Our second work during this trip was to observ if the utopia of William Morris was realized today. It's a reference of the book News from Nowhere published in 1890. This is the story of men who travel through the time (like the Doctor Who) and arrived in our time. Here, he has the surprise to see a perfect town, where people are friendly and Thames are clean. You can read the text here. 

When he woke up, he seemed to be at the same place but the things weren't exactly the same.

"Oh my God, the water is more clear than yestearday", said a man on the board.

"Is it possible, asked William, she was so beautiful yesterday".

Men who were in the bridge looked him like a martians, this strange man took them for idiots. 

"If you want to check..."

William approached from the board and saw... a disgusting green water. To be honest, it was not as repulsive as the century of William, but this colour of vomit of cows was not really attractive. 

"What happens with the Thames? Why it's not so clean??" said he.

"Ask to people who threw out their plastics in the river, and don't forget the pollution of boats..." said the first man.

William was a little bit disoriented by what he saw. The Thames was not exactly what he expected. He got down the boat and arrived in front of a beautiful bridge. He was grey and blue, it total harmony with the landscape. The architecture was polished and optimised if people wanted to cross. It was the result of the equation of art and utility.

Suddenly, he felt a hand in his pocket. It was a man who tried to steal his money. He was disappointed to see people wrong somebody but it confirmed what he thought : a lot of people were very poor. William keep going through London. He took the bus (formidable to run quickly) and he arrived in a shopping street. He was a little bit hunger now, that's why he decided to buy something to eat. When it was time to pay, he had a lot of cents and his coins purse. 

"Mister, I will help you if you want", said the cashier.

And he replaced by coins less weighty. William was very impressed by this nice behaviour. And he was also suprised by people who used bins outside, as if they respected the nature and the environment.   There was no butt on the floor and the only persons who threw out garbages was tourists. It was a satisfaction for him because in his century, people consiederd London as a big bin. 

=> To conclude : Today London doesn't look like a perfect town (as William Morris imagined), but there is a lot of progress. The city is very beautiful and we can observ architectural wonders. We have the sensation that people are interested by the environment because there aren't wastes, even if it's a little bit difficult to find beans. Most of the people are kind with the others persons and ready to do a favour. However there are a lot of pickpockets. 

Hey,

We were in the Comptuer room to do a special task: a sort of glog (in fact it wasn't a glog but at first it must be it) in order to present the famous book Utopia by Thomas More and to compare it with a community which are living as in a utopia. We choose The Farm, an american communiting created in the 60s and who is still present today (you can visit its website here). 

You can see our work if you clic here.