On land reform
[this is slightly edited from my response to the Scottish Government's recent consultation on land reform]
Introduction: on the basis for private land ownership
The lands which now comprise Scotland did not come into existence private. God did not give out property deeds graven on tablets of stone. Rather, over the past four thousand years, successive peoples have come into Scotland and taken land more or less by force from its previous occupiers. There can be no square inch of Scotland now, which has been passed down peacefully within the family from generation to generation from its original settlers. Rather, all land in Scotland has changed hands by murder, theft, extortion or deceit, most of it many times. There is no land-holding in Scotland now which is not based at some remove on malfeasance.
On the cost of housing
I've blogged a fair bit about this house as structure, and, by implication at least, as therapy. Now that it is finished, it's time to talk about it as politics. Housing, in this world, is intensely political. We're currently going through an extremely severe period of political turbulence caused mainly by unsustainable housing debt, both in the US and in Europe — in the UK, in Eire, Spain, Greece... Houses, we hear, are expensive. So expensive that ordinary people can afford them only by taking out enormous loans, which consume the overwhelming majority of their disposable incomes for most of their adult lives. Just yesterday, the Westminster government announced a scheme to allow people to borrow up to 95% of a quarter of a million pound price, in order to 'stimulate the building industry' and 'help people into the housing market'.
And it seems to be true; it seems houses do cost that much. Of the houses currently for sale in my home village, only one, a tiny upper flat, is offered at an asking price below a quarter of a million...
On being mad
I'm mad. It's a fact. A lunatic; a headcase. Insane.
I can own all those terms perfectly comfortably; they form part of my identity. They are part of who I am I am, and on the whole I like being who I am.
But I very much reject the term 'mentally ill'. I'm not ill. I'm well. I'm just a little mad.
Living in the Winter Palace, part two
This is (now) a blog (mostly) about building a house. But it's a blog about my life, and my life impacts on building the house. So I'm going to digress briefly; bear with me, it is relevant.
Having spent a great deal of my adolescence in and out of mental hospital, I have an intense dislike of psychiatric drugs. In my adult life, despite three major breakdowns, I'd always refused them; until the autumn of 2010, when, out of desperation, I asked my doctor for anti-depressants. They got me through the crisis of having to sell my home, but I stopped using them as soon as I felt I could. However, in November of 2011 things were worse. I had the shell of my new home up, but I was out of money, and my ability to cope with strangers was almost nil. I again asked my doctor to prescribe anti-depressants. I went, almost inarticulate, to the Citizens' Advice Bureau to ask for help applying for social security benefits; the volunteers there were extremely patient with me, and, in the course of talking to me, asked what I was doing for food. I admitted that I didn't have any, and they gave me a food parcel — including, bless them, food for the cats. I accepted it, gratefully. That's as low as I've ever been. I don't want to go there again; although, having said that, swallowing my pride and going to the Citizens' Advice was a positive step in itself.
Living in the Winter Palace, part one
It's a long time — four and a half months — since I last blogged about this house. Then, it was three walls of raw straw bales covered with the skeleton of a roof covered by tarpaulins. Now, I'm sitting in my bed in my upstairs bedroom, leaning back against the panelled wall. Downstairs, in the kitchen, a kettle sits on the gas hob — it isn't worth lighting the big wood stove to boil a kettle. But when I want a hot, deep bath, the stove will heat it for me in a couple of hours.
Although it's a cold morning outside, the thick insulation in the roof, walls and floor mean I'm cosy here inside. And as I sit here and look around at my home, I know not only that I designed it and planned it, but that every piece of wood, every pipe, every wire in the house was cut and fitted by me. That isn't to say I haven't had help, of course. I've had lots of help. I have wonderful friends. And I'm grateful to them. But this is still, very much, a home-made house: my home made house.