The Ruin ( AD 800) Well wrought this wall:
Wierds broke it.
The stronghold burst . . .
Snapped rooftrees, towers fallen,
the work of the Giants,the stonesmiths,mouldereth.
Rime scoureth gatetowers rime on mortar.
Shattered the showershields, roofs ruined,
age under-ate them.
And the wielders and wrights?
Earthgrip holds them - gone, long gone,
fast in gravesgrasp while fifty fathers and sons have passed.
Alistair Burnett asks an interesting question here. Suppose the economies do not resume operating more or less as they did before ? There has never been a civilisation that did not decline eventually and thus far we have assumed ours to be something different .The Romans certainly felt he same way ... and no-one can have any doubt that our leaders are entirely in the dark.
We have fought moral hazard by building a greater one into the system, we have attacked a speculative bubble by pumping demand into the economy . We have thrown endless funds at poorly run businesses that show no signs of recovering ,and it will have astonished everyone just how fragile the entire house of cards was . In a matter of weeks Motor Manufacturing has died back to a stump unemployment is starting to escalate and the only answer is to give people non jobs for the government .
The Dark Ages writer of "Ruin " (aboive ) looked upon the ancient remnants of Roman Britain with awe... will we look upon the rusty hulks of Canary Wharf and Dubai with the same fearful wonder ?
We have fought moral hazard by building a greater one into the system, we have attacked a speculative bubble by pumping demand into the economy . We have thrown endless funds at poorly run businesses that show no signs of recovering ,and it will have astonished everyone just how fragile the entire house of cards was . In a matter of weeks Motor Manufacturing has died back to a stump unemployment is starting to escalate and the only answer is to give people non jobs for the government .
The Dark Ages writer of "Ruin " (aboive ) looked upon the ancient remnants of Roman Britain with awe... will we look upon the rusty hulks of Canary Wharf and Dubai with the same fearful wonder ?
6 comments:
Suppose...ZZZZzzzzzz......" (newms
Fat chance, Newms.
We now drive our monster vehicles along the same routes that our prehistoric ancestors pounded in their ceaseless daily trecks after tyrannosaurus. As Satre said, there is no escape from the treadmill of the human condition. And as landscscape historians have shown, there is no escape from our ancestors or their collapsed civilisations.
Chances are that when you reluctantly left your eldest son this morn and drove to the station you drove along a route that ancient saxons, and perhaps even ancient Roman legions tramped to work, bemoaning their lot in life and the bl**dy capitalist bosses/ corporations and money lenders. There dreams of the domestic idylls they left behind did not set them free from humanity's fate of ceaseless toil any more than they will us.
Working as you do in London, you tread prehistoric earthen pathways every day. The Saxons based their trade routes on these, then the Romans adopted these, then the Normans, then the medievals, then the Victorians and then us.
If the prehistoric people who hunted across London had chiselled their route maps in stone, thse stones would reveal a remarkably familiar vista.
And it's not just their routes we follow, but their human condition and their hearts' desires. That these ruins of ancient Rome are still with us ought to reassure us that we are indeed a universal species and wonderfully adapted to survive.
There's no escape, Newms :)
Flo you are writing quite brilliantly at the moment , thats a wonderful bit of pondering .
Thank you, Newms, your stuff is bloody brilliant too - adversity bringing out the best in us?
Here's another case of it. Straight up, I have just had a pole dancer apply for a bin man's job.
"Sure you don't mean a bin woman's, I asked?
"Nope, bin man's." she said, "I like men.".
That's survival for you and we are uniquely adapted for it.
Coincidentally I just had a Pole applying for a dancer'#s job.
It was the reckless spending that did for Rome ( they knew all about government non-jobs too ) but it was eventually brought down not by barbarians wishing to destroy her from without but by mutiny among those she had permitted to enter Pax Romana.
Soon the West will join Rome in the ashes of Nineveh and Tyre.
London might survive in the same condition that Octavian found Sparta. A grotesque parody of its' former self, a museum of delinquency for the amusement of passing Chinamen.
Lovely stuff Mr. Its Either . you are obviously rather a well read chap
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