Suburban sundown - Bypass on the road to doom! - # 09/08

The low angle of the sunset gives a pleasant golden glow to the misery of the Kingston Bypass.

The Domesday Book was the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or 'William the Conqueror' (The Anglo-Norman word gave us our modern "Doom" i.e. Day of reckoning.) William wanted to know the full value of the great land he had accidentally conquered when an arrow (most likely a completely fluke shot, un-aimed and random) killed the Saxon King at the very moment when the Norman soldiers were about to give up, thinking they could not win.

The green, rolling hills - now covered with asphalt and houses between 1927 and 1938 - became, for a little while, the possession of the Bishop of Bayeux.

The Bishop acquired this wealthy, beautiful, rural landscape of farms and productive capacity entirely by the accident of a loose arrow going nowhere. We have covered the land with a thundering, incessantly roaring road by the design of planners following population growth and economic imperative. Where are we going? Are we that arrow? Or are we the random arrow's final target? Do we plan a true path, or is it all random chance?

The suburban sundown series.........where's it going? (Well, actually, if the clouds do not dissolve and allow back the sun,........... hmmmmmm??? But we will keep trying. The English weather is not a great help right now, but that problem, like all things, will pass.)