Flotsam and Jetsam
Some things to tide you over.
Flotsam and jetsam, as you may well know, are subtly different types of property lost at sea. The former refers to anything that’s been lost overboard, or has floated back to the surface from a ship that sunk; the latter to anything deliberately discarded. The way to remember is that flotsam floats back to the surface while jetsam has been jettisoned (but also, y’know, floats, so maybe that’s not that useful).
There’s also lagan, stuff which doesn’t float but has been linked to a buoy or cork which does, to enable you to find it; and derelict, which has sunk without being marked and is thus thought unrecoverable. Each of these types of wreckage is treated slightly differently under the law of the sea, but I’m not going to go into why, because I’m attempting to do a quick two line intro to justify the subject line, and this has happened, and you see that’s the entire problem with this newsletter right there.
Anyway, still no proper newsletter this week because of the holidays, just some offcuts from previous editions. Firstly, there’ll be a quick dip into the postbag – interesting observations readers have sent me in response to things I’ve written this year, which I’ve been saving up for an occasion just such as this. Then, some of the various diverting things I cut out of the links for space reasons. Full service resumes next Wednesday.
Anyway, let’s begin our voyage to the bottom of the postbag.
The most interesting place in the world
In early summer, I wrote about Bill Bryson’s assertion, in his 1990 book Mother Tongue, that “etre de Birmingham” was a French phrase for “to be bored shitless”. (I feel a bit bad about ever doubting it since the great man has since read and been incredibly nice about 47 Borders and now we have a cover quote for the paperback.)
Anyway, in response Edward Milner wrote:
Can I contact you this way?
Yes, Edward, you can!
In Norway several years ago someone local astonished me when they said “eurgh, you’re so Birmingham”. It turned out to be a Norwegian phrase or maybe a local one (the town of Namsos). Who knows what the Norwegians have against Birmingham, they didn’t seem to have an answer to that. Mad that the French use it too!
They also said “Hapshittens” when things went wrong, a phrase I still use.
These anecdotes are by definition unverifiable – that’s never stopped newspapers from publishing letters, of course – but I’m amused by the idea that Birmingham’s reputation has spread to multiple countries. I wonder whether this is about its success in cornering the 19th century razor market, too?
Dividing lines
In the same edition of the newsletter I also covered Alasdair Rae’s discovery that the line from Thames to Mersey, which had once divided anglo-saxon Wessex from the Viking Danelaw, was still visible on maps of English electoral politics in 2019.
Reader James Dawson – who was kind enough to swing by my book launch back in April – wrote in to note another key dividing line in English geography:
I was told by my A-level geology teacher (also a Labour city councillor in York at the time) that the opposite diagonal, a line from Tees to Exe, marked the boundary of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic geological eras. The older harder rocks to the north and west were the higher land, whereas the younger and so softer rocks to the east and south were generally the lower land.
The lower land became the richer agricultural heartland but later the higher land with lots of coal and mineral deposits fuelled the industrial revolution. The latter led to factories, poor working conditions in concentrated places and so trade unions and Labour voting. I’ve always stuck by this theory!
Has anyone proposed a theory of English politics based on the four quadrants made up by these two lines? Or doorstepped a bunch of locals near where they cross – I reckon it must be somewhere in Shropshire – and asked them what they think of Brexit? Perhaps a project there for 2025.
Mind your language
In September I wrote about “unparliamentary language”. Charles Ward wrote in to say…
I was hoping to see the “I am a country member” quote in your list of unparliamentary language in the Australian section. As I didn’t, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you in case you hadn’t heard of it (5th one down on this page). Though not technically using the bad language himself, Gough Whitlam did some kind of verbal Judo to rephrase his opponents prior statement. I learned about it about a decade ago and have been waiting for an opportunity to use it since.
If it doesn’t technically fall into “unparliamentary language”, maybe a future list can be “creative insults of parliament” (50% of the members opposite are not liars, etc).
This takes a little explaining. The exchange in question runs as follows:
Sir Winston Turnbull, Member of the Australian Parliament: “I am a country member.”
Prime Minister Gough Whitlam: “I remember.”
[applause, from both sides of the house]
The Guardian article Charles pointed me to (“Gough Whitlam in his own words”, published after the former Australian PM’s death in 2014) also contains a number of other beauties of which the best is surely, “Let me make quite clear that I am for abortion and, in your case Sir, we should make it retrospective.”
Charles also noted that he deeply resented my re-introducing him to the earworm of Tippecanoe & Tyler, Too which it had taken him weeks to get rid of. So I can only say: apologies, Charles, that I’ve just done it all over again.
Build high for happiness
In November I wrote about (this’ll shock you) housing – specifically, the need to build places not merely houses. Isaac Beevor replied with a veritable essay, containing all sorts of interesting points:
Hi Jonn,
Your point about community infrastructure is important and one of the objections (that I am more inclined to listen to) that people always have to new housing. It also reminds of this fascinating book called Heatwave – about the Chicago 1995 heatwave and why some neighbourhoods experienced worse death rates.
[He went on to quote a review from Goodreads:] “Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown – including the literal and social isolation of seniors, the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs – contributed to the high fatality rates.”
