There was a time in my life when, for reasons that are of no particular interest to you, I visited the UK on a regular basis.
On one of those visits I was surprised to observe that, here and there, some houses had bricked in windows. Not wanting to show my ignorance, instead of asking, I quietly assumed that owners had needed an extra bit of wall for purposes of interior decorating. And I never gave it another thought.
The other day, quite by chance, I found the true answer in a financial publication. As people in the 17th and 18th centuries treasured their privacy and were unwilling to disclose the state of their financial affairs, His Majesty's tax officials devised an ingenious way of determining their wealth: counting the number of existing windows in their houses. Taxpayers countered by bricking in some of the windows.
In a way, it sadden me to have found out the truth behind the bricked in windows. Now that the cat is out of the bag, as I write, I can envisage governments around the world appointing armies of new civil servants to begin counting windows.
I am sure that there is bound to be a lot of bricklaying ahead. Yet, I am not hopeful. As it has always been the case in these instances, the man on the street will end up again in a dark cul-de-sac.
