Tea at Trianon: End of the Great Commute

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 13, 2020

End of the Great Commute

From Country Life:

The advent of the steam locomotive pruned many rural communities, but it was the automobile that stripped them bare. When Edward Hudson launched Country Life in 1897, he saw that the car would transform our relationship with the countryside, opening up pleasures that were previously the preserve of those lucky enough to make their living there.

Thus began the great commute, which promised the best of both worlds, but increasingly failed to deliver. In the 30 years I have travelled to work by car and train, the length of the journey grew to more than four hours a day. It was what you did; the offices were in the cities and, if you wanted to see a green field, the compromise was to spend more than £5,000 on a season ticket and jump on the 7.03 every morning.

Earlier this year, everything changed when Covid-19 made it impossible to reach our places of work. Thanks to another kind of technology — this time broadband — many of us discovered that the daily commute wasn’t as vital as we previously thought.

The year 2020 will be seen as the age that the five-day-a-week commute died. Many companies are pondering the value of half-empty offices and employees are questioning the need to travel to them when they can achieve so much at home — with the advantage of more time with their families into the bargain. (Read more.)