point. Big spaceship, people on board, going round and round and totally away from the ole Coronavirus.
As long as we can control the uplinks to the ISS, we can tell them anything and they won’t know any different. Our current predicament presents an opportunity to execute the best prank since Orson Welles told us the Martians were coming!
There’s going to be a bit of co-ordination needed to pull it off mind, but there’s still time if we all dig in and put our minds to it.
What we should do (you’re gonna love this),….on April Fools Day (Larf? I nearly Coronavirused meself)…..just before the Astronauts wake up (can’t believe I came up with this)…..wait for it…………iiiss…….
WE SWITCH OFF ALL THE LIGHTS ON THE PLANET, GO SILENT AND MAKE ‘EM BELIEVE WE ARE ALL DEAD AND THEY ARE THE LAST HUMANS ALIVE!!!!!!
They’d be like
YAWN….”Hey Jess what time is it?”
“Hmmm? Mornin’ Andy. I dunno, I was asleep until you woke me, you dork”
“Hey Ollie, What time is it man?”
“Do I Lyook lyike a clyock you cryazy Amyericyan? Ayctyually I knyow thye tyime byecyause I am effyicyient Rysussyian Cyosmyonyaut….iyt’s Lyunchtyime”
“Ollie that can’t be right we always get woken up at breakfast time”
“Hold up Jess, he must’ve got that wrong. Need to get yourself an American watch Ollie!”
“Andy he’s right! We’ve missed breakfast – look at my superior American watch…IT IS LUNCHTIME!”
“WHAT? What in the name of snap, crackle and pop is going on down there in Mission Control”
“Houston? This is ISS. Come in please”
“Houston?”
“I’m not getting any response Jess”
“Thyat’s byecyause you hyave infyeryior American ryadyio eqyipmyent…lyet mye try on nyew myodyern Ryussyian Ryadyio Syystyem”
“Upravleniye poletom? Eto Olli, ya propustil zavtrak iz-za etikh imperialisticheskikh amerikantsev, zakhodite?”
“Privet, upravleniye missiyey?”
“I thyink thyey myust hyave gyone tyo lyunch. We hyave myany byeef styeaks in Myothyer Ryussyia”
Then, just when they are trying to figure out just what in tarnation and the heck is happening, we send the “Recorded Message”
ALIEN VESSEL, ALIEN VESSEL, COME NO CLOSER
This is a warning message from the ex-inhabitants (Wo/mankind or Huwo/manity) of the third planet (we called it Earth), of the star system with 8 (maybe 9?) orbiting worlds, to all Alien vessels (in the sense of extra-terrestrial, not immigrant) approaching Earth.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING ON THIS PLANET!
Our civilisation was attacked and annihilated by a Global virus called the Coronavirus. This virus attacks the respiratory system and unless you wash your hands, in the country we call the UK, you will die (cluster of little islands to the right of the big ocean, that looks like a squirrel eating a big nut. The nut is called Ireland. Note, you can wash your hands and survive in the North East of the nut but NOT, I say again, NOT, the South East, South, South West or West of the Nut.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING AND PLEASE MARK THIS PLANET WITH A SOPHISTICATED BIO-HAZARD BEACON (like in that awful movie After Earth) TO WARD OFF OTHER INTERSTELLAR VISITORS.
Live long and prosper.
And the ISS be like….
Nothing flusters Jess, but Andy and Ollie are crappin’ it. Especially Ollie who is apyoplyectyic!
“THyIS CyAN NyOT ByE HyAPPyENyING, THyEY CyOULDN’T DyROP US A NyOTE OR SyOMETHyING?”
We leave ’em stewing for about twelve hours with the message repeating over and over and over and over and over. This is plenty of time to stew a Russian, but you really must stir him every hour and a half if you want the meat to be tender.
We leave them twelve hours because no lights anywhere is going to be a bit inconvenient for us down here. Then, after twelve hours, all of a sudden, we turn on ALL the lights in the world at once, and we get the Bedouin nomadic tribes of the Sahara to make a huge sign with their campfires that spells out…
and the ISS be like
“PHEW!”
“But that was a good one eh Andy?
Andy?
Oi, Ollie where’s your bloody Soyuz gone?
Ollie?
ANDY?? OLLIE?? Where TF ARE YOU? IS THIS A PRANK?
She’s crappin’ it now.
