An HIstorical Figure Writes …

Sheesh …
Suddenly I feel very old.
This lunchtime we had a semen hour presented by one of our young London office staff who is doing her Masters degree on Erno Goldfinger's London tower blocks.
The last of these went up in the seventies and my own training was tangled up in such socio-political concepts that arose from the later phases of postwar slum clearance and the rebuilding of entire areas of bombed out housing.

While it was clear (or at least partially intelligible through the fog of "y'know"s and "er"s and "like"s and nervous giggling) that the poor girl had no concept whatsoever about postwar social housing needs and the events and politics of the time that led to the building of Goldfinger's blocks - or even of the social and architectural theories of Goldfinger himself (though she had found a photo of him on a website), I managed to keep from rolling my eyes until she started answering our questions by saying that she obviously had a lot more research to do but that most of her ideas had come from "reading a book about the history of the nineteen-sixties and seventies" …

And so the fun began:
An artillery barrage of shock and awe proportions from myself and those crusties even older, some of whom had helped design and even lived in the buildings she was researching left her floundering, before she was comprehensively sunk by one of the senior partners who took her conclusions to pieces with admirable artistry, asked how she hoped to achieve a Masters degree in a subject she was clearly unfamiliar with, and finally wondered why she never asked any of us who were there and were a part of it what actually happened during this "historical period".

So at last I have officially become an historical figure, as I always suspected I might. Not that I mind that so much as the fact that the children in our offices would rather read a book on historical figures than ask us questions directly. At least they are still ABLE to read a book and not get their entire theses from wankipædia, though on today's evidence they are seemingly unable to absorb learning from that book and are completely at a loss when it comes to attempting to articulate their conclusions.
I weep for the reeking and rotten corpse of our educational system.

Anyhoo, before she burst into tears we offered our help …

Our suitably chastened student has now decided to hurriedly rewrite her entire thesis based on the actual events and the experience of people who were there and asks us for our assistance in letting her know what happened and why in that remote dark age.
Interviews have been scheduled and I have already given her a two page outline of the socio-political and architectural situation pertaining at the time together with a long list of criteria to consider and an essential reading list of genuinely relevant books that will take her a decade to complete. Another crusty has informed her that he worked for years in Goldfinger's office and has offered his own first hand observations on the man and his methods.
At least she will now stand a chance of obtaining her degree.

Why she never thought to ask in the first place leaves me in some considerable doubt as to the survival of our species beyond the next generation and actually rather glad if it crashes and burns.
The Eloi and Morlocks spring to mind.

(Exits - rolling eyes and waving arms in despair) …