Archive for January, 2013

Pride & Prejudice, 200 Years On

Posted: January 30, 2013 in General
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Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s classic novel, is 200 years old.

When you consider it, that is a long time. older than a lot of countries.  It is also a testament to the story itself.

Each year, piles upon piles of books are written.  The vast majority are soon forgotten.  Others linger for a while before fading away.  And then there are those, for whatever reason, that go on to be classics, read for generation after generation. Pride and Prejudice falls into that category.

It’d be nice to think that in 200 yers something of mine has survived and is still being read.

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Paging Dr Jones

Posted: January 10, 2013 in History
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Here is one for Indiana Jones – the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor, Quin Shi Huang.  His tomb is reported to be filled with treasure – and booby traps to keep looters of bay.  Which causes a problem for any archaeologists wanting to have a look in it.  Unless they are Doctor Jones.

The Chinese government is yet to decide if it will allow excavation.

 

2000 Year Old Medicine Analysed

Posted: January 9, 2013 in History
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One of my main fields of interest, ever since I was a little boy, has been history.  I love it, finding out about how people lived in the past, all the quirks and interesting facts and so on.  It in part explains a lot of what I write.

So I was interested in seeing this article, about how on a two thousand year old Roman shipwreck, they found a small, sealed tin box that contained six medicinal tablets.  These were subject to chenical analysise to see just what they contained.  The full results are, sadly, behind the paywall of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website, but what is mentioned are things like pine resin, animal fats and possibly olive oil.

Given the composition of the tablets, it is theorised they were used to treat eye infections.

Now This Is A Library

Posted: January 7, 2013 in General
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It would probably require a lot of work to maintain, but this is a library that I think I could be quite happy with at my place – I’d need a much bigger place though for it to fit.