Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tasmania

Tasmania. For reasons too complicated to explain in an opening paragraph, we were going to Tasmania for a few days. I knew nothing about Tasmania – I had never been there and my ideas, such as they were, had been … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

James Clavell’s Shōgun

In 1975 James Clavell published a best selling novel Shōgun, loosely based on the story of William Adams, an English Tudor period pilot major who was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in the early 1600s and rose to prominence … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Other people’s history

History is a strange and slippery thing, full of truths, half-truths, and strange inexplicable seeming events. And so it is when you watch other people’s tv. Sometimes it turns out what you think you know isn’t quite true. For example, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Graffiti on the North Water viaduct

I’ve been trying to pull together some family history stuff to try and see what use farming folk in in the late nineteenth century made of the railways in rural north east Scotland. (digitised 1920 Ordnance Survey map of St … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Outback noir …

There’s a genre of Australian crime fiction known as ‘outback noir’. And, since I discovered that my local library was stuffed with outback noir books, I’ve read rather a lot of it as my bedtime reading to help me turn … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Not an archaeologist…

When I was little, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I really did. I remember that when I was about eight we had a school inspection and one of the things that the inspector asked kids to see if they … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Yet another post about retro photography

Like a lot of people I became interested in the whole retro photography thing during the pandemic, but I’ve got to admit that while I’ve had a couple of false starts, I really havn’t done much with it. I’ve some … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nineteenth century self improvement and the birth of archaeology

Following on from my post about why Roman ghosts were not a nineteenth century thing I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what was mentioned in English language newspapers in Wales about a single  Roman site … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

E-readers at the end of 2023…

This morning I came across an article on the CBC on the theme of how despite the pervasiveness of e-readers, sales of printed books are booming, and how while older readers preferred e-readers the prime readership for printed books was … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Half frame cameras

I’ve been a bit lethargic the past week or so, it’s been hot and sticky in the afternoons, with intermittent showers that bring little or no relief from the heat, meaning that I really havn’t done any work outside in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment