GhostOfClayton
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Posts posted by GhostOfClayton
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I've already seen this one, but it will be repeated as below. It covers a lot of the same ground as the Mary Beard one, but has been brought a little up to date, and has some new angles.
'Pompeii: the Mystery of the People Frozen in Time'
Country: UK
Channel: BBC 4
Date: Mon 29 Dec 2014
Time: 1900 GMT for 60 mins
Episodes: 1
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rn6c2'>BBC 4
The city of Pompeii uniquely captures the public's imagination - in AD79 a legendary volcanic disaster left its citizens preserved in ashes to this very day. Yet no-one has been able to unravel the full story. . .
As usual, this one is on iPlayer. if you're living outside this green and pleasant land, you may not be able to get it. Sorry.My Review:
As mentioned before, this covers a lot of the same ground as Prof. Beard's offering, but does bring some new stuff to the table. Margaret Mountford is a good choice of presenter. For those not familiar with her, she was Sir Alan Sugar's right hand man (woman) on the UK version of The Apprentice. Quite frankly she brought the only touch of class to that entire programme, and did it well. She's clearly from a strong business background, so you may think a little unsuitable to handle a BBC4 history programme (BBC4 is quite an acedemic channel). However she left The Apprentice to study for her PhD in Papyrology at University College London, and her thesis was entitled 'Documentary papyri from Roman And Byzantine Oxyrhynchus'. So I would disagree. And she handled the subject very well indeed, questionning experts with a sort intelectual curisoity, and confidence she was pretty much on an equal footing with them.
To summarise. Good programme overall with excellent historical content and a very good presenter, however possibly a touch 'same-old, same-old'.
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Quit that!
Of course, our primitive brain's reaction to #4 would vary based on whether the biological entity in question was, say, an elk, an overweight tour guide, or an astronomer.
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By extension, the fourth question would be "Will it shag me?"
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Anyone would think we were all obsessed with sex...
We are all obsessed with sex. At the deepest, most primitive level, the earliest-developed parts of our brain dictate that we're obsessed with:
1. Not being eaten.
2. Eating
3. Sex
In that order. Basically, if we are to encounter another biological entity, the first thing that happens in our brains, at a barely higher level than the brain stem, is that the follwing questions are asked in rapid succession: "Will it eat me"? "If not, can i eat it?" "If not, can I shag it."
Obviously, we've engineered (1.) out of the equation to a significant degree, so much of our lives now revolve around (2.) and (3.).
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There's some very good stuff on iTunes, but you really have to know specifically what you want to find it. Browsing iTunes just by categories really isn't that fruitful.
4OD has some Roman documentary content, but you need to be logged in via a UK Proxy to access it.
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Pharrell Williams - HAPPY
Blame my daughter for this one...
I'll tell you what, Aurelia. I very much swing between really liking this, and finding it really cheesy. It hasn't found its way onto my iPhone yet, though.
PS I still can't resolve the whole 'Happy ≈ Room without roof' equation.
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Mitch Benn's reaction to the Eurovision Song Contest.
Please don't listen to this when the kids are in the room, and please, PLEASE don't listen to it if you have no sense of humour.
The second to last line is the most shaming if you're English.
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Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. You can't go around saying things about Auntie when there are Brits around to hear. I know they look upon her as a bit of a dotty old Auntie with questionable behaviour, and somewhat of an embarrasment to the family; and they do spend many long hours slagging her off to each other. But woe betide the foreign national that dares to join in with that slagging off. So, care must be taken when throwing stones in Auntie's direction, particularly people who inhabit that particular glass house that gives us Fox News.
For rational argument, I can only offer up the statement at 1:10 of this.
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They did have it, and it is indeed used (IIRC) in Rome the series. not sure how much of it the disenfranchised masses would have managed to get into their bloodstreams, but hey, Soma worked well enough in Brave New World.
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I think he liked to put out the political message of being 'primes inter pares' (a concept that long preceded him in the Senate), but clearly he was autocratic in the extreme. Not quite Stalin, but certainly not disimilar to the Orwellian Napoleon. (Sorry if that sounded a bit pseudo-intellectual).
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Strangely enough, Asterix books often seem well researched (though I am working from a old, old memory of them). There's a scene in Asterix the Legionary where Asterix asks the cook what he's serving to them, and he lists the ingredients "all boiled up together to save time". Cheese was in there, but other than that, it wasn't disimilar to the list you just said.
Anyone care to track it down? I gave my Asterix books to OfClayton Nephew 1 of 3 when he was a young boy (I'm sure he has a name, but I find it easier to number them, much like the Borg in Star Trek).
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Hi Aurelia. it's always difficult for me to keep up with UNRV in the tourist season. Even when I can get a wifi signal, there's rarely time to do anything more than sort out e-mails, etc. Hope the three of you are well.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Thanks, Viggen. Let's see what comes back.
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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.
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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.
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. . . 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).
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I've always wondered about the ranks.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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and we must look at the Limes as another precident.
Coming up next . . . .
in Colosseum
Posted · Edited by GhostOfClayton
Not seen this one yet. Interesting choice of Christine Bleakley as a presenter. She's certainly a safe pair of hands in TV land. She's endearing, and has a very enaging Irish accent which, if I'm honest, I do find just a little sexy (once I've established she won't eat me and I can't eat her), but is much better known for magazine programmes rather than anything with acedemic content. We will see how she pans out, but ITV is more of a popular channel than one aimed at acedemia, so she could well be a good choice to bring Roman Britain to the masses.
Roman Britain From The Air
Country: UK
Channel: ITV1
Date: Tue 23 Dec 2014
Time: 2000 GMT for 60 mins
Episodes: 1
Link: [url=http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week52/roman-britain-air]ITV1[/url]
As usual, this one is on ITV Player. If you're living outside this green and pleasant land, you may not be able to get it. Sorry.
I'm not sure i can recognise where they're standing. Looks like a possibility for 'Guess the Ancient City'. I'll go and post now.