The Placemakers

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...

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 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 a...