I have a cannonball...

I have a cannonball in my garage; a huge, rusted, iron ball the size of a football. I acquired it when Claire was gardening, she took it as a gift "so long as you carry it". It's a very odd thing to own, a cannonball, and I don't suppose it is something many people today have got.

It does beg the question "why is it in your garage?" when it is absolutely the most cumbersome and useless thing one could have for a trinket; well, I am fascinated by it. It's a cannonball, for goodness sake!

It was apparently dredged up from the Thames estuary some years ago and ended up as a curio in a pensioner's garden, from whence it was liberated and cleaned up by yours truly. It is devoid of markings (do weapons of mass destruction carry logos - 'this dirty bomb is brought to you by B&Q'?) so I can only speculate how old it might be and where it was made. Indeed, is it friendly? Is it a piece of foreign ordnance used for nefarious and violent purposes against the Empire?

I don't think I've ever had anything with the history and mystery surrounding it that this has; if it is genuine (and I don't believe you can buy modern fake cannonballs on eBay) then it is at least 175 years old and possibly very much more. It was obviously fired from somewhere to somewhere either in test, jest or anger, but from where and by whom we will never know. Did some French powder monkey with a life expectancy measured in weeks load it into a huge weapon designed and intended to kill jolly Jack Tars with hearts of Oak? Did a drunken sailor lob it over the side or drop it? Was it cast by Royal Ordnance to test a new device?

It is the most purposeful and obvious object, in that it was only ever made for one thing - firing from a BFO gun. But it is absolutely pointless now, could not and would not be used in any modern context. Made in an age where it was ubiquitous, surviving in an age where it is utterly pointless. It tells us so little in it's physical form.