Some Internet providers in the US are considering a tiered pricing system — charging more to customers who use a lot of bandwidth. There has been a hue and cry from the public regarding this proposal. By now, everyone is used to paying a flat fee, and then assuming that they can use as much bandwidth as they can get away with for that fee. The providers have even abandoned the tiered proposal trials in some cities — they are that unpopular.
We’ve all become accustomed to overlooking how much bandwidth we use — without thinking about it, we go from low bandwidth usage, like emailing, browsing websites and surfing, to fairly high bandwidth usage, like video Skyping, uploading audio and photo files, or streaming a movie from Netflix or iTunes. Internet users presume that high bandwidth usage, like Skyping or video and audio streaming, is their right.
This struck home today, when someone offered our group a password to a wi-fi network he had established, but didn’t offer it to those who habitually Skype. Initially, this seemed mean, but I had noticed that as more folks hop on a network, especially Skypers, the speed of the whole network goes down — especially for the rest of us. Even simple emailing becomes sluggish or intermittent. Bandwidth hogs take 80% or more of the bandwidth, and everyone else is left with slow or sometimes non-existent connections. Here then is the hidden cost of “free” services like Skype — they’re only “free” when the resource (the information highway) is limitless and infinite — which in this case, it is not. The same thing happens in hotels — the more people log on to the hotel server, the slower the whole thing goes. Sometimes it slows to a crawl, and after you’ve paid 5 Euros for an hour’s use, that can be pretty frustrating. The information highway can have traffic jams, just like any other. We tend to think of bandwidth as a God-given right, but it’s too finite, and its limits become apparent as the highway gets more crowded.
So, should access be tiered? If the tiers are partitioned in chunks, should only those with more money have access to higher bandwidth connections? This would eventually lead to an information and Internet hierarchy — streaming movies, music and TV will only be available to those who can afford it — and the rest will have to watch in low-res or be content to miss that kind of web experience, forced to settle for basic emailing and web browsing. The whole Internet mixed media experience — Flash sites, video clips, audio clips, slideshows etc. — would become less available. As it is now, I don’t think twice about watching a video clip, or listening to some streaming audio if I’m curious — but I might hesitate if I knew that a meter was running.
I could envision the idea of a meter that monitors bandwidth usage and charges accordingly. It might be a fair system — leaving the choice up to the user in each instance, rather than segregating users into discrete tiers. The proposed tiered plans sound less flexible. They seem to want to establish completely separate pipelines — gated Internet communities, in a way.
Likewise, I just read that for centuries, fishing was relatively unregulated. There were limits on excessive catch, but the fishing grounds were more or less a free-for-all. Chesapeake Bay and other fishing grounds were public property. Anyone with a boat — a commercial fisherman, or a kid in a rowboat — was allowed to pull up oysters or crabs. It would have been all well and good when supplies seemed unlimited and plentiful, but they’re not anymore — in some places, there are no oysters or crabs left at all. Most, of course, were not taken by kids in rowboats.
One proposed solution has been to privatize the oyster beds — allotting each fishery a designated area — with the assumption being that if fishermen realize that their stock is limited, they will self-manage and regulate their own consumption and fishing. Little Johnny on his rowboat will be pretty much out of luck, as the “public” fishing zones will have been fished out, and the private areas will be off limits.
As our oceans and waterways become fished out and depleted, it’s fairly easy to justify some sort of fee, management or enforced regulation system — but shouldn’t that apply to anyone who uses limited natural resources? For years, mining companies have been digging out underground resources while paying a minimal cost for access — and they often leave environmental disasters in their wake. Weren’t those resources in some sense “public”? Ditto for oil and natural gas companies — shouldn’t they pay their host nations a hefty fee for access to finite resources that are, in a way, the patrimony of humanity?
Someone once asked me, rhetorically, if an overweight person should pay the same amount for a plane ticket as someone of “normal” weight. It’s a rude and uncomfortable question, but not totally unreasonable when you consider that someone twice my weight requires twice as much jet fuel to get them airborne. Their carbon footprint is higher as a result. In effect, I’m subsidizing their excess — at least if all seats except first class are priced equally. Similarly, should kids and babies fly for less? Should tall men and women pay more? What about those whose above-average weight isn’t a result of overeating or poor diet? That seems unfair. Who’s to say why someone is overweight? And if you’re tall, it’s not your fault — you were born that way, so why should you be penalized?
The tiered or metered way of charging for resources — how would that work? Can bandwidth even be considered a resource? Is it like the electromagnetic spectrum — a government-managed “public” resource, with various frequencies allocated to broadcast TV, mobile phones and police transmissions? We accept that not just anyone with a transmitter can usurp part of the broadcast frequency, start a radio station or blast their TV network to everyone in town — chaos would result. We accept that even though the airwaves might be “public,” they do need to be regulated. But cable and fiber optics aren’t God-given — someone paid to lay them down.
For some strange reason, we presume that our health is a crapshoot. Most public health plans don’t tax people according to a tiered plan dependent on their propensity for getting diseases — though some folks, due to lifestyle, addiction or bad parenting will require more frequent and expensive treatment than others who live healthier lives. The folks who pay higher taxes, and those who are less prone to illness, are paying for those who are reckless with their health, or (it is presumed) just plain unlucky. Every industrialized country submits to this, apart from the US, where insurance companies fulfill this function — and they aren’t quite as altruistic, though they still maintain the crapshoot model, at least in the public’s eye.
Anyway, the built-in unfairness of this system — that some per chance pay more than their share — is justified by the idea that a health disaster could randomly happen to any of us. We know this isn’t quite true — besides the lifestyle and social context factors that affect our likelihood of getting ill, there are genetic factors that are becoming easier and easier to assess. It seems inevitable that as genetic profiling becomes common, many will balk at paying for those who have a much greater propensity for getting serious diseases. Insurance companies will probably begin to adjust to that information before public health plans do — the companies themselves are taking on the risk, so if they can better their odds by charging so and so more because addiction, MS or Alzheimer’s runs in their family, they will. To many people this will seem unfair, since they might be as healthy as anyone else when the insurance company determines their rate — so, they will argue, why should they pay more? Auto insurance companies already do this with drivers — those who live in high-risk areas or have had accidents pay more. We don’t mind paying — via taxes or insurance — for the other fellow if we believe our risk is more or less the same as his, but we might be reluctant to pay medical bills for a junkie.
In the long run, and from a wider perspective, health care does more than just insure against sudden medical costs — that is, public health care, not insurance plans. Public health care ensures that everyone lives without the fear that the bottom of their world will suddenly drop out. In the US, people with medical emergencies suddenly can’t pay their mortgages, college tuition or for their kids. They often end up on skid row, or at least in bad shape, because their financial situation is precarious (since there is no safety net) and a medical emergency knocks the whole thing down. In those countries where these worries are not as pressing, the people’s lives are different — they're less desperate, less on the edge, and therefore everyone, even those who are paying more than their share, benefits. It’s hard to quantify that benefit, I would imagine — but anyone with eyes and ears can sense it.
So, back to the Internet. Is there a parallel with health care, insurance, fishing? Should I pay more, or receive less for what I pay, because my neighbor wants to stream movies, or video Skype to his or her pals night and day? Not sure. Maybe the question is how much we are willing to give up in order to share, and be equal… and what are our rights, if any, as far as resources go?
I’d been to Belfast twice before. Once for an art exhibit, and once to visit my cousin Maureen, who married a sheep farmer in a little town about at hour north of here. On one of those trips I visited Shankill Road and Falls Road — the Protestant and Catholic working class neighborhoods where tensions are high and there is plenty of evidence of the ongoing “Troubles.”
On Falls Road, there are murals that align the situation of the Catholic minority with that of the Palestinians, African Americans (one mural featured a large image of Frederick Douglass!) and other oppressed groups worldwide.
Further on, there are murals that present a Dungeons & Dragons version of Celtic pride and culture.
A brief history, as I know it: the English formerly occupied all of Ireland — North and South — and made it official in 1801. The Irish island is primarily Catholic, and the English had converted to Protestantism in the 1500s. England first disowned Catholicism so that Henry VIII could get a divorce, and allow his heirs to hold on to the throne — these guys were about not much more than intermarriage and holding on to power. The convenient conversion didn’t take, though, and England retreated — but by the time Elizabeth I took over a few decades later, the reformation was nearly complete. The English didn’t love the Irish — they saw them mainly as a cheap source of labor and goods — and immigrants from the green isle were not all that welcome. It has been said that the famous potato famine was, if not engineered, then allowed to develop and flourish, thanks to the English. A little bit of Stalin in the British Isles.
In the early part of the last century, some of the Irish began fighting for their independence. The clump of northern counties known as Ulster happened to contain a fair number of English settlers, and that area wanted to remain part of England. The Ulstermen smuggled guns in from Germany in 1914, making civil war across Ireland almost certain. After a long struggle in 1921, Ireland threw off British rule and became an independent nation — except for that Northern clump, which was held on to by England. Those counties had opposed Home Rule for Ireland all along, and Ulster also contained the formerly industrial city of Belfast — proud site of the Titanic’s construction.
So, in 1921, like US Republicans drawing new zoning and voting districts in Texas to guarantee a Republican win in certain areas, the Ulstermen, with the help of the English, carved out an area of the North that was — surprise — mainly Protestant, and mainly Loyalist (loyal to the Crown). The Catholics, a majority in Ireland, were now, suddenly, a minority in that area — and therefore powerless. The writing was plainly on the wall: an unstable, untenable situation had been created, and it only took a small incident to set things off in a very bad way. The Troubles began in earnest in the 1960s with the IRA and others bombing and attacking what they perceived to be the British occupying force. Vigilante groups, aided by British military and police forces, worked violently to keep the cauldron bubbling. Since that time, there have been peace accords — though some bombs went off a few weeks ago. After decades of fear, death and destruction, neither side wants to return to those bad old days, but we’ll see — a new generation raised on hatred might not remember those days so well.
Further up Falls Road there is a memorial for the IRA and the hunger strikers — among them Bobby Sands, the young man portrayed in the amazing recent movie Hunger.
The Orangemen (the Protestants) have regularly attempted to goad and provoke the Catholics by marching in “religious processions” through contested neighborhoods at certain times of year. Like the school kids we saw hanging round these housing estates, they were all itching for a fight. The two neighborhoods are right next to one another — a stone’s throw apart — but, like Gaza and Israel, they are separated by a fence, a wall, barbed wire and a no man’s land. The last time I was here, passage between the neighborhoods was forbidden — in order to cross, you had to go back into Belfast and then out again by a different road to get from one adjacent neighborhood to another. Now there is a passage, though it is still locked up at night.
I ran into L & M, and eventually we found the passage between the warring hoods. To the right was a small pedestrian gate that led through a no man’s land to the other hood.
On the Shankill (Protestant) side, the murals have a completely different tone. Here the emphasis is on historical precedent — the English fighting the Catholic Irish for hundreds of years. One mural featured a quote by Oliver Cromwell from the 1600s, saying that there would never be peace in Ireland until the Catholic Church was crushed!:
Other murals commemorate the dead Loyalists, and portray the Catholics as a band of pesky rebels and terrorists (which they are, regardless of whether you agree with their political position or not) — a constant thorn in the side of the “legal” government. In some ways the legality of the government here is hard to dispute — but its vibe and rhetoric smacks of the use of similar convoluted logic in other places, where the powers that be — the oppressors — portray themselves as the victims. The ones with all the guns, soldiers, power, politicians and courts somehow turn things around and claim to be the victims — uh huh. Heard that one from the US Religious Right, the US Republican right and the Israelis as well.
Here is the mural that goes along with this explanation.
Update:
I stand corrected. A reader of this blog, who knows the depths of Irish (and Scots) history better than I, delves further back into the "mists of time" than I even thought possible — 1000 years! Even still, it seems as though the Elizabethan Plantations were a way for the English to use Ireland as a new territory — and to transform that territory into a more lucrative place as well, with a new, capitalist-friendly populace and religion.
It's something of a Nationalist (Republican/Catholic etc.) credo that the 'Irish Nation' was/is some kind of cohesive unitary entity which can be traced back through the mists of time, and that the irritating Northern Protestants are somehow 'English' interlopers from afar with no real place on the island of Ireland.
Historical reality isn't quite so neat, however.
The original inhabitants of Ireland came from NW Spain in approximately 8000 BC; they moved and settled freely across the landbridge between NE Ireland and W Scotland. The Scots was the name given to precisely these settlers from NE Ireland.
Further waves of invasion and settlement saw successive groups becoming dominant, then integrated with the 'Irish' Celts, Vikings, Normans, English Plantations etc.
But the key historical rupture occurred with the Elizabethan Plantations, because two factors had completely different implications for subsequent Political, Cultural, Economic and Social development and relative under-development: 1) the sheer numbers involved, and the political and economic dislocation this entailed, and 2) the fact that they now came with a new and culturally different religion, and with economic and social practices which were part of the historical dynamics of early Capitalism as it was emerging in Britain itself.
