Malcolm 0-6-0

My sympathies go to those in the UK with your COVID-19 problems. Here in Victoria, Australia we thought we had it beat back at the end of the first wave and restrictions in June. Then some really dopey low intellect private security guards in the companies hired by our government to manage the quarantine hotels caught the thing of those in quarantine and gleefully spread it in a cluster of low rent suburbs where they lived. That's when everything went pear shaped and the second wave took off. Which meant basically 3 months of stage 4 restrictions and compulsory mask wearing, social distancing etc. for a hell of a lot of people who had had the good sense to take care from day one. The second outbreak was largely confined to a group of three working class suburbs in the NW of the metropolitan area with one outlying concentration in another working class suburb in the SE. We are now have had nearly 4 weeks without new cases or deaths due to rigidly following the rules, a vital part of which was a 5km, restriction on travel unless work related and an enforced quarantine of the entire Melbourne suburban area from the rest of the state. Police were armed with the power to impose very hefty fines. It worked but that doesn't mean that I accept that the virus is beaten. So like most sensible people I go on wearing a mask in public places and make sure that i maintain distancing. An effective vaccine is the only sure thing but when that arrives is anyone's guess. Meanwhile in the US their now conservative weighted Supreme Court upheld an appeal against the New York Governor's decision to restrict numbers at religion gatherings. Seems that conservatives think that the US Constitution is worth more than trying to save people's lives, but that's the conservatives for you. I wonder why it is always religious groups everywhere who are the ones to put their superstitions ahead of saving lives - and to think we idiots (or at least some of us) enshrine that as a right. However on a bright note I see that the "stable" genius sitting in the White House paid $3 million for a recount of the votes in two counties in Wisconsin. The first recount (Milwaukee County) was finished and an extra 132 vote were found for Biden whose win in the two counties Trump was challenging. That means that getting Biden an extra 132 votes cost the "stable" genius $27,727 per vote. I'd say that if you are going to buy votes then at least do the correct corrupt thing and buy them for yourself, not your opponent ......

Apparently it's a sacred site for this group of people trying to overturn the democratic vote ............

If Fakenham was the answer what in heaven's name could the question have been ..........

That's interesting - I always thought Baden Powell was a little "wired" .........

Are you sure that wasn't to describe some poorly functioning valves ........

In the various Twitter feeds there are, besides the virulent posts, some really genuinely funny ones -

He also lead the charge for "traditional family values" when we had the same sex marriage plebiscite ...........

Those are the trains that boldly go where no train has gone before ..........

Which reminds me of a very funny recaptioned pic that did the circuit in Australia when Barnaby Joyce, our Deputy Prime Minister (the gentleman on the left) was forced to resign after a well publicised and productive (offspring wise) affair with one of his staff. The chap on the right is our former Prime Minister Tony Abbott who was deposed in a Liberal Party coup lead by Malcolm Turnbull (himself now gone). Both gentlemen moved to the back bench and got to sit next to each other.

Please see my correction - I accidently posted it here .... mea culpa etc.

Perhaps Donald Trump has removed this from his list of favourite songs ......

My mistake ...

I'm glad you posted the pic - I refrained as I thought it might upset those parishioners with sensitive feelings .........

Is that an ordure Sir? .......

Speaking of the toddler in the White House, it isn't a good look when your lawyer's hair dye starts to run in a news conference .....

Yes, however, one must also remember that well over 97% of human existence lies in the realm of the archaeologist rather than the historian. Therefore the only means of understanding that vast record less period of human existence is by careful extrapolation using primate evolution and the physical artefacts coupled with early ethnographic accounts of the remaining few human societies that once existed in a world free of any permanent written records. And in truth a pot sherd or a stone axe cannot lie - it is a mute testament to an actual event in the past. It has no politics or feelings or aspirations it is simply what it is. But a history book or any other scholarly study can say whatever the author wishes it to regardless of its factual basis. Certainly there are over-enthusiastic people in both disciplines. But then there are over-enthusiastic people in all professions who are ever willing to string an idea out to the point of absurdity. I am reminded of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani whose theatrics represent the worst of what is a profession that increasingly has turned to theatrics and defending the indefensible. The times when pot sherds, or stone tools were assiduously compared to define actual human cultures are long gone. They are recognised simply as the most convenient means of relative dating when other means are not available. Yet for mapping the spread of Roman period trade etc. the long recognised Samian ware is still most reliable. So it is a bit of one and a bit of the other. But coming back to over-enthusiasm someone like Giuliani wouldn't last five minutes in a first year archaeological tutorial, he'd be immediately consigned to the tin foil hat section. One wonders why his supposedly educated colleagues have not done so. History also evolves in its understanding through taking careful note of sociological studies of behaviour in modern communities. What is someone's b0llocks today may, in a few years, be a sign of prescience. Historians like lawyers, journalists, authors etc., write or express opinions influenced by their own ingrained biases - in fact most people who write cannot escape those biases. It is for the diligent scholar to recognise a writer's social background and upbringing and to recognise from that how the data they cite might be skewed. It is true for the archaeologist as well - we have long retreated from the Rousseauian ideal of the noble savage. We have in the last half-century or more come to recognise that both our ancestors, and surviving indigenous people are as venal or as pleasant in the same proportions as in the teeming mass that constitutes the current living human population, and that is because whatever our colour or ethnicity we are all the same species. And we all are driven, no matter how humble, by trying to get a bigger slice of the economic cake. It is, however, a pity that it took us a couple of million years to learn to write .........

