Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Almost certainly not my last word on cars

I spent six and a half hours driving yesterday, to and from a project. It was not possible to use public transport and get there in time on a Monday morning (not without bleeding the project travel budget out on taxis).

Since I very seldom drive for anything like that amount in a month, let alone a day, I just want to record here some very simple thoughts - not so much to do with the small but probably measureable negative contribution I have just made to the condition of the planet, but to do with the fact that this is an utterly ridiculous way to travel. It makes no sense. It's stressful, tiring, anti-social, environmentally-unsustainable and almost completely unproductive. Social capital accumulated? Zero.

I can't do single-tasking, I like to be doing stuff. I can single-task while I brush my teeth, because I have to, but that's about the limit. I find it scary to think that much of our economy seems to depend on millions of people shooting off in vehicles in different directions, not getting anything done while they go.

It was a brilliant project though, featuring drama work with young people looked after, so there was some reward at least for me.

27 Jul 2010 15:38:12 | Mobility and change

2 Comments

I was expecting that you posted a pic..

Posted by: Mark | Thursday, 02 December 2010 at 05:13

10 Sep 2010 ... My daughter also sees the flickering car lights when moving her eyes, ... Once I got used to it, though it certainly was not fun, ... will have noticed that it is almost impossible to follow trajectories of motions.

Posted by: James Hood | Monday, 10 January 2011 at 07:58

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Little moral pillowfight Last week's BBC R4 Moral Maze programme on Big Society featured a kind of moral pillow fight with Michael Portillo, Melanie Philips, Matthew Taylor, and Claire Fox trying to score points without choking on clouds of intellectual feathers. Community activist Silla Carron was given the chance to set the scene and did so with a welcome unpretentiousness. But Big Soc is an unwieldy cluster of concepts and the conversation was bounced from all directions with issues like welfare dependency and the crowding out hypothesis, the perceived failure of redistributive policies, class-differences in volunteering, and so on. Claire Fox's concern that the state might be micro-managing us made it seem like she was lashing out with the left while coshing herself with the right. Her interpretation of Big Society is that it means the state setting up baby-sitting networks and telling us to organise street parties - 'somebody else organising us to be neighbourly'. One of the witnesses, Mark Littlewood, was concerned that BS does not go far enough in 'getting away from the idea that the state bestows on us;' but Nick Pearce was 'sceptical of the claim that if the state is strong, communities are weak.' You'd expect Phillip Blond to be a formidable opponent in this arena. He noted that the state as provider is a bankrupt model and argued for economic decentralisation and 'budgetary capturing for the poor'; but the soft furnishing was mostly thrashed about elsewhere. All good clean fun though you can be sure. Mathew Taylor pointed out that we are not all equally able to contribute to this new moral culture, and argued gently that 'voluntary efforts work best when you have an effective state'. He too dodged most of the buffeting. Portillo meanwhile appeared to try and clobber everyone with some kind of intellectual mattress whose weight he seemed unable to lift until, at the end, he brought the house down by referring to Margaret Thatcher as a guru. This was even more unworthy than hearing Melanie Phillips matronise us thus: 'there are people who are not religious who are good people.' Why that's so wise and reassuring ma'am. Thanks to Ben Lee for the headsup.
PREVIOUS POST
Walk the neighbour I was talking to a friend the other day about how her father, recently out of hospital, had become bloated without exercise, overweight, swollen ankles etc. She was having to go over and get him up and walking round the house, up and down a bit. I recall doing this with my mum, starting with the nearest lamp-post on the street and back, then maybe targeting the next one, a little further each time. In her case we were fortunate in that she had wonderful neighbours who helped, in many ways. This is not a rare situation though and there is obviously a role for neighbours here. It couldn't be much more suitable for neighbourly involvement could it? No special skills needed, a very modest amount of mutually-convenient time, a little interaction, being there. But as we know, older people tend not to want to trouble others; their children often don't know their parents' neighbours; and care workers are even less likely to know them, and more likely to retreat from safeguarding obstacles. One example I found here: 'My Good Neighbour takes me out for a walk and helps me with silly little things, like reaching items in the house that I cannot do. I cannot walk outside unaided so it is helping me keep mobile and to get some fresh air.'

Kevin Harris

Search

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments