Surreal estate

I am buying a beach. I bring it up because on radio 4 this week (xx time, yy day) Clive Anderson talks to people who are selling plots of land on the Moon, Mars, and Venus. I’m not kidding; have a look at www.moonestates.com; they offer to sell you an acre of Mars for £14.25, plus the registration fee. I am not sure there is much chance of your ever getting to see your real estate, especially in the case of Venus. Venus may look pretty, and be associated with the goddess of love, but the surface is hot enough to melt lead, and rain falls all the time – not water but sulphuric acid.

How can anyone offer this land for sale? Because 24 years ago an ex-ventriloquist and entrepreneur called Dennis Hope went into the offices of San Francisco County and filed a declaration of ownership. I am reminded of the annexation of north America by the Tudors and Stuarts. In 1497 that well-known British sailor John Cabot (actually his name was Giovanni Caboto, and he came from Genoa) sailed across the Atlantic, landed on the mainland, planted a flag, and said ‘I claim this New-Found Land for the King of England.’ He then saw the remains of a camp-fire, realised there were already native Americans in residence, sprinted back to his ship, and never set foot on shore again.

Henry VII was delighted to be given a new continent, and arranged for Cabot to get a reward, which was presented to him by a Welsh tax collector called Richard ap-Merrick, or Ameryke, and the story goes that Cabot, dead chuffed, said ‘Thanks, Mr Ameryke; I shall name this new country after you – America.’

Can you really claim ownership of a country just by sticking a flag in the ground? Can you really claim ownership of a planet before anyone has been there? Which brings me back to my beach. Well, actually our beach; I am one of a consortium of three. The beach is of mucky shingle and seaweed; not the sort of place where beautiful bodies frolic in the sunshine. And it’s not very big – in fact rather smaller than my sitting room. But if we succeed in buying it I hope one day to launch a little rowing boat, and if you want to walk around the coastline of Britain on the high-water mark, you will have to walk across our beach

Page last updated: Monday, 14 January 2013 15:37

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