50 years ago, Concorde made her maiden flight to the USA, crossing The Atlantic in 3hours 32 minutes and halving the time taken to travel between Europe and the USA. An engineering triumph and a global style icon, Concorde was the world's most expensive form of commercial air travel. She was retired in 2003 as demand fell off following 9/11 and after the Paris air crash in 2000, when 100 passengers, 9 crew and 4 people on the ground were killed when a tyre blow out resulted in a large fragment of rubber hitting the fuel tank, causing it to rupture. Spilt fuel ignited and led to a catastrophic fire within 2 minutes of take-off. The cost of tickets had become prohibitive with passenger miles per gallon of fuel at less than 16, whereas larger aircraft achieved more than 50pm/g. I was lucky enough to fly on her from Washington Dulles in 1992 and, although take-off was so exciting it had everyone grinning inanely, the actual cabin environment was not that pleasant. However, it was all over in a flash with barely time to enjoy the champagne and caviar.
A recent Thought for the Day on BBC 4 referenced Concorde's anniversary year. Nick Baines, the Bishop of Leeds, was talking about the modern need for speed. Getting somewhere fast, be it on Concorde or via a high speed train link such as HS2, presupposes that one has a purpose to seeking ever faster speeds. He saw a tension between our drive to get somewhere quickly and our desire to slow down. As ever faster speeds are demanded and we attempt to cram more and more in to every waking moment, there is a corresponding drive for a slower life – a demand for retreats, pilgrimage, for time spent reflecting and "doing nothing". What is it all about? Who is being served by speed? Just because we can, does that mean we should/we must? How does one resist the drive for speed?
I think it a very interesting question and it had me thinking all day – which I suppose is the point of Thought for the Day. Technology drives progress, but might it sometimes race ahead of what is good for us? Do I exist for the technology, or does it exist to serve me? A particularly relevant question as advances in AI outstrip ethical questions.
The bishop mentioned a book by a theologian called Kosuke Koyame –" 3 mile an hour God – Biblical reflections". Koyame suggests that God moves at walking pace and it is only when we all slow down to walking pace that we can really see what is important. We may be rushing about, squeezing all that we can into our time, prioritizing speed and productivity, but why? To quote from the book : 'Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.'
I am not sure that I agree totally, because for some people in the world even basic survival requires them to rush about working every hour that they can, but that is a matter of distribution of the earth's resources. But as an idea, it certainly deserves a ponder and a leisurely walk along the river might be just the place to think about it - at a speed that never breaks the 3 mph barrier.
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