Scotland is rising...
and England is sinking.
And I'm not speaking metaphorically,
I am speaking literally
Which is why I'm here at the Thames Barrier
This gorgeous thing behind me is one
of the largest moblie flood barriers in the world
And it's what stops the Docklands over there behind me
From being completely inundated when there's a storm surge or a spring tide
And here's the thing,
when I say Scotland is rising, I don't mean it metaphorically,
I'm not talking about the referendum, I'm talking literally
Scotland is rising up by about 10cm every century
And down here, in the south of England
the area that the Thames Barrier is protecting
well that's dropping by about 5cm every century
It's not much
particuarly compared to the sea level rises
that the Thames Barrier is going to protect us against in the next few decades
But it's still there
It's a process called 'glacial isostatic adjustment'
The idea that 20,000 years ago
Scotland was covered in glaciers
and England wasn't
I mean, it wasn't that precise
It's not like they stopped at what would be Hadrian's Wall
but that was roughly the area
That pressure from the ice squeezed the mantle out of the way
and even now, 20 millennia later
it's still flowing slowly backwards
moving Scotland upwards and us, slowly, down into the sea
Scotland is slowly gaining height, England is steadily losing it
and to be honest, the United Kingdom might be about to lose a heck of a lot more
depending on how the referendum turns out in a couple of days time
One more thing before I go
regular subscribers may know i sometimes try out different formats here
and well, I've got a new one for you
starting this Wednesday, 4 episodes of Crush Test
a gadget reveiw show where if you like it you get to keep it
and if you don't you get to violently destroy it
as well as that, the Technical Difficulties team are getting together
for new episodes of citation needed
we're recording this weekend and we should have those for you pretty soon
and if neither of those are your thing, don't worry
there are plenty of things you might not know still to come
Translation:Tumblr/@fancyfartdonut