Oil Drum Lane

  See the headings above. There are two  PAGES here.  The Scrapyard Page  is stuff I write to indulge my interest in places and spaces, real and imagined and the histories that shaped them. I doubt that you share my arcane predilections but if you root around a bit, you might find something that catches your eye.  It is configured primarily for reading on a phone. The content wanders but has a London bias. My gaff, my rules.  The Soapbox Page   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 best to make them 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 lo...

 In what follows, some parts of my narrative echo histories in my other posts, for instance on why the regional landscape looks like it does, or the old squabbles that shaped our odd Constitution and which are currently being re-enacted in the USA.  Here, I have a different objective and am focusing on the origin, nature and delusions about land ‘ownership’ so for the sake of brevity and avoiding repetition, I have added links back to earlier posts. The Lib Dems' anthem, sung in a boozy session at each conference, is ‘The Land Song’. The chorus finishes with the declaration that ‘God made the land for the people'. The old hippies among you might recall that Woody Guthrie expressed a similar sentiment in secular terms. “ This land is your land, this land is my land…….This land was made for you and me”. The Glee Club Song  In real, tangible terms, how can you own something that will be here for aeons to come? In what sense is the land yours, mine, or ours? Ill-defined righ...

  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...