But I’m not sure I buy this. Wasn’t the Aston Martin DB9 immediately a stunner? To my eyes, it still is. Wasn’t the Porsche Cayenne a gomper at birth? And I’m afraid I’d still swipe left if its mug appeared on Tinder.
Besides, isn’t life challenging enough? Earlier today, I spent an hour typing one-handed on a train that had standing room only in its four (clearly too few) carriages. My motorbike insurance renewal was just offered to me with a 67% price hike, necessitating a drudge through comparison websites.
The new policy documents tell me it will automatically renew, which I didn’t ask for and was given no option to opt out of; remembering this will be another drain on my inadequate mental capacity. Four members of my family have been in hospital in the past three months.
The road surface is failing outside my house. My local council has launched another survey about planning, which I will fill out, even while knowing the council will ignore the views of the majority of residents.
The book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness introduces a theory called Sludge. It refers to any kind of friction that impedes your life: those hours you spend on hold to a call centre; the hidden fees; the small print; the appeals you must go through when you get an erroneous parking ticket (my family have had three in a year, all overturned when I’ve appealed them, but by gum it’s tiring).
I am an exceptionally fortunate man with an easy and comfortable life, good health, a loving family and a wonderful job. Yet even I can get exhausted by the system. The sludge.
This, clearly, is not a car designer’s fault, but into this melee, this strife, why introduce more challenge when it could take us out of it?
The good people at Morgan think of their cars as escapism, something to get us away from the toil, the ball-ache and the drama of life.
I appreciate that making a challenging-looking car doesn’t stop people buying one, because Porsche’s long-running best-seller illustrates that. But I’m tired of my eyes being challenged. I want them to light up like
