The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7162 p261-263
25 August 2001

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Onlooker

In defence of the motor-car

From Mr R. B. A. Johns, MRPharmS

I have always assumed that “Onlooker” is a pharmacist and as such was given to the trained scientist’s precision of expression and critical assessment of any assertion susceptible to proof or at least to evidential support. So on reading his opening paragraphs on the apparent disparity between output and intake of energy by certain flying creatures while feeding (PJ, 4 August), I looked forward to an explanation, suggested or proven, of a phenomenon on which I too had reflected occasionally in the past. It was therefore disappointing to discover that those initial remarks led only to an anti-motorist diatribe which I consider to have departed from scientific criteria on both counts.

Presumably few people in the world would need to travel 100 miles in order to post a letter, but until it becomes illegal in this country to express distances in other than metric units I choose not to assume that “m” stands for metres (what is wrong with yards, by the way?) So much for precision.

Following two surgical intrusions into my spinal canal a few years ago, I have indeed been known to step (not crawl) into my car to travel to the pillar-box, but I suspect I am in a small minority and that “more often than not” is an assumption with little basis in fact. Be that as it may, my car is indeed precious to me and I resent Onlooker’s use of the adjective in a pejorative manner.

Furthermore, with motor-fuel prices at their present level it is probably only the wealthy who can afford to use a vehicle for merely seeking “distraction from the contemplative life”. Living in a village with no shops, I make no apology for using my motor-car, which incidentally does not buzz, but purrs.

R. B. A. Johns
Boston, Lincolnshire

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