Peter Rhodes on scrapping shops, tugging forelocks and witnessing A-bomb blasts
Our changing language. A report on a massive gated development for the super-rich near a Scottish village quotes a local as complaining: “None of us will ever set foot in it unless we want to tug a furlong.” Or a forelock, perhaps?
Talking of redevelopment, Housing Secretary Michael Gove is reportedly planning to change the rules to make it easier for families to extend their homes and for companies to convert failed town-centre shops into housing.
I can't see the first proposal making much difference to the housing crisis. A quick mooch around towns and cities suggests that most family homes have already been massively extended upwards, backwards or, in the case of London's much-basemented millionaire belt, downwards.