This could not fail to create a 'differentness' about NE Ulster, even without the link to Britain and the English Crown.
This is something which a nationalist analysis completely fails to come to terms with, notwithstanding the further awkward point that these 'Scots' would have been returning to precisely those ancestral lands from where the original 'scots' had first crossed to settle in Scotland — as evidenced by shared surnames and common linguistic structures which persist to the present day. Even today, the dominant blood groups and ethnic characteristics in Ireland come from the original pre-Celtic settlers from Iberia, and not from the many subsequent waves. But perhaps of even greater discomfort to the cosy nationalist notion that somehow the Protestants don't belong is the fact that these pre-Celtic characteristics are most dominant in the northern part of Ireland, amongst the Protestants and Catholics who live there.
Well, enough of potted histories — suffice it to say that all is not quite as straightforward as a simple green nationalist perspective might have you believe!
At Johnny’s suggestion, three of us took a local commuter train 25 minutes east to Howth, a village at the narrow neck of a bulbous peninsula on the seaside. There was a market in the town parking lot with local Irish breads and cheeses and a whole pig on a spit — though by the time we got there, only the head and bones were left. Further on, a path leads around the perimeter of the peninsula, along some spectacular windswept and barren cliffs. When the sun came out, it was gorgeous.
Back in the village, we stopped for Dublin Bay oysters and prawns — both amazingly fresh. I don’t know if I’ve ever had oysters as fresh; in NA restaurants, they’re usually flown in from somewhere — with the exception of Seattle and Vancouver.
In the Beginning Was the Word Image
The next day, at Keith’s suggestion, I went to view the Book of Kells at Trinity College. The book itself was fairly underwhelming — the vellum (calfskin) pages had yellowed somewhat, and those on view were partially transparent. The blown up reproductions on the walls were easier to marvel at, and much more engaging. Wall texts detailed the book’s history: the monastery on the barren and windswept island of Iona, off the Scottish coast, where it was created; the repeated sacking and burning of the monastery by the Danes (Vikings); and how the book was always sequestered and saved.
Some of the symbolism in the elaborate illuminations was explained — for example, the intricate mesh of snakes covering many Celtic objects typically represents rebirth, as snakes do in many cultures, because they shed their skins.
But even with the various wall texts, diagrams and maps, something — some vital piece of the information puzzle — seemed to be missing. Why does this book (and some others from the same period) look both so Arabic and Pagan to our eyes? To us, it looks as if the Christian “content” is merely a clever way to distract us from the real mystical shit hidden in all those intricate and labyrinthine illuminations. Sounds a bit Da Vinci Code, eh? I suspect that the mystery-in-plain-sight quality is part of the power and attraction of this “book.” “Book” in quotes, because it was always less a book than a sacred object, displayed on the altar on a specially constructed stand rather than read from. It seems the “information” it carries is not just in the text… though the “word” is acknowledged to be a powerful force. One thinks of the passages in the Bible — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” — and then the bit where God names things. When something is named, and therefore placed in a separate conceptual box and isolated from everything else around it, that power is immense. It allows us to both think abstractly about things and people, and to intellectually manipulate them when they’re not right in front of us — even if they exist somewhere in the future.
These illuminated books seem to celebrate the letter and the word while at the same time rendering them completely meaningless — mere shapes overwhelmed by the deep psychological power of Pagan symbolism.
Up some stairs, above the Chubb Insurance Company security case that encloses the book, is the Long Room library... there are a lot of words in this room.
Jeremy, a fan, wrote to my office; having read this blog, he offered us some sightseeing tips for Liverpool. Sadly, we couldn’t spend much time there as all the hotels were booked up for the Grand National, a local horse race (in which quite a few horses finished without riders!). Some of us did have time to see the two cathedrals — but that’s all — so, here are excerpts from his letter, with some photos (mine and others’) and my comments added [in brackets].
Dear Mr Byrne
Think of Liverpool, an even smaller city...
The Philharmonic Hall [which is our venue] is on Hope Street [a little bit of English humour here]:
Hope St is also famous for it having a cathedral at each end: the Anglican, which is Europe's largest, and bizarrely enough was designed by the same guy who designed the iconic British red telephone box. Personally I find it a bit bland…
[Here is a photo I took. It may indeed be typical of many Anglican churches — though much larger — but I would call it ominous and looming, as opposed to bland]:
…but at the other end of the street is “Paddy's Wigwam” — so called because it's Catholic (Liverpool is full of Irish Catholics) and because of its shape.
