Oil Drum Lane

  See the homepage headings. There are two  PAGES here.  The Scrapyard is stuff I write to indulge my interest in places and spaces, real and imagined, together with some snippets of history. I doubt that you share my arcane predilections but, after if you root around a bit, you might find something that sparkles. It is configured primarily for reading on a phone. The content has a London bias but does wander. My gaff, my rules.  The Soapbox is a reliquary of my former professional involvement in shaping towns. I wasn't involved in the design or planning of things, but rather working out how to make  change happen. Some of the posts here comprise material I prepared when I became more involved in training and the nitty gritty of policy. The more recent posts are simply musings on the changing scene since then. Why Oil Drum Lane? Remember Steptoe & Son? Another imagined scrapyard, set in inner West London where some of the filmed locations survive. Time pa...

  Alfred The Great  This post is about the development of the English Constitution, in the context of the long arguments over the role of the Crown. I am focusing on the current of history here, the currents and not the tides, skimming over details in an attempt to see the bigger picture. Most people see the pivotal event as Magna Carta. I disagree, but to avoid extending this post, I have described why and the medieval mayhem that followed it in more detail here: Link. Magna Carta & The Greatest Knight Theoretically, an early English Monarch was responsible for the collective well-being of the Kingdom and its people. In practice this was usually shaped and compromised by personal greed and ambition, it didn’t involve very many of the people but required collaboration with the powerful aristocracy. To rule, you needed to communicate. In Saxon times, this was achieved by having an itinerant royal court, shuffling around (and living off) the local warlords. This could turn...

  History is a compendium of stories, many of which melt into the mist on closer inspection. Magna Carta or the Great Charter, agreed between King John and his Batons at Runnymede in  June 1215, is cited ad nauseam as a foundation and guarantee of the rights of the individual against authority in the English-speaking world. Some claim, even the more  ambitiously, that it was a triumph in the fight between democracy and European feudalism. In fact, it was neither of those things. The Charter was just one in a long series of accommodations between the Crown and the Barons. But the events that soon followed were indeed pivotal in our history.  It is partly a tale of myth-making and derring-do. And this is a narrative, as all histories are, and other narratives are available. I have tried hard to rescue it from dry lists of Kings and dates. I have tried hard to rescue it from dry lists of Kings and dates. I know the illustrations are sub-standard. Frankly, they are some...