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The doorbell rang yesterday. Usually when that happens it's a visitor for the downstairs crowd who hasn't realised that two doorbell buttons means you have to choose the right one. Occaisionally I get someone at the door asking wierd questions and I'll have to put that down to mistaken identity. Sometimes there's no-one there at all. Having disentangled myself from the headphones, picked myself back off the floor having tripped on he cables, and repositioning te objects I knocked over, not to mention a perilous descent down the steep and treachorous stairs, I opened the door and.... No-one. Brilliant. Well I'll have a look outside to see if anyone gave up waiting for me to extract myself from my home. As it happens, I didn't need to. An energetic young blonde lady leapt into view and breathlessly apologised for not realising I was actually going to open the door. Normally I dismiss charity salespersons but in this case, seeing as she was so pretty and apologetic, I'll listen. To be honest, she hardly got a word in edgeways. Once someone starts trying to tell me about how the planet is going to the dogs I start on my sermon pointing out that things aren't necessarily the way the climate change brigade like to imagine them, rather like I did in the previous blog entry. (Sorry Your Highness, but you really have been listening to a lot of twaddle) It didn't matter because she wasn't going to get any money out of me anyway. So I apologised and promised to give her a plug. That didn't come out the way I intended. New Home For Nessie? Lake Windemere in the north of England is now being searched for a mysterious monster said to be making appearances. It now exceeds the number of Loch Ness sightings. My guess is that Nessie has had kids and they've found themselves a rented lake south of the border. Nice area, plenty of room, only 13,000 years old. Soon to have posters of Che Guevara and traffic cones decorating the depths, not to mention lots of visitors with sonar and underwater cameras. You know, maybe we should just let Nessie alone. I mean she's been swimming around our lakes for millenia now and doesn't harm anyone (except possibly once, during the Iron Age, when a raft was reportedly attacked by a sea serpent, but hey, we all lose our temper sometimes, huh?). Would you like the natural history paparazzi dogging your every move? Or Bill Oddie camped out by the edge of your lake? Or David Attenborough popping in for tea and biscuits? Sooner or later, if the Nessie's are really there, there'll be a newspaper report with a smiling fisherman proudly displaying his mammoth prize catch of the day. That's the trouble with human beings. We like hunting, fishing, trapping, and selling our prey so that we can put our feet up in comfort. The Promised Plug Ladies and Gentleman, pease spare a thought for animals, because we've been a bit selfish towards them. Support the World Wildlife fund and make an animal happy. World Wildlife Fund

Buckingham Palace isn't happy. The climate is changing. And Prince Charles is dumbfounded by sceptics of Global Warming. Look Your Highness, it really is very simple. There are a lot of people claiming CO2 is destroying the planet. It isn't. The CO2 cycle is almost as old as the planet itself, and for most of Earths history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was way above what we have today by orders of magnitude. CO2 has been rising again for millions of years, long before we invented dark satanic mills.. As for passing a 'malfunctioning' planet on to our children, what a laughable concept. Do you really believe we can actually control the Earth to that degree? Of course it isn't malfunctioning. It's changing. It always changes. It always has. If the planet becomes an uncomfortable place for us then it's likely we'll die out, just like any other species whose favourite enviroment has vanished. Can we actually combat climate change? No. We might be able to avoid some of the worst excesses of mankind but keep the planet as a perfect paradise? How? There aren't any levers to puill. There aren't any convenient switches. Making lots of impassioned speeches will only add to the amount of hot air anyway. In any case, CO2 isn't that much of a worry. Other gases, like methane, are far worse. And as human beings grow in number, as we farm intensively more and more, that's where the problem is coming from. Stop telling everyone to use their cars less, and tell them instead to stop farting. In any case, if you feel that badly about it, sell the Aston Martin. Hey, it's a start. I hope that relieves your dumbfoundness. Trouble At Mill I see in the news that George Osbourne is planning to tackle 'benefits lifestyle'. Does he actually believe I have a lifestyle at all? I had to give up flying aeroplanes. I had to give up driving fast cars. Heck, I've even had to give up socialising on a regular basis. Does he think I'm enjoying it? His stated aim is to persuade people to go back to work. Thanks, but I don't need to be persuaded, I need to pay my bills. And it's no good complaining about the money I'm costing the government. What about MP's wages? You earn a great deal more for sitting on your backsides and making our lives difficult. Foossil of the Week They've discovered a new dinosaur. Sadly, it too expired lots of millions of years ago, but this one apparently had a tall spine on it's back to communicate with others of its species. That's what the news report says. So.... These dinosaurs had radio aerials mounted on their backs? Cool.