I sincerely hope your wife has the requisite undergraduate and post graduate degrees to back up that assertion. In my time in the field we did strenuously strive to think ahead so that any anomaly could be explained within the research objectives of the dig. It's called keeping the dig Director happy. Hell hath no fury like a dig Director who has just seen some anomaly throw his carefully crafted reasons for the research grant completely upended. I remember on one occasion when I had to explain to a Director that the nice parallel line of stones he could see in a photograph were not the remains of a wall, but in fact were just the exposed edges of the natural bedrock stratigraphy. That did not go down at all well, especially when I patiently explained basic geology to him. But then having a Ph.D and being paid to be there meant that one had some latitude when it came to breaking bad news. He he he ....... Then on another dig one of our well published expert members uncovered what he thought was the boss of an Iron Age shield, Being somewhat versed in early metallurgy I was a little sceptical and pointed out that it looked like a cheap enamelled tin plate. When, after some laborious and very careful cleaning, he discovered the inscription "Made in China" on it I tried not to be too amused. No wonder archaeology was once referred to as being not a science but a vendetta .......... But it is all good fun - especially if there is a reliable and close by source of cold beer.

Speaking as an archaeologist the problem is that groups like the Celts fall into the more prehistoric than historic category which is a convoluted way of saying that one's primary source of data about them is material artefacts rather than a definitive written record. The only written records come from the Romans and Greeks and regarding the Celts those are large derogatory and designed to assert the cultural superiority of those who write those records. History being written by the victors. So that means the Celts fall within the old definition of culture adopted by archaeologists which was used to create out of a more or less common range of material artefacts distributed across a defined area the idea of a discrete people. However the problem with that definition for anyone who thinks about it is that just because a group of people have a similar material culture it doesn't mean they are a unified culture in the political or social sense. Modern Europeans have a pretty much common material assemblage, and have had so for quite a few centuries, but as the historical evidence demonstrates they aren't and never have been a unified political or social culture (the EU notwithstanding). European history is basically a long series of disputes either political or bloody. There is no reason to think that Celtic populations in the same geographic area were any different to the Europeans in their relationships with each other within that area. I would go far as to suggest that in fact there isn't any evidence to suggest that Europeans and Celts are even a different people. The reality is it's just the same ethnic mix but all that has changed is the material culture. The political and social background has adjusted to the material changes but the underlying ethnicity remains. As for groups invading and replacing earlier groups in the same landscape ancient peoples did not have the population or resources to do that - they might launch well armed forays but in the end their numbers were not sufficient to overwhelm the existing populations, instead they just stayed and interbred. There might have been a few leaders etc. who set themselves up in castles/forts etc. but their followers were left to interbreed and farm just as they would have if they'd stayed where they came from. Certainly there is evidence of violent overthrows of existing settlements e.g. Normans etc. however this fairly rare in the archaeological record. But to me the process is more long term and results from the spread of material culture. Which, as it was accepted for its economic benefits, generated social and political changes via the intellectual impetus that accompanied the new technologies and material etc. In short cultural change encompasses complex long term combinations of intellectual and material artefacts and that doesn't happen at the point of a spear or sword if it is to be something that will endure.

Well that went well didn't it ..........

Isn't Wednesbury just down the road from Tuesdaybury?

I must admit I've sometimes used the finger/knuckle gauge as good guide for things. Place finger beside scaled drawing, mark of along finger the length then cut to suit (not the finger of course because that would ruin a perfectly good calibration instrument).

I've always imagined that Grimethorpe is just down the road from Miserydale .......... Although I see the Wiki suggested explanation is that it comes from a blending of a Dane who was named Grimey with tor, which says a lot about Danish hygiene in the period. In Melbourne we used to have a department store called Buckley & Nunn which lent it's name to the slang term for a no hope situation i.e. "you've got two chances, Buckley's and none" which was shortened to "buckley's" in more recent times.

Strangely I find that rather depressing, obviously we have lost the will to be profane .............

I noticed a recent comment somewhere in the wake of the US elections that the incumbent was elected on a slogan of draining the swamp but the only swamp dwellers he seems to have fired were his own selections ........

They're up to something .............