Happy New Year. Glad tidings we bring. By the time you read this I’m guessing you’re halfway through your resolutions – that Direct Debit to the gym is already looking as appealing as Dry January. We here at Whistler Towers don’t buy into that “New Year, New Me” thing because, well, the old me’s still basically OK. A few tweaks and it’ll be fine. It’s not that often we sit down with a box of Quality Street and a small Jack. A little something sometimes, it’s OK. And walking to the bamboo Hawaiian drinks cabinet to get another glass… That’s exercise.
We have though been watching a fair bit of telly and recently watched a rather fine series about the early days of the American airline PamAm. It’s set in 1963 and essentially it’s about style, and the style is to die for. The clean lines, the attention to detail. The clothes they wore, the angle of their hats, everything was about the cut, the line, the style. And nowhere was the style more stylish than the cars.
You should watch PanAm just for the cars. These extraordinary, exquisite creations, all chrome and fins, were the ultimate in style over purpose. On almost every measure we’d use today, they’re ridiculous. They were unfeasibly big – the Ford Galaxie 500, an extraordinary thing of beauty, was 18ft long and did about 12 miles to the gallon – but it’s heart-breaking that that idea, the idea that style comes first, fell out of fashion.
No one ever got frothy saying “Oh look, there’s a five-door hatchback” or “Look at the lines on that SUV”. What’s happened to car design is nothing short of tragic.
Take away the style and all there’s left is purpose. And if all there is is purpose, then there’s little argument against getting an electric car. It’s quiet. It’s cheap to run. It doesn’t use fossil fuels. It doesn’t spit out emissions. And, for those who care, they’re surprisingly very fast. No engine, no weight. It goes from A to B. There’s no road tax. Insurance is polite. And it costs next to nothing to run. Plug it in, go to bed. Wake up, full tank, less than £20. The other thing is, you won’t only feel good, you’ll look good too . You’ll be fit and svelte because you’ll never go to a petrol station, so you never buy a useless Twix or raisin and biscuit Yorkie Double.
And here in Brighton, electric cars make even more sense, because we’re Green. First Green MP, don’t you know? So you’d think everything is geared to supporting these environmentally friendly if slightly dull cars. Well, no it isn’t. There are precious few street chargers, which you need because if you live in a house on a street with a pavement between you and the road, you can’t charge at home because even if you could park right outside your house/flat, you’d have wires trailing out of your window across the pavement. You need a street charger. But there are precious few street chargers and they’re all in parking permit bays and so people with ordinary cars and permits park there. So, unless you’re very lucky, you can’t charge your car. If the Council was serious about supporting electric cars, it would a) provide more street chargers and b) make it so that only electric cars can use those bays.
We’ve got a new column by two of our Green councillors (see opoosite page). Maybe next time they can address this.
Just a quick line to say how sad we here at Whistler Towers are about the sad demise of the i360. It’s not in our manor, but it’s in our city and we care. Take away the money, the costs, the politics, all the miserable stuff, all the practical stuff and what you’ve got is a phallus, complete with ring, rising up from the beach. It’s a little odd. Brighton’s got a rich heritage of mad stuff – think about Magnus Volk’s “Daddy Long Legs” train in the sea. It’s very Brighton. Make it more accessible – or, better, free. And make it part of our landscape
The Whistler 