Richard III Found

Posted: February 5, 2013 in History
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Arcaheologists have confirmed that a skeleton which was found under a council car park last year in Leicester, does indeed belong to Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England, and the last English king to die in battle.

Following the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the decisive battle at the end of the War of the Roses beyween the houses of Lancaster and York, in which he was slain, his body was buried at Greyfriars Church, and then subsequently lost to history, until last year.  DNA tests on a descendent of his sister have now proven the skeleton as being that of Richard III.

Where he will be reburied is still being decided.

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.

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.

NaNoWriMo Aftermath

Posted: December 4, 2012 in writing, writing update
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This year I had a real crack at doing NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.  The aim of it is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.  I fell a bit short, making 42,000 words.  Still, not a bad effort given the last couple of weeks were spent on doing the final major project for the course I am doing, so it understandably took priority.  The story I am calling Stormraven, and is the introductory story to a fantasy series in the work.  It was always meant to be a novella length story rather than a full novel, so it fitted in well with NaNoWriMo.  Hopefully it wont take too long to finish off.

Then and Now: Ghosts of History

Posted: October 31, 2012 in General
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This is a rather cool thing – a bunch of old black and white photos from WWII were taken and blended with modern day photos taken of the exact same spot.

There is a facebook page for it, with photo albums of more of the composite photos.

New The Hobbit Trailer

Posted: September 21, 2012 in Movies
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A new trailer for The Hobbit is out and I’m looking forward to the movies a lot. Hopefully they can pull it off as well as the did with Lord of the Rings.

Actually, it is not just one trailer. They released it with five variant endings.

Sting:

 

Gollum:

 

Gandalf:

 

Bilbo:

Century old Aussie rules footy film

Posted: September 20, 2012 in General
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Now this is rather awesome.

The Grand Final of the Aussie rules footy season is almost upon us, one of the oldest sporting competitions in the world. As a reminder of just how old it is, recently footage has been discovered of it being played – from 1911. And it is actually only the fifth oldest footage known to exist.

One thing of interest is to see what the people in the crowd are wearing – women in their big hats and men in their three piece suits. It was a different time indeed.

Quotes

Posted: August 11, 2012 in Quotes, writing
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‘I have been successful probably because I have always realised that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.’
– Edgar Rice Burroughs

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