Slow Down London gives time to relax

 

Tuesday, Apr 14,2009, 11:43:42 AM   Click:

His impatience with motorists, tube trains crowded, Barging pedestrians - and the stress of the financial turmoil - London may be ready for a break from the frenzy. Go Slow motion reaches the capital.

This month, ten days of the festival, Slow Down London, will offer residents a rare opportunity: the opportunity to relax and take stock. To walk across the Thames to meditation classes to workshops on the hour, the campaign aims to show people how to live life in real time. "

If it is successful, the organizers plan to expand their campaign to other British cities and conduct throughout the year.

Tessa Watt, who organized the event with two friends who wanted a more balanced life, told the Times: "There is a sense in a city like London, there is a tendency to run around like crazy rabbits in a hutch. We are angry with someone ambling slowly down the sidewalk, and we want a joystick if they have not received their Oyster card at the door of the subway. Things are a little more of the hand. "

She said the festival, supported by cultural institutions, including the Southbank Center and the British Museum, which offers a range of events to inspire people to improve their lives by a slowdown in doing things well, rather than as soon as possible. "

A walk across Waterloo Bridge, which makes most of the commuters a few minutes, will take participants in a march organized by the hour. A workshop will seek to revive the lost art of writing letters, while the other offers suggestions for better organization of the working day.

During the event, which begins April 24, organizers will sporadically from "acceleration of tickets" for pedestrians who walk to it too quickly.

Ms Watt said: "We are not saying people should go slowly all the time, but stress and speed are major problems for most people in big cities. It is an opportunity to highlight the issue and help people create a little space in their lives. It can be as simple as taking a lunch break - al fresco, al desko not. or allow time between appointments so you can walk a little slower and enjoy the environment around you. "

The concept of "slow life" created in the late nineties in the Italian cities where residents feared that their traditional way of life is being eroded. Since then, several movements emerged in Europe - the slow food (food production by more traditional means) to slow the cities, which aim to improve the quality of life such as planting flowers in the street.

Several British cities have joined the Cittaslow program, including Ludlow in Shropshire, AYLSHAM and Diss in Norfolk, in North Wales Mold, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Cockermouth in the North and Perth and Linlithgow, Scotland. Membership is limited to cities with a population under 50,000.

Ms Watt said: "People associate the slowing of having to go outside the city, and they think you can have a sense of calm in rural life. We have to show that you can do that in the city. "

SLOW STARTS TO GO TO STORE "LA DOLCE VITA"

Luca Di Gesu, a baker in Altamura in Puglia, southern Italy, is a local hero. When a McDonald's appeared in the city eight years ago, he opened a store next to the local gastronomic products of pastries and bread - and was so successful that it has forced into bankruptcy (Richard Owen writes).

Mr. Di Gesu, which is celebrated in a new film, Focaccia Blues, is a hero, too, of Slow Food and Slow City activists. "Food, like life, is to savor slowly," Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, said.

In a way, Italy has never lost the art of la dolce vita: that is why millions of tourists go there every year, to discover (or rediscover), lunch and the contemplation of beauty.

But Mr. Petrini, the founder of Slow Food in 1986 as a reaction to the arrival of McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome, began his campaign for fear that the Mediterranean lifestyle has been eroded by the species alien habits, like a sandwich at the office instead of lunch.

"We are slaves to the speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, invades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods," he wrote.

Many people agree, not only in the Mediterranean - which is why the international Slow Food was in 1989 and became the Slow City (Cittaslow) movement a decade ago.

For the activists of the slow, real food is associated with walking or cycling, and the prohibition of movement in the old city center, not to mention sustainable energy, recycling, building materials environmentally friendly, green spaces and local products. Oh yes, and a ban on car alarms that go when someone brushes the vehicle.

The first Cittaslow a Greve in Chianti, Tuscany, followed by Bra, Positano and Orviet. There are 42 slow cities in Italy and especially in Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Poland and Norway.

When a city wants to join, Slow City inspectors ensure that it deserves the snail Cittaslow logo. "Fast Life", the manifesto of the so-called "reduced our chances for conversation, communion, reflection and sensual pleasure, so short of changing the hunger of the soul."