There was program on last night called Bad Boys of the Blitz which detailed the flourishing crime scene and penal regime of World War Two Britain. Most of this activity had been hushed up by the authorities during the war for propaganda purposes, amnd the point was made that our current problems with law and order date back to this time. I had to laugh though. One old crook was interviewed and with a serious look on his face told us that "whenever there's a war you get outbreaks of violence". No kidding. Meanwhile, Back At The Advertising Agency The bouyant lady who phoned me yesterday afternoon offered me an interview today and instructions on how to find it. The address was in Old Town, so hard could that be? Across the street from the wine bar... Got it... Next to the Italian resteraunt... Got it... Ummm - That's a bike shop, not a plush advertising agency. So I investigated and discovered the sign for the resteraunt pointed to an alleyway in which the correct door could be found. What a maze of little companies and hostelries. Okay, I know this is Old Town, but this is like Charles Dickens with a makeover. So one lad came through the door in jeans and was out again in thrity seconds. Another couldn't remember what he'd done at school two years ago, and a young lady applicant grimaced as she saw me emerge from my interview belly first. She of course was turned out absolutely spot on perfect and so thought herself entitled to stare down her nose. I wonder if she too messed up the slightly misleading application forms? I do hope so. Having met Miss M, the bouyant lady I spoke to on the phone, she really is a first class receptionist. Chatty, able to dismiss scruffy applicants with a single sentence, and always smiling, even when her computer can't handle her any more and misbehaves. Best Interview Ever Looking back over the last couple of years one telephone interview stands out. I rang a garden centre to chase up some grotty little job and a woman answered. She clearly wasn't the boss and had a heavy rural accent, all slow and full of wiltshire inflections. Oh.. Hi.. I'm phoning about the vacancy for Garden Centre Flunky. Is Mr Boss there? "Nah. What do you want him for?" Well I'd like to discuss the vacancy as the advert suggests. "Do you want the job or not?" I'd like to know something about it first. "I think you're wasting my time. Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Yesterday I saw a man with wings. Now that might inspire all sorts of derisive comments but this wasn't an angel sighting (my mother will so disappointed), but a gentleman heading toward the local model store with the wings from a radio control P51 Mustang. A big one too. Six feet across although if any criticism were deserved, U.S. P51's in D-Day colours were never painted an overall sky blue. I also suspect, due to the lack of all the other bits like engine, fuselage, cockpit, etc, that we're either looking at pilot error or a luftwaffe kill. Big model aeroplanes are always impressive nonetheless. I recall walking back from the Downs beside Wroughton Airfield with a very sizeable scale model of a C130 Hercules being put through its paces. That was impressive. Not to be outdone, there was the time I built a big one. I take you back to the days when I worked in returns department for a high street retailer. The premises were an old CD factory and it was a shabby, unloved building, leaking water when it rained and leaking goods when we had temps in. It was so grotty that I had to do something to raise my colleagues spirits. Besides, I was bored. So out waste cardboard I constructed a crude model of a Sopwith Camel. The completed aeroplane was huing from one of the chains dangling from the roof. It got a some muted applause but it wasn't enough. Set up there, lonely, flying in static isolation, I decided it needed a buddy, a rival, someone to contest the skies over the shop floor. So I set about the task of creating a Red Baron triplane. That was fine, except I got ambitious. The wingspan was something approaching four feet. Such was the complexity of getting limp carboard to support its own weight and not droop like a soggy box, it took two weeks to build it. Needless to say, I had to hide from the management. To this day I have no idea whether they knew what I was up to, but I think you can see how lax their management was. So eventually the big day arrived and I hung the mighty Fokker from another chain. Even if I say so myself, it was a triumph. Shortly after I was away for a week on holiday, and when I came back, the triplane had gone. I like to think it magically broke its moorings and flew away to an airfield far, far, away, but you just know that wandering managers pack some mighty flak guns. Big Moves On The Dance Floor Yahoo have posted an article telling us that researchers have discovered that women are attracted by lots of big movement. So hit the dance floor chaps. It's just a matter of making the right moves. What it doesn't say is thase same women are too busy shrieking with laughter to find the object of their attention in any way sexually desirable. Not that I have experience of dancing in a big and silly way you understand. I notice the article doesn't list them. I can't help wondering if the researchers weren't a little distracted during their research. One succesful experiment and to heck with publishing a scientific paper on it?

I don't know about technical faults, but if the britons camped out on top of Hadrians Wall, I'd have to say the whole point of the wall was lost!

Now that I've been put on fortnightly signing again I have to fill in a form declaring what I've done to find work. The first question asks whether I've completed the criteria of my Jobseekers Agreement. This means all those weekly activities that the Department of Work and Pensions insist on even if they won't improve my employment chances one iota. If I were to check the 'NO' box, I would have to fill in a series of searching and embarrasing questions, not to mention concoct some inventive excuses before they stopped my money. If, on the other hand, I check the 'YES' box having completed my activities as I do intend to, I still have to answer one question that asks why I haven't completed my tasks. Are they serious? It's a form that either makes me sign as guilty of failing to meet expected standards, or that I'm lying about whether I have. That's called entrapment. No, I'm not having this. Time to go down to the Job Centre and sort this issue out. To my suprise the lady at the desk advised me not to answer the question at all. Good for her. She's gone up in estimations immensely. I've promoted her from 'vacant android' to 'sensible person'. At her advice I summoned the claims manager from his bunker and had a short argument with him. You know, I don't think he's got any regard for claimants at all. I certainly don't fit his stereotypes. Since he's in a position of influence that means he shrugs and assumes that sooner or later I'll be forced to adopt one. Sorry mate. Sometimes people lose their jobs too. Sleeping At The Wheel Some of you reading yesterdays entry will have noticed a mention of a close call in a car when I dozed off. That really did happen, on my way home from Leicester one dark night. Had I not woken when I did, I would have made the newspapers. That sort of fame I can do without. That had been a long day. To leicester and back in one day to meet friends and such. Although I was used to that, having been on the road in rock bands and such, I thought I was okay. I really did. In fine fettle I set off and nearly taught my car how to fly half an hour later. Luckily there was a motorway rest stop twenty miles down the road and I stopped there for a breather. Funny thing was, I was fine the rest of the way home. All it took was a fifteen minute rest. Very strange. Fire! Our local vandals set fire to the alleyway again last night. The flames were quite spectacular when I spotted them, reaching eight feet high or more. I called the fire service out (and probably so did others) and they had the fire out in seconds. Well done lads. Noise of the Week Definitely goes to the garage across the yard. It sounded like a robot being treated at a dentist without anaesthetic. Extraordinary.

