speed

There's a heavy campaign to prevent construction of the high speed railway between London and Birmingham. It has all-party support and is claimed to offer huge benefits to the economy, especially in the midlands. People who live in the environment of the route are deeply and properly upset, because this monstrous development will without doubt upset their lives, apart from tearing a gap through very pleasant countryside. Why do we need everything to be speeded up? In a nutshell, what's the rush? One of the great historic factors of British history is the numberof things that have happened to universal benefit which evolved slowly. Major medical, industrial and social improvements have been gradual, as we sampled, tested, experimented, rejected and started again, watching to see the outcome. What is the urgent need now to cut minutes of the travelling time between our first and second cities? What will travellers do with the time they save? Is it really worth the immense cost to achieve a little more time at the end of the journey? I do not believe that it is. I recall a movement to encourage slowness; it is needed more than ever. We need not be martyrs to ever greater speed, which is already increasing stress. Human beings were not built for the kind of acceleration which is endemic in today's lifetsyle. Courtesy thrives under three headings:  1 Listen,  2 smile, and 3 slow down.  Ian Gregory