Grey Area

Lady Vicar on the radio making a parable out of electricity pylons (very C of E!). She likes them - and in truth - so do I.

I mentioned yesterday that there was a ruck about pylons on the radio. I like them because I like geometry and engineering, and I like the fact that they are so other worldly. As a kid I thought they were space aliens hiding in the landscape - waiting to get the call to arms, I like the way they are connected and talk to each other with a silent crackle. I like looking up at them against the sky - and seeing them on train journeys. If they were suddenly gone, it would be like they were never here. I like them because they are an elegant, practical solution to a huge problem. I also like being able to turn the light on, and they really help.

When I'm on the phone I doddle pylons. I was brought up near an old fashioned power station with cooling towers ( long gone ) and used to daydream that it was like a Quatermass science project - that there were space rockets hidden inside the cooling towers and listen to the hum and crackle of the cables. There were occasionally public information films where kids would be fried by flying kites next to pylons or climbing up them. This made then even more fascinating and seductive, although I was never stupid enough to get that close - who would be???

I think that rather than spending gazillions trying to bury cables ( and then even more digging them up again ) they should ask artists and designers to come up with even more beautiful and intricate lattice shapes - make people fall in love with them a bit more.