Actually they are, four or five hundred pounds return trip if I don't mind standing room only on a cheap flight surrounded by eastern europeans and their chickens. The cost to LAX was because I was booking on bank holiday.

Life is never safe, is it? You can add burglar alarms, smoke alarms, five star crash ratings on your car, health and safety procedures, licensing, all manner of safeguards, and you still get mown down by a runaway hay bale. Soldiers say that sometimes you a bullet has your name on it. I can't help laughing as remember Blackadder's faithful flunky Baldrick carving his name on one of his bullets so he'd never get hit by it. Quite how you'd carve your name on a hay bale to avoid it hitting you is beyond me. Most of us have close calls one way or another. Some of mine have been potentially dramatic. A couple of times I've been close to mid-air collisions, or in one case, unexpectedly dozed at the wheel of a car one night and nearly propelled myself off the edge of a steep drop onto a motorway. Nothing to be proud of, there's no bravado involved, just errors of judgement that nearly got me killed. Sometimes though you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was never a fan of Electric Light orchestra, but hearing that their cellist and founder member Mike Edwards was hit by a giant hay bale is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Still, let's look on the bright side, he went out with style. On Parole For some reason I've been let off daily signing. I'm back to fortnightly visits to the Job Centre, though I suspect this is a temporary relief from my daily grind. I have forms to fill though. That's never a good thing. If I see a big rotund hay bale in the dole office, I'll know what's coming next. Cuts In Benefits According to the unions, I could possibly lose

The theory presented is all very well, but I notice that the eaten remains were younger. Something similar happened in the aftermath of the Santorini explosion that destroyed the Minoan Empire. With the economy and commercial links gone, the hard pressed survivors turned to eating their children. It's possible that the fertile lands weren't always as fertile as we might expect, and if the inhabitants didn't indulge in agriculture, then any shortfall in foraged and hunted food would necessitate some harsh measures to preserve survival.

My hatred of football is no secret. It's one thing to have a bit of fun kicking a ball around, quite another paying an unhealthy ticket price to enter a screaming contest while a bunch of fashion dummies demonstrate the latest must-have sports wear. Later you'll enter a screaming contest with your kids who demand those fashions to emulate their sporting heroes. It's all just marketing now, isn't it? People seem to worry more about what haircut these people have than the actual score. In the good old days it was all about skill. You had to have a talent for playing. After all, haircuts were pretty standard in those days and teams only changed their colours every century. Sadly my own talent for football was brutally swept aside by a games teacher who marked me as a failure because I wasn't in the school team, as if I was in any danger of being asked. No, that's not correct, the rot set in earlier. I blame my junior school teacher. In Physical Education classes he would have two lads choose their mates alternately and eventually they'd grimace and decide which of the loser brigade was the lesser evil. Coming fifth to a bunch of overweight kids isn't fun. Then again he said I would never make a carpenter but I came top in my woodwork class two years later. Fat lot he knew. I remember bumping into him in a shop and telling him of my triumphal recognition of handicraft skills. Why didn't he believe me? You see, the problem was that I was a clever kid. Clever kids do spelling, maths, homework, and zits. Not football. Being clever is only going to make you popular when your ability to spell certain long words lets the class out five seconds early, and since the average young footballer has that sort of attention span, my tip for any up-and-coming clever kid is enjoy it while it lasts. Now I discover that I could have spared myself the loss of self-esteem by applying some physics to the problem of how to be a good football player. Of course what I actually did was draw some feeble cartoon series in the back of my exercise book, thus I never found out that a scientific equation exists to predict the flight of a football. Factor in the force applied by the foot... The amount of spin.... And there you go. Perfect goals, every time. Well there you go. Scientific proof that football really is as monumentally dull as I always believed it to be. So if you'll excuse me, I have a shelf to mend. So far they haven't invented a mathematical formula for that. Television of the Week This accolade does not go to last nights Great TV Mistakes, a two hour catalogue of minor continuity errors that only a sad loner with a digital recording device and lots of time that could be better spent on Dungeons & Dragons could possibly notice. Never have I been so bored. And that was the first five minutes. Just imagine sitting through the whole show. No, I agree, that was a callous irresponsible thing to suggest. I have a sneaking suspicion the television channel does that on purpose so you watch the football on that other sports channel, which of course you have to pay for.

This is an interesting thread, because invariably christianity takes the credit for changing the Roman Empire. But isn't it true that Christianity was given a Roman character, including provision for earning wealth? That like other aspects of Roman culture Christianity adopted ideas from other faiths? And that local variations were either destroyed or declared heresy, so that a politicised religion governed peoples hearts and minds? Slavery is said to have declined due to christian thought, but manumission had become a popular method of establishing your personal generosity long before that, and as the wars of conquest became a thing of the past, the supply of slaves was no longer inundated by the conquered. Gladiatorial combat did decline in part due to christian teaching, but again, the genre was past its glory days and was declining anyway, for economic and social reasons. The dominance of christianity certainly changed Roman culture to a degree, but I can't help feeling that it was only accentuating aspects that were already there.

