I found bliss when I fell in a black hole

Last Updated on Thursday, 05 April 2012 10:27 Thursday, 05 April 2012 09:43

Written by Will Heaven, Catholic Herald UK

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For five days, I went cold turkey. My mobile was off, my laptop far away. And time slowed down

Here’s a business idea that could make someone millions of pounds: a travel agency that – wait for it – runs holidays exclusively to black holes. Not the sort that excite Stephen Hawking. No, I mean the kind of “black holes” here on planet earth where you’ll find no internet connection, no mobile reception and no television. A black hole is a technology-free paradise.

Strictly speaking, I can’t claim the glory for this idea. It’s stolen from Pico Iyer, the British-born author, who recently wrote in the New York Times: “The future of travel… lies in ‘black-hole resorts’, which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms.”

This is because, Iyer says, “In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them… The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.”

Isn’t he right? Like so many of my generation, I’m a bone fide tech addict. Ninety per cent of my working day is spent in front of a desktop computer. But when I get home I simply plug into Sky Plus or switch on my laptop. If you spot me on the train on the way there, I’ll be glued to my iPad. I am pathetically lost without internet access.

Lundy, which was once owned by a great-great-great-great-great uncle of mine (before it bankrupted the Heaven family), is utterly remote. It’s the sort of place where if you run out of loo paper you have to wait for a helicopter to land with more supplies.

It was the perfect place to go cold turkey, in other words. My mobile was off for five days, my MacBook was left on the mainland, and there wasn’t a television in sight. As for internet, I’m not sure the locals have heard of it.

Once the effects of my tech addiction had worn off, time seemed to slow down. The sun was shining, the air was as rich as wine and the only sound was of the waves crashing on to the rocks in the bay below.

Black holes are bliss – and in a few years they’ll be impossible to find without the help of an expert. Please can he or she remember to send me my cut?