You couldn't avoid the share scare stories today, with predicted crashes and whispers of another Black Monday popping up everywhere. It all feels a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and also like we've heard it all before. I wanted to explore the ins and outs of the stock market process in some detail, but to be honest, I don't understand it at all, or find it all that interesting, and the whole thing is pretty depressing to boot. So, to something completely different - the Channel Tunnel. Well, it brightens the mood, doesn't it? Come on, we built a tunnel to France! We can make those shares be worth a bit more money, surely? I started looking into the Channel Tunnel (not literally) when my colleague said it took him 3 hours to drive from Twickenham to Gillingham in Kent, a distance of 45 miles. Not bad for rush hour, I thought, and proceeded to look up where exactly Gillingham is, out of an uncontrollable need to look at maps, and a burning desire to avoid working.
As I gazed upon a Multimap representation of Kent, I noticed an A-road winding along the coast and out across the sea to Calais. After a couple of seconds of confusion, I realised it was in fact the rail tunnel coloured in wrong, but it made me wonder whether there ever was, or still is, a plan to build a road under the Channel. Well, it appears only I am stupid enough to think that it might work, but I did learn a few things to do with the tunnel, most interestingly this:
England has a land border with France; it lies in the middle of the Channel Tunnel, and is marked by a steel band around the circumference of the tunnel.
Also: there are three channel tunnels - two rail tunnels and a service tunnel; and the largest undersea cavern in the world is on the UK side of the tunnel(s), to allow trains to cross into the other tunnel when maintenance is being carried out, or if someone has assembled a large pile of cardboard boxes, in the tunnel ahead. If this is getting a bit Megastructures for you (it is the number 1 all-time Megastructure, but if it's a little technical for you...), there's fun to be had in the early ideas for a cross-channel connection. The first came in 1802, when it was suggested that a tunnel be built for horse-drawn carriages, lit by oil lamps, with a rest stop on a sandbank. Really. Other crackpot ideas include using said sandbank (the Varne Bank) to build a bridge over the channel, and laying a floating steel tube across the water (this is not just a Blue Peter idea - the Sydney Harbour Tunnel is an example of this kind of tunnel).
Anyway, nothing came of these proposals, for they were shit. In the end, the tunnel was completed in 1994, with the two service tunnels being drilled from each end meeting in 1991, a historic moment achieved by the most French and English sounding people in their respective nations, tunnel diggers Jerome Cozette and Graham Fagg. It's been going for thirteen years, but has never made any money, due to it's massive cost. It's parent company, Eurotunnel, are still in debt, and in the first ten years of the company's existence, it's shares lost 90% of their value. Oh god, not shares again! I'd started to forget. I earn £1500 a month and it's not gonna buy a loaf of bread. I'm going for a walk in the woods...
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