Changes are afoot. Lorries bearing scaffolding have swarmed into Swindon town centre and erected makeshift frameworks here, there, and everywhere. There's one across the street from me that looks like a roof repair following our recent strong winds. The old cinema at the bottom of the hill, the one that spent its declining years as a bingo hall, and spent the last decade under offer, has now been propped up with miles of metal tubes. Not only that, but the two metal posts inserted in the pavement just down the hill from me that were put up maybe a couple of years ago, have now been switched on. Motorists can see the LED umbers and know which car park in the town centre has spaces. That's great. Unfortunately the LED's also shine directly toward the slope of the pavement, so we pedestrians get blinded. Official count this morning? All four car parks proudly come up with the intriguing "SPACES", which probably means that despite the advance knowledge, motorists are still going to have to resort to shouting and fisticuffs to get a parking space to pay for. And the council womders why parking fee reductions have not brought car drivers back into Swindon? Icon Of The Week Television is so full of iconic moments and characters. Like the Professionals, when a Ford Granada bursts through a glass screen in the title sequence, or Starsky & Hutch, when David Soul leaps thirty feet to land on the roof of his car sitting down. And so forth. The good news is that I saw Huggy Bear yesterday. Maybe a bit younger, with less of a rubbery walk, but the kid had the image spot on. Not a good look. But he seems happy, and obviously doesn't feel the need to compete for the car parking spacesSwindon offers. I mean, who would want to spend their dole money on a car?

Everything seemed a bit grey this morning. Our first foggy morning in ages. Now that I've signed on at the dole office and wanderd up to the library to see to my jobsearching, the sun has broken out again. Maybe that's not quite world breaking news. Can I do better? Institute Is Falling Down Our beloved Mechanics Institute, a sort of all-purpose community centre built by the Great Western Railway in 1854, is in danger of collapse. The cellars are flooded. The roof is on the point of caving in. Parts of the building are now too dangerous to access. This has to be the most ridiculous situation ever. It's a historic grade II listed building, guaranteed preservation by law, and no-one knows what to do with the place. It's been slowly rotting away since the 70's. The chap who owns it has made a few maintenance efforts in order not to get prosecuted but otherwise this grand old edifice has had it. Okay, maybe that's not quite world breaking news either. Let's try something else. Headline News Local news is all about murder. A man was attacked and found unconcious at his home, later to die of his injuries. Naturally the locals are shocked by this tragedy. The thing is though, why are we so shocked? We know people die by violence. The circumstances of these events make daily viewing on television news, and our entertainment thrives on stories of such activity. Whilst I would hope Swindon isn't slowly metamorphosing into downtown Mogadishu, it does seem that we block out the nastiness and create some sort of 'little world' of our own. It all happens to someone else. Until it doesn't. Then again, whilst for Swindoners the news is disturbing and important, compared to the casualty rate in other parts of the world it's not exactly world shaking news either is it? My World Breaking Shock Horror News Anyone expecting me to announce before the worlds audience that I'm secretly gay is going to be disappointed here. Sorry, guys, I'm straight. So the little runt who decided to lambast me from the safety of his car will have to find someone else to sleep with tonight. Why is this so world shaking? Because some people want it to be. because they make loud noises and a big fuss over it. Because they want to force me to admit to something, so that they gain the kudos of being able to say "We told you so". It has become, sadly, something that fills their dreary little lives with amusement. Seems a bit odd that people aren't really interested in loss of life, culture, property, freedom, or anything else the news finds worth telling us about, but that they'd rather poke their nose into someones private lives. I have to laugh. My private life is about as public as you can get without a crowd of paparazzi following me. You only have to read this blog to know what I'm up to. Everything you ever wanted to know about me. Until it isn't.

As long as historical accuracy is maintained I'm okay with that. Remember that samurai of this period did not use the two swords To know nothing of history is to remain forever a child Cicero

Todays entry is not going to be an epic literary adventure of colossal importance. I'm not feeling well. I have a bug. Not one of those creepy crawly things, though I have evicted a few over the last couple of weeks, but a virus type of bug, a malicious little bacterial psychopath that has reduced me to a coughing, spluttering, dull eyed and slack jawed health problem. It's like being drunk without the fun bits. Also I suspect I won't be waking up with a traffic cone in my bed. This Week On Discovery I see from the news that the Discovery Channel headquarters were in a hostage situation with a gunman recently. In true Hollywood style, the SWAT guys went in and sorted it. That much you probably know already. Perhaps now Discovery will stop doing Shark Week? Someone was bound to complain eventually. Stigness Lost My world is irrevocably changed. The Stig, Top Gear's most famous android, is revealed as Ben Collins. All this time and I thought it was me. All my dreams crushed brutally. That's it, I'm selling my scalextric.

Strictly speaking there was a romano-british farmyard at the bottom of the hill where I live, so I pass it every day. Sadly someone built Swindon on top of it. That said, the area is due for redevelopment soon so with luck some archaeology might turn up.

