GhostOfClayton

I'll let you know on Monday.

The problem is that they're almost obligated to do those things you mention . . . all the other banks are doing it, and if an individual bank wasn't, they wouldn't be as competitive/profitable, and the shareholders would vote with their feet.

I'm about due a mid-life crisis, and the Ermine Street Guard wouldn't have me. This might be just the thing!

If you know of any interesting Roman based events that other members of this Forum may wish to attand, please post details in this thread. But please don't clutter the thread by discussing individual events - please use other threads for that.

Country: UK Date: Friday 26th to Sunday 28th October Place: Senhouse Roman Museum Maryport Event: "Venus at the Gate - Interpretations of Love". A literary festival. Link: Senhouse Roman Museum Website Seet attached programme. Senhouse.pdf

Country: UK Date: Saturday 23rd October Time: 7:30 Place: St Mary

If you know of any interesting Roman based events that other members of this Forum may wish to attand, please post details in this thread. But please don't clutter the thread by discussing individual events - please use other threads for that.

Just had a look at amazon.co.uk. Bennett's book can be got for about

I'll start the ball rolling with: "Becoming Roman". Country: UK Channel: BBC Radio 3 Date: Sunday, 24th October Time: 2130 BST for 45 mins Episodes: 2 Link: BBC Radio 3 It will no doubt be available on the iPlayer. If anyone from outside this green and pleasant land would like me to record it for them, speak up.

A very happy birthday, Jason. A bit of a milestone, I see. How are you planning to celebrate the start of your fifth decade?

Was the second prize two copies of this DVD? I had the misfortune of seeing the glorious "3D Deepie" version - I'm still getting the headaches!

I thought it was on the Moon. Shows what I know!

I was listening to my favourite BBC Radio 4 programme the other day, Material World. It had an interesting article on archeology, which I thought I'd like to share with you. "Over-zealous application of rules is stifling archaeological research, according to two practicing archaeologists. Duncan Sayer and Mike Pitts say it's becoming harder to run digs that involve human remains" is what the programme notes say. To explain, since the Orwellian-sounding 'Ministry of Justice' took over, the exhumation of human remains is becoming much more bureaucratic. All well and good, you might say, if this applies your council digging up your ancestors when Tesco need to extend into the local cemetery. However, the rules apply just as roundly to a Romano-British finger bone at Vindolanda. This is causing so much red tape for arcaeologists that British Archaeology magazine saw fit to have it is a cover story on a recent edition. You can listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer, here. Just a note of caution, I have a sneaking suspicion that forum members from overseas may not be able to listen. It seems BBC License Fee payers are quite petty in a sort of "we've paid for it and you haven't" kind of way. Sorry about that.

There is a superb documentary on this BBC DVD, that explains very well how the Romans managed to gain some very clever shipbuilding technology from the Carthaginians, and use it to their advantage. In fact, what the heck, I'm going to order it today, so if anyone wants the DVDs I recorded from UKTV History (doesn't have all the episodes), let me know, and I'll get it to you.

Thanks, Maty, for taking me back more years than I care to remember, when we had a very 'old-school' O-Level maths teacher by the name of Mr McLellan. He used to use "Quod Erat Demonstrandum" and "Robertus Patruo Tuus Est" (or something spookily similar, can't remember what, exactly) in fairly equal measure. I'm not sure how good his Latin actually was. He also used to say "Auris Porci" and "Porcis Auri" (as in "you've made a right Porcis Auri of that, OfClayton. Do it again boy!") in fairly equal measure, so I'm not sure he knew which was correct. Nor, incidentally, do I.