[Here is a picture of the “wigwam” — more like a crown for an alien God if you ask me]:
The best way I can describe it is that inside it is like a cross between a cathedral and an art gallery — all the chapels within have been designed by different artists, each with their own distinctive style. If you should be lucky enough to visit on a sunny day, the light shining though the coloured glass of the tower and side panels is really stunning. A TV programme a couple of years ago invited people who pass by the cathedral each day, but who had never been inside, a chance to see inside — workmen building outside, a nurse who caught the bus on the road outside, etc. — the nurse in particular was very touched by the place, giving a tearful thank you for being shown what she hadn't even realized was there. I don't know if it is still in operation, but last time I was in Hope Street, they had a laser beam from one end of the street to the other, linking the two cathedrals.
[For years the Anglicans (Protestants), who hold power in most of England and dominate local politics, refused to grant Catholics the right to build their temple, using various legal and political tactics to postpone or delay construction; eventually the Catholics prevailed.]
Even closer to your venue is the Philharmonic Pub — world-famous for its gents toilets, of all things!
Very ornate, and a popular place for people of either gender to visit (to view, that is!)
Rather than the Tate gallery at the Albert Dock, I would suggest you visit the Bluecoat Chambers in the city centre; this site has a good article, which may explain why I think it may be of interest... though I would add that quite apart from its cultural value, it's also a great place to get a coffee or whatever, in that it has a nice quiet courtyard at the rear, which is a nice peaceful place to take a break — seemingly miles from the busy city centre which is in fact just yards away from the front of the building.
I did think that it was near the Bluecoat that the only Confederate embassy outside the US was located, but in searching for links to give you more info, it seems I may have been confused; but for yourinformation anyway...
Whether you visit the Tate or not, also at the Albert Dock is the International Slavery Museum, though even just casting your eye on the decoration of buildings & the entrances of the grand buildings in the business part of the city (Brunswick Street, Castle Street, etc), Liverpool's part in the slave trade is all but evident.
If you or any of your party care to take a "Ferry 'Cross The Mersey", it may be of interest to know that the model for NYC's Central Park is over there in Birkenhead; I'll let Wikipedia explain...
Oh one final example of little-known Liverpool is the tunnels that were built under the city 200 years ago, and of which nobody is certain of their purpose; again, I'll let this link explain...
[This is an amazing story. In the early 1800’s, an eccentric tobacco millionaire had secret tunnels dug under his company lands in Edge Hill. For decades he extended them until there was a labyrinth under that whole section of town. Why? For what? No one knows exactly. No one knows the extent of the tunnels either — Williamson was secretive about them, and after he died, his housekeeper sold all of his personal belongings — so if there were plans for the tunnels they haven’t turned up.
When construction ended on his business properties and mansions, he focused his efforts on the tunnel project. He employed thousands of men, all digging by hand, and when his wife Elizabeth died in 1822, he doubled his efforts. There are double-decker tunnels, and even a triple-decker exchange has been found — some areas are still being dug out. Some claim that he was being altruistic, as the soldiers returning from the Napoleonic Wars needed work; others claim he had apocalyptic religious leanings, and the tunnels were to be a refuge come the end of the world. Williamson and his followers would seek refuge in the tunnels while God destroyed the evildoers above, then they’d emerge and build a new city — a kind of contemporary Noah. The labyrinth is eccentric — there are tunnels that go nowhere, and some that Williamson ordered dug and then bricked up.
There’s an anecdote from the 1830’s about some railway workers who were digging nearby the tunnels. A hole suddenly opened up beneath them; they looked down, and saw Williamson’s workers looking up at them. The railway guys fled in terror, thinking they had opened up a hole in hell.
Another anecdote describes a dinner that he hosted for a group of his contemporaries; he served them a poor meal, something like bacon and beans. Some guests left, offended by the meager fare, but those that stayed were rewarded. To them he said, “Now I know who my true friends are. Follow me…” and he led them into another room where a massive repast had been laid out.