As if invasions of jellyfish weren't enough. Last night I caught a program on television where some ex-special forces guy zips into chainmail to film vicious gangs of humboldt squid. Apparently these horrible little monsters are spreading like wildfire because they can. We haven't helped of course. I mean, we're always to blame, aren't we? Apparently our fishing habits have caught all the predators that eat squid, so now the little horrors don't have any competitors. They are actually remarkable creatures. They can survive in low-oxygen waters deep beneath the surface. They have some of the fastest growing babies in nature. Although unproven, they seem to have some form of sign language (they can flash colour at each other), and certainly stalk their victims intelligently. Not only that, but this species has the thickest nerve fibres of any creature on Earth. Now if only we could get squids and jellyfish to go to war against each other, mankind will be safe to paddle in the water between shark attacks. Mad Dogs And Englishmen As if getting stung to death by jellyfish, ripped apart by squid, or swallowed in several large pieces by shark wasn't bad enough, I see that half of britons are willing to risk getting sunburnt for the pleasure of cancer inducing suntans. We just don't learn, do we? Only mad dogs and englishmen go out in the mid-day sun it seems. Or then again... Out In The Mid-Day Sun You have to laugh. Now the US mission in Iraq has come to end and everyone is cheerily going home, they still have fifty thousand advisors there to train the iraqi army. One to one tuition? But maybe there's method to this madness. After all, when the squids finally learn how to eat navy seals in chainmail, America is gong to need every ally it can get. We'll be too busy getting suntanned on the beach. Todays Activity Wot a nice day. The sun is shining, the air is warm, the mood is pleasant, and it's nearly lunchtime. See ya later dudes.

You think I take Deadliest Warrior seriously? No I don't, but my worry is that some people will, and so the urban myths about these stereotypes are inflated. That means people like us may well have to convince the believers that their fantasies aren't real. Or don't you take history seriously?

A lovely sunny morning. It really is. Mind you, despite the sunshine, when I left the house earlier today it was very chilly, clouds of breath marking my progress, and if it hadn't been for my steady pace, I would have felt the cold very quickly. Today was upposed to be the day I started my forklifting course. Some people people might not appreciate how momentous this opportunity is. I sepent nearly two decades in warehousing and no-one would train me on forklifts. That's what you get for driving sports cars in a devil-may-care fashion I guess. Previously, my attempts to get a forklift license via the Job Centre have met with failure, because I was too highly qualified. Apparently only dimwits drive forklifts. Any school certificate that says anything other than mentally deficient truant immediately disqualified you. Things have changed. Now that I've been unemployed for two years I must qualify as a hopeless dimwit after all, because I was interviewed for a course ealier this year. End of August, they told me, though you might get a slot sooner. Unfortunately the phone call from the trainers conflicted with a job interview or two, so I had no choice but to leave it until now. No letter? No phone call? What's going on? I rang the number on my original interview letter to find out whether the course was going ahead and where to attend. The lady responsible was on holiday, but I got a partial address, and managed over the weekend to figure out where I was supposed to go. Except it was shut. I turned up, ready to go, eight o'clock this morning, kicking my heels and proving to be an object of curiosity for the workmen across the road loading one of their lorries. After fifteen minutes it was all a bit obvious. I was in the wrong place. Brilliant. Was it something I said? What do people have to do to get a forklift license around here? Hurt Feelings Walking back home yesterday a car passed me. A white Eunos Cabriolet, with the same bodykit as mine, as low slung as mine had been, and the same twelve pounder napoleonic cannon exhaust. A part of me wonders if that was actually the chassis I originally drove away from the dealer with, and that the rusting wreck parked in the yard was in fact a substitute as I once thought it might be, but that's merely suspicion. For all I know, that other car is nothing to do with me or my car ownership woes. But it hurt, nonetheless, watching it waft by with a subdued growl.

This is without doubt the worst program on television. No seriously, it's martial arts fantasy, not history, and any pretensions to scientific analysis are a little dubious to say the least. The sensationalist style is designed to wow the viewer with details of capable and vicious the warriors were, but notice how stereotypical they present them as, and if you look closely, the program is describing expert one on one combats, not the sort of melee the real men fought, and it assumes all of them were equally capable. In other words, it takes these historical stereotypes and both exaggerates their capabilities and places them out of context. For kids only. And adults? Remember to tell your kids to study history. You never know, they might learn something.

Today is Bank Holiday Monday. I can tell that because everyone is wandering about aimlessly. Small kids weave about main roads on bicycles shouting insults at drivers and pedestrians to prove their stature among their tribe. Ethnic inhabitants lean against the walls outside small shops with strange names, and a few of them hurl insults at passers-by, just for something to do. I wandered around the old British Rail Social Club grounds this morning, just for something to do. It's fast disappearing. The sports field is now a meadow of thick grass and thorny bushes. Huge tumbles of foliage sprouting out of the tarmac car park. Piles of brick, rubble, and wood where buildings once stood. Metal posts and chicken wire fences marking out disused tennis courts. I took a few photographs and marvelled at how quickly nature reclaims the places we build on. You might wonder why we're all so bored. There was a time when the Bank Holiday was an event. They always showed a James Bond movie for the adults, something cartoon for the kids. Now I flick through the channels and half of them are showing episodes of the same program, back to back. I mean, they're just not trying any more. Anyone would think they've gone on holiday. What Else? I've done aimless wandering. I've done the shopping. What else is there to do today? Had I known, I could have popped down to Wroughton for a demonstration of English martial arts. The organisers insist there is such a thing, though I must admit I'd never realised that morris dancing was so violent. Actually, I tell a lie, there is a demonstration of broadsword fighting going on too. Now if I could only find that mouthy little rascal who shouted at me this morning, they could put on live action beheadings. Let's see how justice was administered in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, I see some people are resorting to some very strange things to pass the time. Like that woman cuaght on cctv dropping a cat into a wheelie bin, which apparently she thought was a fun thing to do. Then there's that french guy who has become the worlds best at air guitar for the second year running. One wonders if maybe his time would be better spent actually learning to play one for real, but maybe that was too boring for him. There are some good guitar players out there already, so I guess that put him off a little. There was a time when I used to get into a sports car and head off down to the airfield for an hour of magnificence in their flying machines. Not any more. Don't get me wrong, that sort of thing never bored me at all. I think it's just that other people got bored listening to me talking about it. You know what? Being ordinary is soooo dull.

A few miles south of where I live is the site of a battle fought in AD556. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that "Cynric and Ceawlin fought with Britons at Beranburgh". Some time ago I wrote an article about the creation of Wessex. When I came to write that piece, I discovered that a book I'd found at our local library was no longer there. Despite long searches, the desperately needed volume had vanished. To this day it still hasn't been found. With hindsight, I was discovering for myself the dilemma the dark age chroniclers were faced with. In attempting to set down for posterity the history of their time, they had little to go on. They too were missing the vital data. It isn't possible therefore to describe the battle in any detail. No-one is entirely sure where it was fought. No-one knows who won it. Barbury Castle Despite the name, you won't find medieval ruins here. Barbury was an iron Age fort built around 600BC, one of many that sprang up along the Ridgeway, an old cross-country trail that runs below the fort. It was occupied by local britons during the Roman period and it sems the Romans never bothered with it. As we sometimes find in Roman Britain, the Iron Age lived on right beside them. At some point in the Dark Ages, the settlement was turned into a cemetary. American soldiers quartered nearby had begun to bulldoze the ramparts sometime around 1942-43, presumably intending to use the site for similar reasons to the original inhabitants. In doing so, they uncovered skeletons, and Barbury's existence as an ancient monument had begun. You can find Barbury Castle a few miles south of Wroughton in Wiltshire. It's located on the north edge of a ridge on the Marlborough Downs, overlooking the plateau where Wroughton Airfield and the Science Museum Annexe are today. The ditches and ramparts are readily visible from some distance, and were once much taller than they are today, never mind the wooden palisades that were placed on them in their heyday. It's also possible to see more than just the fort itself. A series of iron age field boundaries are visible on the hillside to the east, the remains of a wealthy landowners farm. The hillsides on the north, south, and west edges are very steep, as I can personally attest to. These days it's a country park with excellent views of the surrounding area, easily accessible by car. What The Name Reveals Barbury is of course the name by which the place is known today. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it's given as 'Beranburgh'. Other sources give it as 'Beranbyrig', and a document from 1252 mentions the fort as 'Berebyre'. 'Burgh' is an old english word for an enclosed space which comfortably describes the fort. 'Byrig' means something similar. 'Bere' would suggest barley cultivation and there was once a small medieval village located in the valley south of the fort, but 'Beran' infers that the site was named 'Bera's Fort' at some point, and Bera is held to be a Saxon warlord. Our Dark Age Battle Until a couple of decades ago, the battle site used to be marked on Ordnance Survey maps, so sure were historians of where this battle had been fought. That's no longer true. The nature of events surrounding this battle have become more mysterious and complex as archaeology uncovers more of our past. Two sites have been favoured. First is the traditional site just southwest of Wroughton Airfield, on the sloping plateau below the castle. The other is on the high gound between the castle and Smeathes Ridge, very close to the fort itself. One thing must be made very clear. Whoever defended Barbury fought outside the the fort. There is no sign that Barbury Castle was ever attacked. It was a refuge, as it had always been, a place for the population to shelter from the fighting whilst the warriors gathered outside to do bloody battle with their attackers. It was the same story with the earlier confrontation at Old Sarum. The Saxons were known to have little inclination or ability in siege warfare. In order to emphasise how difficult it was for Saxons to attack hill forts, we need to realise that their armies were small. The idea of a battle conjures in our minds massed racks of thousands very easily. The dark age chroniclers list any number of confrontations, and if the casualties they list are anything close to the truth, then the death rate was horrendous. In fact it's likely the numbers are exaggerated, especially since the chroniclers of the eighth and ninth centuries had little recourse but to set down the heroic stories the Saxons remembered their deeds by. This means our armies are much smaller than we might imagine. Some of these battles may well have been fought with as little as a few dozen men each. Nonetheless the dark age battlefield was not a healthy place to be. Some estimates place the average chance of survival as close to even. Captured troops were routinely slaughtered whilst leaders were more usually on the receiving end of some very brutal and cruel treatment. Saxon armies at this time were developing larger round shields, becoming more and more reliant on shield walls and formations, rather than the looser raiding style of combat prevalent in the struggles of the late 5th century. Spears were not thrown in volleys, but independently, the warrior running ahead of his peers in order to throw rather like a javelin,and with swords being expensive items, spears were still much more common than axes at this time. Although we have unreliable accounts of Romano-British soldiers from the wars of Ambrosius Aurelianus and Germanus of Auxerre in previous generations, it doesn't necessarily follow that the Britons who fought at Barbury were the same, and given the years of peace they had enjoyed, it isn't difficult to think they were ill-equipped to fight the Saxons. Conquest Or Rebellion The most elusive quality about Dark Age history, especially that as we move from the Sub-Roman period to the Saxon Settlement, is that the closer you study it, the less you can be sure of. In conventional chronology, such as obtained from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the West Saxons arrived on the south Hampshire coast in 495 led by Cerdic and his son Cynric. This was a period which according to Gildas, a 6th century british monk who wrote a sermon called De Excidio Britainnae (The Ruin of Britain), was toward the end of decades of violent struggle. We learn that a battle unconnected with the West Saxons was fought at Mons Badonicus which brought forty years of peace, but already, the Saxons were preparing to restart their territorial expansion. German tribes weren't unknown in Britain. Considerable numbers had been enlisted by the Romans to defend Britain and one source describes the Saxons as 'good citizens'. When the pay ran out, these settlers broke into rebellion, and more germanic mercenaries were invited into Britain to help put down the trouble. Despite its limitations, however, the Chronicle provides a picture of the invasion and conquest of Wessex by Saxons who extended their control northwards from the south coast of Hampshire to embrace the entire region. It is however, unwise to assume, as some writers have done, that the battles, which tend to occur in a northward progression, were necessarily fought at a frontier or that they represent the rate of advance from southern Hampshire into Wiltshire and beyond. Victoria History of the Counties - Wiltshire -Vol 2 Archaeological evidence shows that germanic settlements existed along the upper and mid Thames valley as early as the late 4th century. In some cases, the remains exist alongside Roman burials suggesting that they were indeed settlers under Roman patronage. These were immigrant populations in considerable numbers who dominated these central regions. Further, these settlers don't appear to have mixed with the local populations very readily. When the Saxons rose in rebellion against the Romano-British from around 440, there was more resistance than foreign merenaries. Gildas describes resistance led by Ambrosius Aurelianus, possibly with a stronghold at Amesbury, said to be a man of noble Roman family. His successor may have been the elusive Arthur, but at any rate, the victory of Mons Badonicus around the turn of the 6th century brought the troubles in the south of England to an end. At least, that's what Gildas tells us. There some people who believe the date given for his De Excidio Brittanae is much later than it really was. Instead of an estimated origin of around 540, some believe the sermon was written as much as fifty years earlier, thus making Ambrosius Aurelianus the true victor of of the Saxon Rebellion within a realistic time frame. Whilst there are some questions to be asked about the events he describes, Gildas does discuss 'tyrants' known to have been alive during the accepted period . It is tempting to think therefore that the Battle of Mons Badonicus was against the Thames Valley Saxons, rather than those of Aesc and Aella, and that the threat of conquest was therefore from the northeast. It's as well to point out at this time that the old Roman provinces had long since vanished. The Roman presence was organised from urban centres and connected to a government in mainland Italy. Once the Britons had broken away from the Roman Empire, as they had done by the late 440's, there was effectively no central government, and what was left of the former Roman administration had collapsed, although Roman titles of office continued to be used as honorifics, suggesting some level of co-operation against threats. Dumnomnia, comprising the distant southwest of Britain in Devon and Cornwall, had always been treated with some respect by the Romans. That part of the British Isles was never subject to warfare and the occupying forces were light. It would appear that Dumnonia evolved from areas that had willingly co-operated or come to some arrangement with the Romans. In the more central south west, areas had broken into petty kingdoms, whose names are not certain but suggested as Caer Celemion, with a capital at Calleva Atrebatum ("Woodland Town of the Atrebates" or Silchester), Caer Gwinntuic whose capital was Venta Belgarum ("Market of the Belgae" or Winchester), and Caer Glui, with a capital at Glevum ("Bright" - exact meaning unknown, or Gloucester). The borders would have been ill-defined and subject to controversy. There is still some controversy because we don't know with any certainty what political divisions exited. This was not an era of organised government. It must be pointed out that these capitals were the regional government centres set up by the Romans to administer the British tribes. In the Migration Period, these cities were in decline. Without the economy the Romans brought with them, these urban centres were impossible to maintain, reduced to abandonment sooner or later. Gildas refers to the ruins found by the Saxons, and we're also told that these germanic warriors largely avoided them. In all probability disease had something to do with that decision as much as the impression they had been built by giants, and one wonders if this awe was the origin of Geoffery of Monmouths 12th century account of Britain having been inhabited by giants in prehistory. Wiltshire, the county where both the battles of Searobyrig (Old Sarum, 552) and Beranbyrig (Barbury, 556) were fought, was divided between Caer Gwinntuic in the south, Caer Celemion in the northeast, and a section in the northwest dominated by the Hwicce, a tribe who later expanded their territory before Wessex conquered them and whose name has been linked to the Gewisse. In other words, the seperation between Saxon and Briton in the south of England was not as clear cut as elsewhere. Archaeologically the area around Barbury connects with the Saxons of the Thames Valley, and although Saxon remains are plentiful, they're also diverse, scattered, and not especially illustrative of great events. There is however a Saxon cemetary at West Overton, some miles south of Barbury, which includes remains that date from the 5th century, well before the battle. We therefore have Saxons living in Wiltshire long before the Battle of Beranburgh happened. Worse still, the West Saxon leaders have british names, not germanic. By association the Gewisse, as the Venerable Bede calls the West Saxons, have involvement with the Romano-British. This is despite some DNA evidence that suggests a form of apartheid into the Dark Age, with Saxon settlers in the Thames Valley living apart from their Romano-British neighbours. Instead of a campaign of conquest as is usually written of, it might be more accurate to think of this as a campaign of domination. Buried in this curious war is a tale of politics, petty rebellion, and armed struggle. What a great shame then that all we know is that a young Caewlin, later to become one of the Bretwalda's ("Britain Ruler") listed in those Dark Age chronicles, began his military career at Beranburgh. It's hard not to think the victory was his. Or that this was indeed part of a conquest of immigrant warriors. Perhaps, with knowledge that the West Saxons had strong links to the native Britons, we are in fact looking at the new rulers putting down a rebellion. Even if the mysterious Bera was a Briton, a man resisting the rule of his new masters - Even if the britons actually won that fight, seeing as the Chronicle does not trumpet Saxon victory - Barbury became a graveyard.