Looking back on it, it was quite a successful weekend, although it started a little badly. Being the wrong side of 45, I now wake up early every day. Lie-ins may not be a thing of the past, but if I wake up after 7:00am, I consider that I�ve slept late. So, on getting up early on Saturday morning, I turned on my PC for my (now seemingly almost hourly) UNRV fix, and Internet Explorer 8 informed me that it was unable to make contact with the site. A quick sanity check confirmed I had spelled U � N � R � V correctly, and a second check didn�t change that fact. An experimental viewing of the BBC website proved my broadband link was up and running, so the fault must lie with UNRV. How unfortunate I was that one of UNRV�s genial hosts was up and around, and logged into Facebook. Unfortunate, because, following a quick Facebook message, I discovered to my embarrassment that it was working perfectly. However, all went well thereafter. Not of any interest to UNRV forum members is that my hawthorn hedge has now been stripped of its summer growth and is a uniform 1.8m high along its length, and that Mrs OfClayton refused to let me climb to the top of my Eucalyptus tree to trim it back, probably saving my life in the process. Of slightly more interest is that I won three Marcus Didius Falco audiobooks on eBay: � Shadows in Bronze � Venus in Copper � The Iron Hand of Mars I have decided to launch myself into Marcus Didius Falco. Sadly, I was outbid on the first one, �The Silver pigs�, so I downloaded it from the iTunes store for a princely �7.99. My next (and slightly connected) success came on Sunday. I need to set the scene, though. A few weeks ago, my previous car had to be consigned to Auto Elysium (which translates from Latin to English as "webuyanycar.com"). Basically, it had become such a wreck that the mechanic at my local garage refused to work on it any more, (and he stood to benefit financially from me keeping it). So, now that he's no longer able to drive, my Dad sold me his Honda Civic. To my horror, I discovered that it had no CD player in it! Just a cassette payer. How was I going to play all those lovely Marcus Didius Falco audiobooks now? Worse, do you know how much of a Honda Civic you have to disassemble to get the radio out? Much, much more than you might think. Anyway, to cut a long story short, with the help of a YouTube video and a neighbour who knows more about cars than I do, we managed to change the stereo. I now have a CD player and Bluetooth (for playing Audiobooks from the iPod!) I�m planning on starting "The Silver Pigs" this week. Lastly, on Sunday afternoon Mrs OfClayton left me alone with a monster ironing pile. Most people would sigh at the thought, but not me. I see ironing as a wonderful opportunity for a skive. Let's face it, it involves little more effort than moving my arm and standing in the same spot, I can have a pot of coffee on the go, and most importantly, I can get "I, Claudius" on the DVD player. I managed to watch episodes 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 whilst ironing, and still gain kudos from Mrs OfClayton on her return. What IS all the fuss about ironing?

I'll do him a deal - if he can sort it, I'll buy it!

You're right Melvadius, it is in two halves. You can get right up to the base, but the interesting detail doesn't start until the top of the base, some 6 metres up (at least). The best view is of the spiral at the bottom of the top half. It's also visible from a walkway at first floor level, but some distance away. I've now added "Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a Rom

Just a warning. If anyone was planning to read this book on their iPad (or even iPhone/iPod), don't! If you download this book from the Apple Bookstore, (having coughed up your

I got about a third of the way through 'Caesar: The Life of a Colossus' by Adrian Goldsworthy (see this link). To be honest, it's quite a dry work, heavy on fact, but light on readability, and I found that i wasn't really enjoying it. I decided to take a break and come back to it later, and so in the meantime I started on Richard Herring's 'How Not To Grow Up'. The irony wasn't lost on me.

When I visited Pompeii, I was so blown away by the place that I didn't look at it with a more cynical eye. On sober reflection (that's just a saying, I wasn't drunk!) everything said in the article seems true enough. Two things struck me. The first is that 11 euros is an ab-sol-ute bargain for the place - it really is! Especially for the likes of the readers of this forum. The second is that it's gobsmacking to think that, given the sheer amount of 11 euros they collect in, it still doesn't cover the maintenance of the place, let alone fund further excavation. Maybe they could learn a lesson or two from Vindolanda. Lastly, I read the comment after the article by 'emmasue'. She (I assume she is a she) was rightly bemoaning the inaccesibility of Trajan's Column on her visit to Rome. For those of you who find yourselves in The Smoke, there is a full size replica (taken from a plaster cast) of Trajan's Column in the Victoria and Albert. Because of the sheer size of the thing, it's difficult to study close up, but it's very impressive, nevertheless.

Interestingly, something not dissimilar to the Crosby Garrett was worn by the Cybele at the start of I, Claudius.

. . . and I love his little disclaimer at the end. You can almost hear the little voice adding the "*may not refer to actual Hibernians" in an up-tempo sotto voce, like at the end of American TV adverts.

Are you stting comfortably? Then I shall begin . . . They locked themselves in the Acropolis, Thought they couldn't be got by the riot-polis, So to launch their attack, the police sneaked in the back, And sprayed pepper all over some journalists. Epic enough?

Wasn't it just. I spotted John Cleese, Terry Jones, Rowan Atkinson, Pete Cook, Michael Palin, David Rappaport, possibly Clive James. . . and could that really have been Pete Townsend? Wow!