I have memories of this town as a gray, depressed, former industrial giant that’s been turning its previously abandoned and decrepit riverside industrial spaces into hotels and arts centres — those that haven’t been torn down already. While my cynical assessment isn’t far off, this visit offered another side of the area — and the sun came out. The day we arrived, I first checked out the Baltic, one of the aforementioned arts centres — this one in a former flourmill. It was in between shows; though in a room off the lobby, a lovely video of an immense concrete slab being poured and raised in a Berlin factory, set to Glenn Gould playing Bach, was surprisingly moving, and even beautiful. Gould played slowly and simply on the soundtrack — it wasn’t the headlong rush of notes that you often hear in Bach — which gave a kind of majesty and grandeur to the shots of concrete being poured, smoothed and eventually raised up like the 2001 monolith (or, in this case, like the décor of the Toronto theater where Gould was playing and recording).
I then pedaled upriver along a waterfront promenade, where at certain points, men leaned against the railings with their fishing rods dangling and thermoses of tea at their sides. Below were the muddy banks of the Tyne. The water seemed low; perhaps this part of the river is a tidal estuary, but a sign said the Tyne is traditionally and notoriously muddy and shallow, and therefore for centuries it was unfit for navigation by decent-sized ships. Odd for a town known, until recently, for its heavy industry.
At some point the river was dredged, which opened it up much more to shipping — though most of the industry lies downstream, closer to the mouth of the river. I pass a Rolls Royce engine factory (they make aircraft engines, not just cars) and another factory that makes tanks. The muddy riverbanks are filled with stuff people have chucked down there — shopping trolleys (lots of those), traffic cones, bicycles, baby carriages and even a wheelchair — one that I hope was no longer needed.
After our show at the Sage, a symphony hall encased in glass caterpillar skin, a local friend of Mark’s mentions that there is a bike path that leads to the sea, and there’s even a bike tunnel under the river somewhere downstream. The next morning is gorgeous and sunny, and Natalie, Jenni and I head out, cross the Millenium ped bridge and head west towards the North Sea.
It’s a gorgeous bike path, right? (at least in spots) and of course we were super lucky to have such a sunny day — not exactly an everyday thing here. I should be working for the local tourist board with these sunny pictures! The path often veers away from the riverside and fields to accommodate the remaining bits of industry, or a housing estate.
Eventually we see signs for the tunnel, tucked in the middle of a derelict industrial zone. We follow arrows to a tiny, round, 30’s-style deco structure; it houses two wooden escalators that descend deep into the Earth. They’re not working, though one could walk down them. Luckily there is a little square building right behind the circular one, with one word on it: “lift.”
Sure enough, there are two small, green-tiled tunnels at the bottom — one for peds and one for cyclists. Incredible! No one’s around, though it’s obvious the tunnels have just recently been cleaned — there’s a faint smell of cleanser. We zoom on through. I imagine that back in the day, there was quite a bit of traffic between the working class residential zone south of the river’s mouth, and the factories and shipbuilding on the north Tyneside. There is also a little ferry nearby for the same purpose — it doesn’t accommodate cars.
The Lawless Lands
We emerge on the other side and pause to consider whether to aim for the sea or to head back along this side of the river. A young man on a bike emerges from the tunnels and asks if we need help. We ask about the distance to the seaside and if there’s a place to stop for tea. Our time is limited so we can’t do it all. He opens his backpack and produces a plastic pouch stuffed with detailed maps of the area — it turns out that this guy, James, is the area bike path coordinator! He has no idea who we are — that we performed in town last night — though he certainly knows we’re not from around here. James advises us to head back along the river, as the sea is actually quite a ways further on, and this side is easier and more scenic. He offers to show us where the path approaches the remains of a Roman fort and the eastern end of Hadrian’s wall. The fort is partly buried under a car park, but quite a bit of the foundation is visible.
This was nearly named the northernmost point of the Roman Empire. Hadrian’s successor built yet another wall further north — the Antonine Wall, 100 miles away — but it wasn’t feasible to defend and was therefore abandoned. For 300 years this wall became the main instrument used by the Empire to regulate travel and trade between north and south. It extends clean across the whole of England — from east to west coasts — and was about 15 feet high and 10 feet thick. In many places there was a ditch on the northern side, and earthwork fortifications on the southern. Built in AD 122, it took three legions of men six years to complete, and there were over 30 forts along the length of the wall. The wall and these lands were abandoned — not because of some momentous war, battle or invasion by men in kilts — but because, like all empires, they overextended themselves. Shades of Iraq and Afghanistan — a country nicknamed, for good reason, the graveyard of empires.
