Our Lady Of The Moving Pavements?

Madonna's bell chiming sounds on classics like 'Crazy For You' and 'Like A Prayer' invoke a poignancy which only those of us born in the late 60's will really understand. Don't ask me why. This is not an article which has anything to do with music. It has more to do with design and transportation. But you might not realise it. Ok, it has a little to do with both, as they are the only things Angel Scotter has felt moved to think about in any worthwhile way at all this week. The People Of Beccles would be surprised and possibly disappointed, I feel, if I did not trust my instinct and let the truth out:

 I heard 'Like A Prayer' on the radio this morning and was priveliged enough to also witness her video to the song at a children's party recently. It was agreed by the parents present that it scanned like a piece of work that had been put together by a committee whose sole task was to insult and offend every religion caste and creed in one go. But what really strikes me is the signature 'bell chiming' 80's sound that you notice now much more than then, along with the very smart arrangement of what are, after all, consumately produced pop songs.

Whilst the Good People Of Beccles are busily and responsibly putting their pens to paper over our previous and on-going concerns for the providence of the worlds lost and misplaced art collections, I have taken the time out from writing this column to do some travelling and some reminiscing. The Science Museum was my destination on Friday, where I took my son Angel Jr, to regard the nations expertise in scientific endeavour. We liked the ships the most. But what caught our imagination was the theory of relativity and it's practical use in everyday science.

I explained Einstein to Angel Jr. by using the example of the ball being thrown into the air on the train by a little boy, who 'sees' it go up a foot and down a foot as he catches it. Another boy, standing in the station the train is passing through, does not see the ball, as it is too close to his eyes and too fast moving - to him it happens invisibly. Another boy, however, who is standing on a bridge 50 yards behind the boy in the station sees a ball being hurtled along for about 300 yards by the train - in seeming mid air. Life is, most definitely, a mystery...

'I hear you call my name and it feels like home'  Indeed.

My son asked me: "What if the boy who could not see the ball had thrown it into the air from the platform and the boy who could see it (on the train) caught it?" This was an excellent question and caused me to re-invent the transportation networks of the world.

With the absence of the trains forward motion, a ball thrown up from the station would, in fact, land with all the force that the forward moving train might be generating. Not good for either boy. If, however the boy doing the throwing was moving only slightly slower than the boy doing the catching, they could, quite easily, play ball.

In the conversation which followed, the idea of moving conveyors, which would travel short and long distances, side by side in ever increasing and decreasing speeds, each with different destinations, came into being. The difference between two adjacent conveyors never being more than 3mph would mean that it is quite possible to move freely between conveyors no matter what speed they are moving at (it's no less dangerous to step from a thing moving at 1000 MPH onto a thing moving at 1003 MPH than it is from 0MPH to 3MPH.

Once The People Of Beccles have quietened from their task of re-discovering the worlds artistic inheritance, I am sure their minds will turn easily and intuitively to this small matter of transportation. For now, the benefits are immediately obvious: Cars will cease to be. Roads will cease to be. Traffic will cease to be. People will only ever walk to get anywhere.

Madonna's opinion of the new transport network proposal was very encouraging and optimistic. She said: "I love this idea. I think it would look really pretty from the helicopter and it might speed up the international adoption process as well. Well done Angel Scotter and The Good People Of Beccles."

In the forthcoming weeks, Angel Scotter will be publishing the submissions of those distinguished Becclesian minds who have decided to turn their attention to the mysteries pointed to by Madonna herself, regarding, in this case, the missing art collections of Europe. Specifically, we look forward greatly to the reflections of our own International Art detectives in Serbia and Croatia, who will also be making their findings public in these pages.

AS