The Placemakers

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. Spectre or author messing about in the bathroom mirror with the flash? I've always loved this introduction to Ishmael of Moby Dick , mainly  for the fact it shows how timeless is the desire to wallow in the mood of the season. In the past it may have been called melancholy, which looks similar to what we now call depression, but doesn’t map exactly to it. Soon night will dominate and SAD-preventing light boxes will have to be purchased. Until then we will revel in this feeling while it i

Traditionally autumn symbolises the harvest, and also the reaper. The reaper may be grim, but may also be the reaper of knowledge. Autumn is a time of reflection and introspection. Nature’s death drive reigns in my mind this season, not only because of the shedding of leaves, but also because of the faint rumbling sounds from distant parts of the earth. The seasonal shift flummoxed me as I struggled to explain: “It happened in autumn, that is to say spring. Autumn/spring is a time of natural violence. The shedding of leaves/birth of new lambs scribble scribble cross cross. I dunno nothing is certain anymore. With time and distance this looking glass tomorrowland, my homeland in fact, seems less and less real.” No matter how anachronistic our world is, the grinding force of narrative prevails to give structure to human thought. We can’t know if other animals do this so we assume they don’t (or prefer to think that we’re alone). Even if they do we can’t ever know if narrative has the

Before one can tell the story of Milton Keynes, one must tell the story of Bletchley. The unlovely name means ‘Blaecca’s clearing’. Neighbouring Fenny Stratford is no less prosaic: the Latin strata is the most literary constituent of the name, most likely referring to Watling Road, which stretches from Dover to the Roman city of Chester. Ford refers to a river crossing, and Fenny means that the area was, well, fenny, muddy and flat. Following much the same history of the rest of South West England, Bletchley’s main redeeming feature is that it is roughly halfway between London and Birmingham, Oxford and Cambridge. For an understanding of Bletchley’s preindustrial history one must consult the modest books that are easily missed next to brassier titles such as Colossus (!) and Station X (!!). Local rector F.W. Bennitt’s prosaically named Bletchley is a gem filled with passages about local industry, entertainment and even a compendium on local dialect. Written in the mid thirties, it

Evidence of Britain’s colonial past can be found in any English supermarket. The wares of her former colonies jostle for your attention, and there nestled between the more exotic Tikka Massala paste and Jamaican Jerk sits the humble packet of Anchor butter. New Zealand long regarded herself as Britain’s farm. Despite the huge distance, our connection with the Mother Country was strong from the very beginning. We invented refrigerated ships to facilitate it. Most of all I think our export of butter and cheese to Britain after the war was a great source of pride for our country; just imaging the pleasure it brought people after years of rationing, a little dollop of happiness on every meal. These were the sunset spoils of empire. Now the things that stock British supermarket shelves are more likely to be made by people named Pierre and Giovanni than Kevin or Trev. Every New Zealand schoolchild knows the year Britain joined the EEC: 1973. It was a bitter betrayal. After that, we had to

To me many things in England are unspeakably old. I know this is a tiresome and somewhat embarrassing observation to make. It is really quite gauche to stand outside the thatched pub in Milton Keynes village and gawp like an American tourist. Of course it is old. This is unremarkable. But bear with me while I make two general arguments in my defence. Firstly I come from one of the last patches of the terrestrial crust to be inhabited by humans. Settled by Polynesians as an afterthought and founded by Europeans in 1840, my country as it stands now is quite young. Secondly I live in Milton Keynes, the largest of the “new towns” built after World War II. I had been prepared for the fact that everything in this city was built circa 1969. I was trained to assume anything that looked old was a Milton Keynes chocolate box rendition of something I would have to go a long way out of town to find. I now know that the new suburbs incorporated ancient villages into their grids. I am slowly adjus