| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Great White North | |
| David Warren: The urban angle | |
| 2006-01-26 | |
| |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 The urban angle: 'O Nanny "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." .... Like isolated and primitive peoples elsewhere, they develop superstitions -- “urban myths” -- that account for the mysterious provision of their public services, and they worship their “rainmaking” urban political gods. Their lives are regulated by principles of “political correctness” bound in on every side by taboo. .......... The postmodern conurbation is vast, and the person who lives in the middle of it, lives 10 or 20 or 30 miles from the nearest open space. He walks or drives past thousands on his way to work. He participates in what used to be called a “rat race”. He adapts quickly in neighbourhoods subject to constant inundation by strange new people -- often speaking languages he can’t understand. His home is something that can be quickly exchanged, more likely rented than owned. He develops a profound sense of personal powerlessness, together with the compensating vanity -- ABOUT DAVID WARREN Someone once told me that a curriculum vitae should contain one hundred facts.... 1. I walked across the Hungerford footbridge over the Thames River in London, England, in the presence of Christ, on Thursday, April 15th, 1976. 2. I was born under a full moon, on April 29th, 1953 -- the last time a full moon would fall on that day, until April 29th, 2037. 3. My mother's mother's mother spoke Gaelic, & her mother spoke Gaelic only (in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia). 4. My father's mother.... ;) |
| Posted by: Max Planck 2006-01-26 06:55 |