Driving North on the M6 last evening we travelled across Shap.
It's a long drag up the old road and it is hard to recall how significant a moment it was when the old cars and motorbikes that my parents ran managed to climb to the top without overheating.
We often stopped for a picnic whilst the engine cooled down, then checked the oil and water before setting off at a gentle pace.
It was a gentler time altogether.
Now on the motorway, whilst still a steady climb most modern cars don't even notice and even the lorries maintain their normal cruising speed.
Last night the road surface had a light covering of icy snow and still people continued to maintain their cruising speed despite the poor visibility.
At one point passing the scene of a multiple car pile up, with the mist illuminated with blue and orange flashing lights, the roadside warning lights asked motorists to slow to 30 mph, but no one did and as I slowed a lorry roared up to the back of me and I had to accelerate away to avoid a collision.
We live in pretty scary times and with its impeccable sense of timing and brilliant intuition the Government senses that this is just the right moment to raise the speed limit.
Last night seeing the motorway with so many cars roaring into the dark and snowy distance I found myself thinking of Lemmings and the phrase 'built by robots driven by idiots' came into my mind.
But hey! Nostalgia's not what it used to be and I guess that grumpiness is not necessarily the preserve of old men or women.
Not that I am young.
The news continues to focus on the Euro, the Riots and of course the the LSX protest continues to generate interest and headlines.
Other Occupy groups have sprung up around the place.
At the Co-op Northern Regional conference there was a good deal of discussion about the impact and long term effects of the campaign.
Co-operation or mutualisation is both a practical and an idealistic way of running both business and society but a recent survey found that people questioned found the Co-op 'old fahsioned'..
One of the key lessons of the LSX protest and indeed the many pop-up occupy groups is: there is another way of organising things.
A way that is inclusive and does not materially benefit the small group over and against the large.
It is unfortunate that David Cameron came up with the notion of a Big Society, because the words have now become associated with his particular form of Conservatism and cannot therefore be easily used by anyone who shares the vision of a society based on the idea of a public good.
It seems that the knee jerk response to the riots, gangs and brokenness, is not altogether right either.
Opportunism played a major part but the main focus of the sense of indignation that underlay the looting seems to have been a public dissatisfaction with policing, particularly Stop and Search.
Broken policing? Broken politics? Broken economics? Broken policy making?
But no, for the con-dem Government it continues to be, broken society.
But that will no longer do, we cannot any longer continue to travel the old and unreliable way.
I was reminded this morning of a passage in Jeremiah, 'stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls'.
Sadly the people of Israel said no.
So far we seem to be saying no as well, so, in the words of a Bob Dylan song, we'll 'just keep doing ninety miles an hour' down the dead end street we're on.
It's a long drag up the old road and it is hard to recall how significant a moment it was when the old cars and motorbikes that my parents ran managed to climb to the top without overheating.
We often stopped for a picnic whilst the engine cooled down, then checked the oil and water before setting off at a gentle pace.
It was a gentler time altogether.
Now on the motorway, whilst still a steady climb most modern cars don't even notice and even the lorries maintain their normal cruising speed.
Last night the road surface had a light covering of icy snow and still people continued to maintain their cruising speed despite the poor visibility.
At one point passing the scene of a multiple car pile up, with the mist illuminated with blue and orange flashing lights, the roadside warning lights asked motorists to slow to 30 mph, but no one did and as I slowed a lorry roared up to the back of me and I had to accelerate away to avoid a collision.
We live in pretty scary times and with its impeccable sense of timing and brilliant intuition the Government senses that this is just the right moment to raise the speed limit.
Last night seeing the motorway with so many cars roaring into the dark and snowy distance I found myself thinking of Lemmings and the phrase 'built by robots driven by idiots' came into my mind.
But hey! Nostalgia's not what it used to be and I guess that grumpiness is not necessarily the preserve of old men or women.
Not that I am young.
The news continues to focus on the Euro, the Riots and of course the the LSX protest continues to generate interest and headlines.
Other Occupy groups have sprung up around the place.
At the Co-op Northern Regional conference there was a good deal of discussion about the impact and long term effects of the campaign.
Co-operation or mutualisation is both a practical and an idealistic way of running both business and society but a recent survey found that people questioned found the Co-op 'old fahsioned'..
One of the key lessons of the LSX protest and indeed the many pop-up occupy groups is: there is another way of organising things.
A way that is inclusive and does not materially benefit the small group over and against the large.
It is unfortunate that David Cameron came up with the notion of a Big Society, because the words have now become associated with his particular form of Conservatism and cannot therefore be easily used by anyone who shares the vision of a society based on the idea of a public good.
It seems that the knee jerk response to the riots, gangs and brokenness, is not altogether right either.
Opportunism played a major part but the main focus of the sense of indignation that underlay the looting seems to have been a public dissatisfaction with policing, particularly Stop and Search.
Broken policing? Broken politics? Broken economics? Broken policy making?
But no, for the con-dem Government it continues to be, broken society.
But that will no longer do, we cannot any longer continue to travel the old and unreliable way.
I was reminded this morning of a passage in Jeremiah, 'stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls'.
Sadly the people of Israel said no.
So far we seem to be saying no as well, so, in the words of a Bob Dylan song, we'll 'just keep doing ninety miles an hour' down the dead end street we're on.
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