Walking and talking: Will Self

Carfree chooser Will Self was on Saturday’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4, talking about psychogeography. He described it as “the idea of purposeless transit across the urban context in order to deconstruct the commercial and political imperatives of contemporary space.” Obvious, really. And something to consider next time you’re on a walk. Or a purposeless transit.

On a related theme, he described airports as being designed “to make people bored and make them move forward, like cattle moving toward the bolts that will be fired into their skulls....in an airport you are basically a cow with a credit card.”   Next time you want to avoid the plane and go by train,  the guys at Loco2  can help.
Photo: The Guardian.

On Air, On The BBC

 My alarm call today came courtesy of BBC Radio5Live, paving the way for a radio “appearance” (down the line), first via a chat with Nicky Campbell on his breakfast show and back again for the phone-in. This was prompted by the pros and cons (overwhelmingly pros, in my view) of living carfree, in the context of today’s debate in the House of Commons about the projected increase in fuel duty from next January. Much reference to giveupyourcar.com, and a few mentions for upcoming book thefourwheeldetox (publishers, do get in touch!)

Carfree: The Late Nigel Pargetter

The Archers is a radio soap opera about “an everyday story of country folk.” It enjoys a cult following among many listeners to BBC Radio 4. I’m not one of them, but I’d been told by those that are that I should feature the soap’s Nigel Pargetter as a carfree chooser. Now it’s too late. Nigel fell off the roof of his stately pile, Lower Loxley Hall, in a recent episode to mark the programme’s 60 anniversary (60 as in 60 years). So there goes an unlikely carfree icon of country life, whose funeral eulogy appropriately recorded his light tread on the planet - but probably not his heavy fall.  According to Tim Harford, the BBC’s Undercover Economist, Nigel’s falling death yodel lasted for 3½ seconds. Assuming that Nigel fell at the usual gravity-induced acceleration rate of 10 metres per second per second, then Nigel would have fallen 5 metres in the 1^st second, another 15 metres in the 2^nd second and 25 metres in the 3^rd second. Adding up the total fall over 3½ seconds gives a distance of 60 metres. Which makes Lower Loxley as high as a 20 storey building. Just sometimes, fiction really is stranger than truth.