musings on the old and the new and the built and the natural and the paleolithic and neolithic aertefacts of wiltshire

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Returning to a previous meme for a moment. We turned up at Salisbury cathedral to view magna carta. We got there at 3.53 to find it closes at 3.45. I now know what Burke and Wills felt like when they arrived at Coopers Creek the afternoon that the base camp personnel left in the morning.
We as a society invest so much cultural capital in things like magna carta. Prince, later king, john of robin hood fame was Henry II’s favourite. What a pity he was such a dope. We link magna carta to the development of democracy. But it was one group of powerful, avaricious, born to rule thugs forcing a single powerful, avaricious, born to rule thug to share some of the spoils. Who’da thought that 1000 years later this act would lead to buffoons such as Steve Fielding, Barnaby Joyce, Sophie Mirrabella and Martin Ferguson being elected to the national parliament. And Pauline Hanson coming so close to winning a seat in NSW. Maybe DEVO were right: when it comes to politics it may be Devolution.
The last 2 days have been spent in places like Avebury and Stonehenge and the Westbury horse. These feats of engineering and building date back as far as 2500BC.
See, not sure if you’re aware of this but everything is old in Britain. And it’s the oldness that drags you in. And it’s the stories we’re told: king Alfred and the cakes, robin hood,Thomas a Beckett, Ann Boleyn, Henry V into the breach, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Battle of Britain. It’s like it gets etched in your DNA. For those of later generations it may not be as strong. And it’s things like thatched rooves and castles and churches, thousand year old churches. And the irony of someone coming from the country with the oldest continuing culture and civilisation in the world and marvelling at things that are 500, a thousand years old is not lost on me. We seem to have this need to see and touch built things. It’s not good enough that Ularu and Kata Tjuta and the attendant cultures provide us with thousands of years of lived experience in rock paintings and carvings.We have this need for edifice. It’s like the built environment defines us in a way that the natural can’t. And we stand in awe of stonehenge and Westminister cathedral and magna carta (if we get the chance to see it).
In 1987 a 2 til 5 member, Rohan Cattell, (who may be reading these musings) wrote a brilliant play at aged 14 years called the Plumber’s Rope which almost out Beckett’s Beckett. A young girl, innocent, encounters two people on chairs, who periodically embark upon feverish activity while making their way towards oblivion. At one point they break out hammers and tools and begin furiously building.
“What are you doing?” asks the innocent
“we’re building a big building. The biggest there’s ever been” They reply
“But why are you building it?”
Because if we didn’t build it, it wouldn’t get built.”
Indeed!

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Comments

[Barbara]

Magna Carta
Sorry you missed it - still lots to see at Salisbury Catherdral including Amnesty stainglass window as I recall. I am enjoying the commentary. Keep up the blogging.