Originally written on Thursday, March 26, 2009.

There are many parts of human progress that have advanced by vast orders of magnitude over that last 100 or so years. Physics, astronomy, medicine are three. Genetics, despite the enormous drag factor that is organised religion, has mapped the human genome to a point where two entire human beings have had their genetic codes mapped and recorded. This is a wondrous achievement.

There have been countless inventions during the 100 years that was known as the 20th century. We have sent machines into space that have now let our own solar system. We have, despite the conspiracy theories, put members of our own species on the moon, our nearest largest satellite. These are incredible achievements indeed.

Charles Babbage invented the forerunner of the computer, and Alan Turing advanced this to such an extent that, despite being persecuted to suicide for the ‘crime’ of being homosexual, was immortalised on the case of many an over priced laptop and eye candy laden music player from the boffins in Cupertino.

Communications have advanced beyond belief that we can now talk, and write message, from any point on the face of the earth to any other point on our own pale blue dot. The small oblong boxes are now able to browse the interweb, write, send and receive emails, listen to music, conduct video calls and watch television, although this small feat, watching television in a small field in Wiltshire, on a screen which is far too small to actually watch television was in fact brought to market with earth shattering success by Casio. This may be part of the reason why nobody does actually watch television on their mobile ‘phone.

All of these things, despite the possible dubious social benefits,are indeed progress, worthwhile or worthless. However there is one area of human endeavour, that has not moved forward one jot in the last 100 years, neigh, possibly even 200 years. And religion has done nothing, on this occasion, to hold back the advances of Man.

Personal transportation has not moved forward one step. Yes, we now have the car and yes, those cars are now fast, more economical and with far better radios than ever before, but they are, basically, still the same as they were once were when a chap called Benz rolled a carriage on wheels out of a barn to absolutely no acclaim what so ever. We have, in the last century, not worked out a way of powering this tin boxes by any other means of taking lots of black shiny liquid out of the ground, buring it and turning it into lots of black shiny clouds.

Where are the ion powered cars, cars that would levitate or run on water ? Where are the cars that would drive themselves, float or become submersible ? Where are the flying cars and the cars made of paper light but iron strong materials that were promised by Raymond Baxter and the delicious Miss Philbin, amongst others? Is it possible we have been lied to for the last fifty years ?

Cars are not the only immovible force. Take the bicycle. It is, with the exception of a spring on the front wheel, almost identical to the very first velo’s. They are still, when you look at them, two triangles welded together, with a circle t each end powered essentially by the consumption of large amounts of sugar. Take a look at the next bike that you see; two triangles. There may be a line missing at the back, but, the designis still two triangles. Depressing I know, but the 20th century has not moved this most personal or methods of transportation on one carbo’ powered yard.

However, the greatest travesty of of the failure of man has been the advancement of flight. Not only have we failed to move forward in our desire to navigate the globe without actually touching it, we have in fact gone backwards.

In the late 1960’s England and France joined forces to design and build the supersonic passenger plane. Russia developed their own independently, although there was always the question of industrial espionage by the Russians, especially as their own supersonic marvel turned out to look, at least on the surface, identical to England’s
greatest.

Flight, at least for the masses took a major step backwards when the Air France Concord crashed in Paris. As a result, their are now no more Concords, no more flying faster that the speed of sound. This is a sad thing. Now, the best we can do is simply to make ‘planes bigger, to shove more and more people into the delights of cattle class, with nine hours of piped banality in the shape of Tom Cruise films. Last year I had the ‘priveledge’of flying 11 hours from Frankfurt to Johannesburg. Not, I repeat,nota pleasant experience.

The human species is capable of some amazing achievements and some appalling deeds, but in in almost all cases they are a move forward. The future of transportation has however come to a grinding halt and, as it looks now, there is no chance of any change any time soon…..