Why can't today's technology be beautiful?
FIFTEEN years ago next week, crowds gathered around Heathrow Airport, their noses pressed against the perimeter wire. As the flight from New York to London touched the runway, there was barely a dry eye in the audience.
The plane in question was Concorde, and the journey the world’s last supersonic flight. Incredibly, next year marks the 50th anniversary since it first took to the air.
Even today, Concorde is a remarkable feat of engineering. Faster than the speed of sound, it got you from London to New York in about the same time it took to drive to the airport.
By coincidence, this year also marks 80 years since the steam locomotive Mallard broke the world speed record, hitting 126mph. Like Concorde, Mallard was remarkable not only for what it achieved, but also for its beauty of design. Compare those sleek, futuristic lines with the shabby old multiple units running today’s commuter routes.
The 20th century was the age of the artist engineer, visionaries who achieved the impossible and created beautiful objects. Delving a little further into the past, our very own Iron Bridge not only marked the birth of the Industrial Revolution, it also created a beautiful spectacle people still flock to see.
Compare that with the technology of the 21st century, which seems to revolve around dreary computers and phone apps, producing a generation of introverted teenagers and the death of our high streets.
And it takes twice as long to cross the Atlantic, while our trains are still slower than Mallard.
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AND then we come to the people who want to turn the clock back to the days before the Industrial Revolution.
According to a new report, temperatures have risen by one degree centigrade since Abraham Darby’s day, and warns we will frazzle like barbecue bacon unless we change our lifestyle.
Now I was a little surprised we are going back to the 1700s to compare data, given that Gabriel Fahrenheit did not invent the thermometer until 1714, and the centigrade scale favoured by climatologists did not arrive until 1743. Since the science was in its infancy, is it unreasonable to question the accuracy of these records?
Anyway, no sooner was the ink dry on the report than a writer in The Guardian told us to stop eating meat ¬– or beef and milk at the very least ¬- which will no doubt go down a storm among Shropshire’s cattle and dairy farmers. And, of course, he said we should use public transport to get to work.
Eager to oblige, I went on the West Midlands Journey Planner website to plot my new commute. Choosing the fastest route it calculated that to arrive at my desk for 8.30am, I would need to leave home at 5.06am. The journey involves two buses, one train, and 38 minutes walking in between. This is instead of a 45-60 minute drive in the car, depending on the roadworks through the Rabbit Run.
It seems to me that if the powers-that-be want to reduce the carbon footprint of Shropshire’s commuters, there are two options.
They could build an HS3 line through Ludlow, Bridgnorth, Ackleton and Sutton Maddock, but I suspect this would be neither popular nor particularly good for the environment.
Or they could end the war on the motorist, and accept that ¬for some people ¬– particularly in rural areas ¬– there is just no alternative to the car. They could start by ripping out some of the bus lanes, which cause cars to sit in traffic for extended periods, belching out fumes without turning a wheel.
Making car travel quicker won’t quench the desires of The Guardian’s hair-shirt brigade. But it might just make our air cleaner.