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Episode details

Radio 4,16 Jun 2008,30 mins

Available for over a year

Gareth Mitchell looks at our need for speed in different areas of modern life and asks what is stopping us from getting faster. Promises of quicker and more comfortable travel seem to have disappeared in the push towards greener transport. But does greener mean slower? And have faster speeds become elusive for both technological and financial reasons? Gareth travels to El Mirage dry lake bed in the Californian desert, where 'hot rodding' was born, and to the Estorick Gallery in London which houses the UK's largest collection of Futurist art, the early-20th century movement that expressed a love of speed.

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