He also wrote a book called Palaces for the People, which documents the impact of libraries and social infrastructure. It is a great book. The UK has lost so many community areas – post offices, youth centres and libraries – where you would bump into people by accident. It is probably why so many young people in London are joining social running clubs.
Building lots of new homes will fail people, unless it is built alongside new social infrastructure that helps create communities. I guess this is why Jane Jacobs, and Strong Towns America, advocate for lots of dense, little developments in many places for infill.
It is probably why the UK will continue to fail on housing as our housing market is captured by about six suppliers, who are only interested in building massive estates for people with cars and little social infrastructure and will landbank/not build if they want too.
Anyway, thanks for an enjoyable newsletter again!
Isaac
No, thank you, Isaac, for giving me something interesting to fill space with on New Year’s Day.
No Map Of The Week: Cardiff Crossrail
Last but not least, Kathryn Corrick – a very old friend to whom I owe a great deal, as the first time I ever set foot in the New Statesman offices was as her intern over 20 years ago – sent me a series of irritable messages about the terrible quality of the consultation on Cardiff Crossrail.
It will turn the branch line between city centre and Cardiff Bay into part of a new tram line running from north west to east of the city centre. The thing is, though, it’s difficult to work out what this will look like because when Transport for Wales consulted on the plans they didn’t bother to include a map. And
…without a map, it’s like... “which road or old canal will this tramway go down?” (there’s quite a few choices).
The BBC report was forced to reuse a map from a 2019 planning document. Why nothing similar was included in the 2024 consultation was not exactly clear.
That wasn’t the only issue:
The responses are too wide for the frame or whatever so it’s nigh on impossible to “strongly disagree” on your average computer screen. Plus they’ve not provided enough information to answer most of these questions.
And these architectural/projection images are soooooo unlike the real place (e.g. it’s sunny in all of them and Cardiff looks like Legoland) that it’s impossible to understand them
The consultation has closed now. The plans look very exciting (I’m guessing, it’s difficult to be certain). But, well, if Transport for Wales can’t even afford some crayons, how are they ever going to afford a new tram?
The links bit
1. “Not everyone has a family to return to at Christmas. Those of us who do shouldn’t take it for granted.” This is a bit late but I’m pleased with it, so sharing anyway: my last column for the New Statesman in 2024 was about the joy and privilege of being able to go home for Christmas.
2. “Any politician that wants to defeat Farage should spend more time explaining why he’s wrong, and less claiming he’s right but that they’d do it better.” I also popped up in the iPaper over Christmas, arguing that the threat of Nigel Farage was overhyped, and we should stop letting him drive our politics.
3. If you’ve missed the sound of my voice – and weren’t lucky enough to catch me discussing the above column with Natasha Devon on LBC over the weekend – then may I suggest the Bunker’s two-part review of the weirdest news stories of 2024, featuring Andrew Harrison, Miranda Sawyer and me? (Part one, part two.)
4. Or alternatively, this episode of Paper Cuts in which Miranda, Jacob Hawley and I discussed the election, Euros and riots?
Right, that’s quite enough of me, here are some things I marked as interesting over the last 12 months but ended up cutting for space reasons:
5. One of those animal-based Instaspam accounts the algorithm keeps feeding me alerted me to the existence of a golden retriever who spent part of 2010 following a photographer around a South Korean island.
The cars which online mapping tools use to photograph the world’s street network, you see, aren’t much use in off-road environments like Jukdo, a small island off a bigger island some way east of Korea. As a result, they have to send actual human beings in with cameras.
But humans, unlike cars, can make friends. The result is that, if you use Kakao Maps, and switch on its answer to Google Streetview, you’ll find the dog trotting faithfully around the island with you. More from the Verge here.
6. I enjoyed this film of actor Bob Hoskins giving Barry Norman a tour of London’s derelict South Bank from BBC Archive, in May 1982, while also being struck by how completely wrong he called it: that part of London is vastly better now than it was then.
7. Want something else cheery about the housing crisis? Why not read this bit about Brighton by Hannah Fearn in the Lead?
9. One for the cyclists among you: a video showing a cycle from one side of Utretcht to the other.
10. Would you like to read a thread about the signage at Surrey’s Boxhill/Box Hill and/& Westhumble [station]? Of course you would.
11. One of the best podcasts I’ve heard this year: the New Statesman’s Alona Ferber (she’s since moved to Prospect) talked to five different writers about what it means to be left-wing and Jewish right now.
12. Something left over from my dodo research a few weeks ago, from Singularity Hub: Scientists say they can bring back the dodo. Should they?
13. Wondering how Britain voted at last July’s election by supermarket? Professor Will Jennings has your back:
14. And finally, this 1944 ad for magazine Look, designed by Alvin Lustig, looks familiar.
I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2025. Come on guys, we can do this.
Happy New Year! Thank you for your writing - it is a bright spot in my inbox
I live pretty much on the intersection of your historical lines - I'm a bit west of Ludlow, and I carefully worked out the exact X marks the spot by squinting slightly and guessing it's very close to my house. Anyway, during the will-we-won't-we-leave hiatus of Brexit, a local farmer told me that if we didn't get out of the EU after all this, he would never vote for anyone ever again. He didn't need doorstopping for this gem - he seemed keen to pass his thoughts on. But sadly, he's still voting.