Category Archives: Uncategorized

A friend recently commented on my post on Cosmas Indicopleusetes to the effect that the coin evidence suggested that the contacts between Byzantium and India were slight. My own view about these things is rather more nuanced these days. There … Continue reading →

One of the things I find quite fascinating about my trying to graph the relationships among the movers and shakers of the mid seventeenth century is the degree of happenstance and coincidence. For example, Thomas Herbert, who was appointed by … Continue reading →

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been spending a little time with the English Civil Wars to teach myself some social network analysis. While I was researching something else entirely I came across such an example of the term Ranter being … Continue reading →

I’ve written before about fox sighting in the Canberra suburbs, but this morning’s was a beauty, near Inkster Street a young dog fox legging it across Sulwood Drive and off into the Mount Taylor nature reserve. The interesting thing is … Continue reading →

Ella Maillart, about whom I’ve written in the past was one the giants of pre world war two travel, travelling across Xianjaing with Peter Fleming and driving with Annemarie Schwarzenbach from Switzerland to Afghanistan on the eve of world war … Continue reading →

I’ve previously written about Aboriginal contacts with what is now Indonesia and the Kilwa coins problem as well as about African contacts with Sri Lanka – the two are related – essentially we can show that there were East African … Continue reading →

Came across this Bradford University undergraduate thesis that looked at the archaeological evidence for cats being present on Viking settlement sites in the North Atlantic settlement area centred around Orkney and Shetland. Unfortunately, the thesis doesn’t add much to my … Continue reading →

Way back in April I wrote about calorie restriction, and the Michael Mosely feast and fast diet. Well I didn’t do it, well not the way suggested. But I got a result – losing 6kg in six months. At 77kg … Continue reading →

I’ve been quiet recently. Not quite true, there’s posts and updates elsewhere, but it’s true to say that I’ve not been writing a lot. In part it’s because we’re just recovering from two long weekends in a row and a … Continue reading →

Following on from my post on Vikings and cats I remembered a post of mine from 2008 about a genetic analysis of mice in the UK which showed that mice from Scotland Ireland and Wales have a more Scandanavian genome … Continue reading →