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GhostOfClayton

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Everything posted by GhostOfClayton

  1. GhostOfClayton

    It's a date . . .

    Of course, Viggen, you wouldn't want Mrs Viggen to know that you originally referred to 'Cupid's Error', and then quickly editted it to cover up your Freudian mistake. Don't worry - your secret's safe with me.
  2. GhostOfClayton

    Dying For A Meal

    There have been a couple of TV programmes recreating De Re Coquinaria. One was 'The Supersizers Eat Ancient Rome' (now available on youtube in 3 parts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swhEbBDwM0I) The other was (predictably) Heston Blumenthal http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xty2fh_heston-s-feast-s01e04-roman-feast_webcam. If you're talking about Roman Bon Viveurs, I'm more of a Luculus man myself.
  3. GhostOfClayton

    Coming up next . . . .

    Stumbled across this enjoyable little gem the other day: http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-packs/secrets-sky 'Secrets from the Sky'. It was a half hour jaunt showing the highlights of the Antonine Wall from a remote quadcoptor. Bettany Hughes, as always, was the accesible (and if I'm honest, easy on the eye) face of archeology, handling both the subject matter, and the subject matter experts with one eye on her audience. Nothing too taxing, none of the ideas presented were too new or radical, and I'm not sure the coptor uncovered anything that wasn't evident from the ground, but provided interesting shots for the viewers. However, a lovely little watch that I would recomend to anyone if they can find it in their schedules. On a related note, I once came across a man taking a movie sequence from a quad coptor flying through the 'gorge' section of Limestone Corner. As the Wikipedian responsible for the Limestone Corner article, I asked if he would send me a copy, but sadly he never did. Shame, the uneditted version straight from his Go Pro Hero camera was impressive.
  4. GhostOfClayton

    Rape Room in Sicily Villa?!

    I wonder what their evidence was for associating that room with that purpose? Tour Guides are a funny lot. Even those like me who prie themselves on veracity always like to be more colorful with the way they relate that truth. Our clients are asked to fill in feedback forms, after all.
  5. GhostOfClayton

    The Little Magic Tea Bag Pixie

    Hello all. Welcome to the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly blog. You OK? Let’s do this thing. WARNING: There is no bad language in this blog entry whatsoever. So if you were looking for some, then tough sh*t. Poltergeist? Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for a strange and terrible tale of spine-tingling supernatural events, that will chill your blood to the very bone. There have been some mysterious goings-on at OfClayton Towers these past few years. An unquiet spirit walks its dusty hallways. I’ve never actually witnessed this ghostly spectre, but I know it must be there because of the unnerving evidence it leaves behind it. What is this evidence? It leaves a used tea bag in the spoon rest on the kitchen top, by the kettle. Now I know that a sceptic will be saying that these could easily have been left by Mrs OfClayton or myself, but I have proof to the contrary: You see, the kitchen bin is only three paces away (I’ve counted them), and which mortal is so lazy as to be unwilling to walk three paces to the bin with a used tea bag? Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever’s left (no matter how improbable) must be the truth. . . So it can only be a ghost. Unsettling as this spectral presence is to me, I still smile when I think of it. You see, every time the phantom goes back to leave its next tea bag, it must be taken aback to find that the previous tea bag has mysteriously vanished from the spoon rest. It must think that the tea-bag has been spirited away to the bin by the Little Magic Tea Bag Pixie. . . . from which I can segue neatly to . . . Another bucket list item well and truly ticked off. For my 50th Birthday, Mrs OfClayton bought me a voucher for a ‘Forest Segway Experience’. I cashed the voucher in on Saturday and spent a very exciting hour whizzing around in Dalby Forest on a Segway. Statistically, you’re not likely to have been on a Segway before, and so I have one piece of advice for you. DO IT. I really enjoyed it. A great feeling, and very easy to pick up how the controls work. Are you still here?
  6. GhostOfClayton

    The Little Magic Tea Bag Pixie

    It is very British indeed. As any Brit will tell you, Johnny Foreigner hasn't the first clue how to make a decent cup of tea. I can't talk, I much prefer coffee to tea. In fact, the only person in OfClayton Towers that drinks tea is . . . . hmm . . . the mists of this mystery are starting to clear a little.
  7. GhostOfClayton

    May his bones rot

    Talk to anyone in Northumberland, site of much of Hadrian
  8. GhostOfClayton

    May his bones rot

    Thanks, Viggen. Let's see what comes back.
  9. GhostOfClayton

    May his bones rot

    I daren't (if I'm honest). Perhaps if I lived in North London, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Not quite the orthodox Jewish Community in North Lincolnshire. It was for a talk I was doing on Hadrian's worst attrocities. I did the talk to a few groups, and got by without it, but another group keep making the occasional rumbles that they'd like me to come and give it to them, so the question still stands. I think i have it written down in Hebrew somewhere.
  10. GhostOfClayton

    BBC - The Mystery of the Headless Romans

    We did talk about this at the time. http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11151-roman-gladiator-cemetery-discovered/?p=104384 Interesting that there's a different documentary now.
  11. GhostOfClayton

    Plebs - Series

    . . . and of course, our attention has been drawn to this when the first series started (http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11550-coming-up-next/?p=124523).
  12. GhostOfClayton

    Science And Shenanigans

    I'm a bit of a sucker for sci-fi myself, Caldrail. Looking forward to BBC2 sci-fi season this saturday. I enjoyed Prof. Cox's sci-fi offering, though 'Into Infinity' was a let down. I remember watching it first time round as a schoolboy and being totally blown away. This time, the dreadful1970s production values (I shouldn't judge when looking back from my post-Avatar point in time) outweighed any nostalgia. However, the overly drawn out US TV sci-fi we get nowadays always starts with some promise, but by episode 6, when nothing much has happened since episode 2, I always lose interest. For example, Intruders, Under The Dome, etc.
  13. GhostOfClayton

    AD FREE for all Equites!

    I've always wondered about the ranks.
  14. By the way Onasander, I meant to ask. Please could you point me in the direction of your Hadrian's Wall brainstorming thread. I think it must have happened while I was away, and it sounds right up my street.
  15. When HW was well on the way towards completion, a number of significant design changes happened. One of these was to include forts every 5 miles or so. Popular scholerly theory is that the original plan was to man the wall from forts on the Stanegate. The fact that the majority of the new forts were built astride the wall with 3 of the 4 major gates to the north is evidence that the desire was to be able to get huge numbers of infantry and cavalry north of the wall as quickly as possible. In fact I'm unaware of any rival theory to this.
  16. GhostOfClayton

    Disco's here, dat goes der

    I haven't used my German since my last tour of Vienna (which I think was in 2008), so it's very rusty indeed. However, that's a nice, easy one: "He who stands with both feet on the ground, doesn't move forwards".
  17. GhostOfClayton

    Battlefield post office

    Maybe they felt a Boeing 747 could fly over one.
  18. GhostOfClayton

    Disco's here, dat goes der

    Good lad, Viggen! I would struggle with similar linguistic wordplay 'auf Deutsch'.
  19. It's too easy to think of a wall as defensive, because 99.9% of the time, they're built to defend something. Take for example a city wall. This has the effect of levelling the odds between a weaker force (in the city) and a strong force (outside the city). Now take Hadrian's Wall. In this case, the stronger force is inside (the Roman army) and the weaker force outside (the various northern Celtic tribes). Would the Romans want to even those odds? Of course not. The practicality of this is that if the Romans were to fight ('defend') the Celts from the top of a wall, they can't bring into play their greatest strength, which is the ability to fight in huge numbers in carefully drilled ranks from behind a shield wall in the open. . . with Cavalry to keep the edges tidy. No matter how many legions you have south of the wall, you can only fit a couple of infantrymen or so, per metre of wall, and the Cavalry are useless. This is why the forts were moved to the wall line from the Staingate (about a mile to the south), and in many case built astride (rather than abutting) the wall. With six gates to the north of the wall, they could get large numbers of troops and cavalry into enemy territory very quickly. There's also no hard evidence of a walkway existing atop Hadrian's Wall, and many scholars have argued that it didn't exist, for just the above reasons.
  20. and we must look at the Limes as another precident.
  21. GhostOfClayton

    Plebs - Series

    Yeah - this lass has a proper accent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxQ1KY8wL3o Caldrail may disagree (but he'd be wrong!)
  22. GhostOfClayton

    Price Controls in Slave Markets

    I really haven't got the time or inclination to do any actual research to back this answer up, but surely slaves would have been included in Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices?
  23. Hadrian's Wall wasn't such a grand departure from normal practice as you may think. Certainly there were a number of precidents of similar (albeit not so grand) frontier systems. Hadrian merely ordered one built that (in all probability) he thought may be there for some time - unlike the precidents at the time of their inception. That is the first reason two thirds of it were built to a 'better' standard. The second, I think, is down to the man himself. We know he had a passion for architecture, and so would have wanted to have something grander than a turf wall. The other popular theory about the high standard of the original plan for the wall (I disagree with it) is that to build a turf and timber wall, you need plenty of turf and timber; materials that would be in short supply over the crags; unlike stone, which (to be frank) there was bloody loads of. As to the poor standard of the actual build, there is a very simple explaination that you won't find in any academic work, but I like to call it the "OK lads, he's gone" theory. And yes. 100% with Caldrail here. The frontier system was all about control and demarcation, not defense.
  24. GhostOfClayton

    Under rated emperors

    Hi Abhimanyu837 (are you a fan of Manchester United, by the way?) and welcome to UNRV. I really hate to disagree with your very first sentence of your very first post, but it has been my experience that both Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus are (on balance) well regarded as emperors. Have a listen to the History of Rome podcast (available on http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/, but better via iTunes). It will take up a great deal of your spare time, but he provides a balanced view based on many sources.
  25. GhostOfClayton

    Plebs - Series

    No, but all 'young' English people do!
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