See? We can only do this specific prank now because of the circumstances we find ourselves in, so shouldn’t we carpe diem the shit out of it?
A bit cruel you say. A bit inappropriate given the circumstances, you wonder. You feel I may have let my imagination get the best of me.
In my defence, there’s nothing to do because we are all locked in, and I’M BORED!
It does make you think though, doesn’t it?
I mean, I wonder what other specific things one might be able to do now, in these new circumstances, that we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do before?
How often do you speak to your family? Especially if they live far away? I know I don’t do it very often, yet there is absolutely nothing to stop me. I have the time, and I am both a witty and interesting conversationalist. Who wouldn’t be delighted to hear from me? Who knows how much joy and light I might bring into their sad and mediocre lives!
“Hey Google. Set reminder to call my sisters at 4 am every day”
I’m up with Bob at that time anyway so I’m sure they won’t mind.
Wasn’t it Reagan that said
“…. I couldn’t help but say to him [Gorbachev] , just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species, from another planet, outside in the universe. We’d forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries, and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this Earth together. Well, I don’t suppose we can wait for some alien race to come down and threaten us, but I think that between us we can bring about that realization.”
Prophetic words. Nobody said the Aliens needed to be big, ugly, drooling, energy weapon totin’ human hunters. Turns out our Alien is a tiny little thing with pretty flowers sticking out like Shrek-ears, but look at how it’s affecting us. Our whole society is changing in a matter of days or a few short weeks. We have been confined to our homes and are unable to walk the streets without drones carrying megaphones telling us to get back indoors. Not here in the UK yet obviously, because we are made of sterner stuff and are impenetrable to the virus, but everywhere else.
Tangentially, the whole drone thing is just amazing out-of-the box lateral thinking and technology application. I cant wait to see ’em buzzing down our streets here in the UK blaring out….
“If you wouldn’t mind terribly returning to your home, it’s nearly tea time after all”
The most striking aspect of this crisis though is that we are all witnessing some very unusual human behaviours. On the one hand, you have the Moron Brigade hoovering up store loads of paper products, whilst on the other, we have whole streets of Italians standing on apartment balconies singing Bitch better have my money by Rihanna. This latter is just one example of how people are coming together, as confined, physical or online communities, to help practically or just to make people feel a bit better about what is going on.
People on Facebook and Twitter are circulating little leaflets to push through the doors of elderly or vulnerable people, offering help and support. Shop windows advertise local community support groups that are being set up to provide people in isolation with the aid they need.
Surely this is what Reagan was talking about. In our normal virus-free lives, altruism begins at home and rarely makes it out of the front door. We might donate a few quid to our favourite well-digging, child-caring, orphan-adopting charity every month, but bottom line? If you’re not a blood descendant, then you’re basically on your own.
Of course there are exceptions. That Irish chap did ever so well with Do they know it’s Christmas, Feed the Wooorld and Live-Aid. Then there’s Comic Relief that does a sterling job of raising money for good causes every year.
Over the past few years though we have increasingly seen less and less societal cohesion and more and more division. Urbanisation, Globalism, populist politics and careless thinking have all contributed to a society that more and more people are finding ruthless and unfulfilling.
Here’s the thing. I believe that the more we behave as though we live in a village the more we see the best of humanity.
I grew up in a village in the North of England. We left the doors open. People would just walk in and make themselves a brew. Simon, the milkman would come swooping around the corner on his bike, like a knight in shining armour, to defend the young kids on the street from any local bullies. We did visit ‘Lizbeth at the end of the road when she got dementia, and we sat with her as she asked “What time is it?” for the hundredth time in an hour. We all knew each other’s business and it was a good thing because it meant we were not only nosy enough but cared enough, to find out all about you before we went spreading rumours about you.
I lived in London for 23 years and barely knew who my next-door neighbour was.
So when I see village behaviours coming to the fore, when I see people giving a damn about not just their own family but everyone else’s, I become hopeful. How weird is it that all it takes is a little germ, admittedly capable of killing us, for us to change completely and be concerned for everyone.
I suppose the real question is, can we capture that and keep it safe? can we keep it up after we have expunged the little buggers? We live in interesting times. I’m hopeful.
Oh and Jess, Andy and Ollie. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t do that to you. After all, you’re the only ones who can see us all from up there.
But I could though.
Until next time, Stay well. Creasy signing off.
