Forget the iPhone 7, another Kardashian bum reveal, or even Kate and Wills going for a baby hat trick, nothing will be hotter this fall than walls.
My fellow fat, ginger visionary Donald Trump is very excited ― he’s turning a deeper shade of orange he’s so pumped ― about adopting disruptive wall technology to keep Mexicans from stampeding into America.
Not to be outpaced by a pumpkin-coloured American, my beloved Britain has announced the construction of “The Great Wall of Calais” along the port there to keep immigrants out. (And one would hope a first step toward reclaiming Calais!!!)
It’s not hard to see why walls have never really gone out of style ― their classic lines, their flair for combining traditional and cutting-edge construction, the sense that they offer a simple solution to a complex problem.
OMG peasants love it when you tell them the answer to anything is simple! Even if somewhere in their grotty little hearts they know it’s rubbish, they still want to hear you say the words. It’s like ladies wishing to be told that you love them. So cute.
Here in England of course we know all about walls as a means of keeping out dodgy, unkempt, job-stealing, daughter-marrying barbarians.
Below are just a few from our ye olde past, which demonstrate that walls offer solid, totally reliable results except when they don’t which is 100 percent of the time:
Hadrian’s Wall
The Romans were early adopters of wall technology having a strong interest, like British Brexiteers or Americans, in keeping barbarian filth the freak out. If anyone was going to be stealing land and stabbing people, the Romans wanted to be the ones doing it and not a bunch of stringy-haired Game of Thrones extras. In AD 122 the Romans started construction on a 73-mile wall running through England’s middle bits. Hadrian’s Wall stood as a bulwark for entire years against hippie barbarians. There were many fist bumps.
Antonine Wall
Emboldened by the success of Hadrian’s Wall, the Romans pushed north and in AD 142 began a new wall that ran 39 miles across the northernmost frontier of the empire. Eight years later after, after waves of nasty attacks by Pict barbarians, the garrisons had to abandon it and pull back to Hadrian’s wall. Sad. And, worse, in the AD 180s the barbarians overran even Hadrian’s wall. So both walls went out of business and everything was uncool.
London Wall
Also constructed by the Romans, this amazing wall was built around the perimeter of the City of London. It was one of the last of their big building projects before the Romans officially buggered off in AD 410. The London Wall actually succeeded in keeping out foreigners the way a massive heap of badgers would have. Meaning it didn’t.
Offa’s Dyke
Offa’s Dyke is not a lesbian disco but an earthwork ― a variant on the wall concept―that was 170 miles in length built between AD 757 to 796 to separate Wales from England. Even so, the Welsh, like Picts before them managed to do whatever they bloody well pleased.
Other Walls of Note:
The Great Wall of China
Begun in the 7th century BC to keep China free of Mongolians. Like the Picts, the Welsh and every other other oily marauders, the Mongolians too managed to outwit the wall and do what they were going to do: mostly kill people and take things and introduce new forms of government.
Walls of Jericho
The Jews managed to knock these Bible-town walls down with a combination of marching and some sort of musical performance. One imagines the Edinburgh Tattoo.
Berlin Wall
Built by the Russians in 1961 to keep the East Germans penned in. If the Americans are to be believed, Ronald Reagan tore it down in a single afternoon by snapping it repeatedly with the U.S. flag like a wet towel.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall
Built in 1979 to sell tickets to laser light shows. And cannabis. Still available on iTunes.
Look, those are all bad examples, beta versions of wall tech that needed a bit of tweaking. Obviously Donald Trump’s wall and the new one in Calais will do what great walls throughout the centuries have all managed not to do, which is to work. It is impossible to imagine his orange, obese magnificence or the dazzlers in your British government not being able to out-achieve the Romans, the Russians, whoever lived in Jericho, the Chinese, or a 1970s prog rock band.