How much do you take for granted? It's an interesting question. We all bcome comfortable with our daily routines certainly, but the extent to which we assume we understand our world is astonishing. Let me explain. Fifty years ago a British astronomer said that spaceflight was impossible. A hundred years before that, powered flight was impossible, or that travelling more than thirty miles an hour would kill you. A few centuries earlier, we all knew the Earth was the centre of the universe and all stars and planets revolved around us. A couple of centuries before that, we all knew you would fall of the edge of the world if you sailed too far. Any earlier than that and everything was an act of some divine entity. At each stage our world was fixed, certain, and unbelievably wrong. Now mathematicians are telling us that our rules of arithmetic might be wrong. I must admit, I was pretty certain my maths teacher was right, and that our ways of doing sums worked brilliantly. He always made it look so easy on the blackboard, but with all the sacred cows that have been butchered over the last two thousand years, who knows? Perhaps in another century schoolkids will scratch their heads at the clunky and old fashioned method of counting beans we use today. It seems then that rules are only fundamental untl you prove that they're not. At The Check-Out Supermarkets are fast becoming places to socialise. Some host singles nights for crying out loud. On your own? Come and shop this monday evening. Dance the night away to muzak in the aisles.... More often you get a pile of volunteers waiting at the end of the check-out who leap upon your purchased goods with a view to competitive plastic bag filling. They ask you first of course, so you've only yourself to blame when some twelve year old enthusiastically crushes tonights dinner. Yesterday was now exception. A group of young girls waited and asked me whther I'd like my bags packed. Since the goods were crushable, I decided to risk it. A few quick instructions and lo and behold, they got it right. Who says the education system doesn't work? I've met three shoolgirls who speak english. I asked them what all this assistance was in aid of. They told me they were involved in a cultural exchange with India, though I have to say quite why that means they needed to volunteer for bag packing at the supermarket is beyond me. That said, I wonder if these kids realise how lucky they are? Cultural exchanges with schools elsewhere in the world? Nothing like that ever happened when I was young. Then again, even with all these things laid on, extraordinary opportunities for character development at a young age, why is it so many of them paint graffiti near my home? Ride bicycles in a manner liable to frighten pedestrians? Smoke, drink, bonk, steal, shout taunts and insults, and wear ridiculous fashions? I suppose our generation is to blame. We're responsible for teaching these kids how to be mature sensible adults and useful members of the community. So I apologise profusely to those three shoolkids, who will now grow up bitter and twisted because I showed them the wrong way to bag shopping. Aww man, I feel really bad about that. I think I need to drown my sorrows with a pint of cider...

