Sunday 17 March 2019

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city.

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city. It made them rootless, ahistorical, unable to trust their memory or senses, to measure the distance between one place and another. The river Thames, referred to by Londoners as the river, was of no geographical significance to the driver. .... There were no landmarks. The driver did not look at the Albert Halll when we passed on the northern edge of South Kensington, he was absent to its physical presence, and instead was existentially alone but together with his satnav.

D. Levy, The cost of living (2018), 138-9

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