Mea Culpa

Well, just about the only things of any direct importance to emerge from Darling's speech yesterday were potholes.  Which is a tad ironic, since they don't actually emerge.

But why 'potholes'?  One source suggests that our ancestors were constantly patching roads. In fact, it's suggested the first potholes date back to Roman times, when potters dug up hunks from the clay roads - hence the name.

Which might work, if Romans had used clay.  But they didn't.  The term 'pot-hole' in the sense of "a deep hole of more or less cylindrical shape" was in use in 1826 by geologists and civil engineers to describe naturally-occurring holes, which were thought to be the result of water action. The holes in question were actually effects of glaciation. By 1878, the word was sometimes written without the hyphen.

In 1898, an author in the Archaeological Journal used "pot-hole" in the sense claimed above:

"That the manufacture of pottery was carried on in Haying in former times is shown by the existence of 'pot-holes', i.e. holes from which clay has been taken."

However, this has nothing to do with defects in the surface of a road. The use of 'pot-hole' to describe bad roads is given in a news item from 1909, which complains that "artificial watering and constant scavenging" are ruining the local macadam roads. But macadam roads are made of crushed stone and cement.

Roman roads, like macadam roads, were made primarily of stone rather than clay. Here's a description of the canonical Roman road from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

In its highest stage of development the Appian Way was constructed by excavating parallel trenches about 40 feet (12 metres) apart to mark its exact location and to indicate the nature of the subsoil. The foundation was then covered with a light bedding of sand or mortar on which four main courses were constructed; (1) a statumen layer of large flat stones 10 to 24 inches (250-600 millimetres) in thickness; (2) a rudus course of smaller stones mixed with lime about 9 inches (225 millimetres) thick; (3) the nucleus layer, about one foot (300 millimetres) thick, consisting of small gravel and coarse sand mixed with hot lime; and (4) on this fresh mortar a summa crusta, or wearing surface, of flint-like lava about six inches (150 millimetres) deep.

But the Romans had two big advantages over us when it came to building and maintaining roads: they built them straight - mainly because chariots initially had trouble turning corners, the Romans having not quite cottoned on to the idea of a differential, but also because it made getting to the next country to conquer quicker.

The second advantage they had was slaves.  And it's here where Darling missed a trick.  Reintroducing slavery would save us a packet.  We could use long term prisoners, who would enjoy the day out, working in the fresh air, getting plenty of exercise, or simply designate a nearby nation - perhaps the French - as slaves. And he could be reasonably sure no other party would come up with that idea.

Mea Culpa, as they say in Rome….