Hey, Doc's Diner is open at last! Let me check the prices... Let's see... Flight to Los Angeles tomorrow... Return train tickets to London.... I'll need to think of an excuse to explain why I'm late signing on the dole... What the...??? Grabbing a bite to eat at Doc's place is going to cost me

Across the country, six million cars are parking themselves in traffic jams on their way to somewhere more expensive than usual. Yes, it's another Bank Holiday Weekend. For those of you who don't understand British culture, it's our way of imitating lemmings. Traditionally the weather always rains on holiday weekends. It's as if the sum effect of all those car exhausts isn't carbon dioxide at all, but water, as the rainclouds make our intended holidays as miserable as possible - unless you happen to be at a music festival that is. It really is a fine day out there. Yesterday tried to be, the sun fighting a life or death struggle with blanketing cloud and succeeding by evening. There was a noticeable change in the air last night as the sun emerged into a pale blue sky, low on the horizon, and lighting everything in golden tones. You could literally smell the warm air. I know this sounds odd, but everyone seemed happy. The neighbours weren't arguing. Houses in the neighbourhodd with open windows and music turned down to a moderate level. Car drivers behaving politely toward pedestrians and letting us cross the road. Or is that because all the idiots are away on holiday? Chilling Out The good weather on this Bank Holiday Weekend seems to be effecting other people too. Miners in Chile are trapped underground and may be there until christmas before rescuers can dig a tunnel to get them out. Yet on the news, they were happy, upbeat, and telling everyone not to worry. I hope they get out okay. After all, the Bank Holiday Weekend doesn't last forever.