James has marked his map where improvements need to be made and where sections of the paths might be linked up. In one area the path peters out near a former industrial site, which is currently being dug up by a group of Geordies who tell us we can’t get through that way. We go back to the road for a bit and James leads us onward, along a section on which horses once towed wagons heaped with coal, on wooden rails (this was pre-steam). We reach a lovely pub overlooking the city — The Free Trade Inn— where we have tea before we all move on.
I had already scheduled a meeting with Diana Hamilton, the curator of Belsay Hall, a manor and castle 25 minutes outside of town that is (surprise!) being turned into an arts centre. Well, not exactly — but they do invite artists, musicians and fashion designers to install pieces in the empty hall or on the grounds. Stella McCartney has a piece on view there now. Nat and Jenni join me, and on the ride out we get the story of the hall.
It seems the family held the property for many generations — as they’re inclined to do. Over the years they married “wisely” and managed to increase their land holdings until they owned everything as far as the eye could see. A small village was engulfed by the property, and the Laird at the time relocated the villagers outside their property (!), building a new village for them with a school to boot. During the Victorian era, the family squire took his Grand Tour. It was de rigueur for a person of means, wishing to be erudite and in possession of good taste, to take a tour of what was understood to be the font of civilization — the ruins, homes and classical architecture of Greece and Italy. Upon his return, he knew what he had to do: construct a Palladian Villa on the crest of a Northumberland hill, with clean lines, symmetry and columns inside and out. The family would evacuate their old-fashioned castle — which was difficult to heat anyway— and move into their tasty new classical digs.
To emphasize the cleanliness of line, he had rainwater channeled indoors. The rainspouts emptied into pipes that snaked through (mainly) the servants’ quarters — an innovation that would cost him dearly in the future, as dampness and heat are major issues in Northumberland (though they’re no big deal in Tuscany, of course).
As often happens, the wealth of the landed gentry eventually dissipated and diminished. To top it off, at one point the man who would become the property’s final owner became a Christian Scientist. His relatives, fearful that he would leave all the remaining holdings (including the mansion and the old castle) to the church, persuaded him to donate it to the National Trust — a state organization in the UK that looks after hysterical places such as this one. He agreed, with a stipulation: that the contents of the house be removed — every carpet, chair, painting, table, spoon and knife — and the house remain forever bare.
Quite a place! No wonder the idea of turning it into an arts centre occurred to someone — it has the emptiness of a gallery. Usually these historic houses are filled with period furniture, as if the owners had just moved out. Down in the wine cellar, the acoustics were astounding — to be “correct” the house needed one, though it was never used, as it went against the new religion. Diana told me that Antony did some kind of audio recording here, but we haven’t heard it. The three of us spontaneously improvised, taking advantage of the incredible echo.
The house was made of stone quarried out of the back garden, and the owner cleverly had the rock dug out in such a way as to create a meandering canyon, where he introduced all sorts of exotic plants. They thrived amazingly well, as the gulch now had its own microclimate. It looks like an Italian grotto! These gardens are a local tourist attraction, particularly in the summer — the English love their gardens, and this one is beautifully eccentric.
Further on we pass what appears to be an old stone church peeking out over a grassy hill, but we’re told is just a folly — a building constructed to please the eye and create a mood. Set dressing in the real world. Nice to be flush enough to create your own universe!
Just beyond the grotto were the castle ruins — the McCartney piece was in the main dining hall.
It turns out that after this structure was built (around 1370), the wealthy began building fortified houses in the area. The surrounding landscape is dotted with little castles and these fortified homes, walls and defensible structures. The area was known as the Lawless Lands — or the Debatable Lands — as ownership, security and property were constantly in flux for 300 years (!). Until about 500 years ago, the area resisted the authority of both Scotland (to the immediate north) and England. Everything was contested — debatable. Many people survived by reiving, or raiding their neighbors’ land for cattle, sheep and anything else one could transport back home. The reivers built their own fortified strongholds in the area, many of which remain today.
Having a fortified house was essential for protecting some of your goods and your family. There were entire reiving families, many of whose names survive: Armstrong, Graham, Elliot, and Maxwell. The first man on the moon and Richard Nixon are both believed to be descendents of reivers — no surprise in the latter case. When James I became king, the practice was gradually stamped out, and many of the families moved to America or Australia. One might say that explains a lot, but ah… no comment.
