caldrail

Caligula wasn't insane as such, though I concede he had some severe personality disorders and a sick sense of humour. As for being too young, that doesn't really explain him. It wasn't his age that was the problem but his personality. Also, he was intensely popular with the masses as the son of a war hero, especially after that dour recluse Tiberius and and his conniving underling Sejanus. In fact, the assassins of Caligula took a big risk in bumping him off. Popularity in Rome counted for a great deal and killing off an emperor the crowd like like isn't goinng to do your own popularity any good at all. You do pose an interesting question though. The Romans actually liked 'safe' leaders, both in politics and war. Antoninus Pius for instance is regarded as one of their best by the Romans and he was something of a cautious character. Pertinax lasted a few months because he was the opposite, mking too many unpopular changes and not listening to advice. He thought he knew better. Don't forget that young men likely to rise to the purple would be brought up in that background, taught and educated to assume a suitable lifestyle and mindset. Of course that doesn't allow for the variations in character, but all too often it was that variation that influenced whether a man was a successful emperor or not. People like Hadrian or Septimus Severus were successful because they understood politics and made sure they knew what was going on, eliminating threats and so forth. They didn't rely on popularity, just on making sure who they could trust. Was that talent or experience? Were those people naturally junkyard dogs or had they learned to be? Either might be true, and just because a particular man is younger deosn't necessarily mean he can't cut it in the big wide world, or more importantly, the cut-throat world of Roman politics. Most emperors before ad271 weren't young anyway. It was their experience and reputations that made many of them suitable candidates. Emperors weren't chosen by a fixed means of succession during the Principate - it was all a matter of reputation, popularity... or if you like, celebrity status. Or perhaps how many soldiers were standing behind you. Strength of character counted for a great deal, and so did the support of the Legions. That after all, is why Emperors were keen to court them wit donatives and wage rises. They were bribing the soldiers for support. Think on this. Didius Julianus came to power not by popularity or with a bunch of rmed men, but because he answered the Praetorians offer to sell the throne. Although the man had a successful political career behind him and thus something of a reputation, his character was not impressive. neither was his support, because he hadn't built any, he'd simply written a cheque to become emperor. I do agree Caligula would have died a violent death sooner or later, but thats because he upset people rather than because of his mental state. He was an emperor, a man above all others, in a society where wealth and status really did seperate you from the common ruck. In the same way that we read and raise eyebrows at the antics of modern day celebs, so the Romans did with theirs. The only difference of course was that their celebs had men with swords to call on.

So far this year I 've been no further up on the Marlborough Downs than Barbury Castle. Once the fog had lifted, I decided it was time. The call of the Downs is peculiar to those who know it. There's a strange sense of timelessness up there. At first glance it's nothing more than rolling hills, weatherbeaten stands of trees, and farmland, but then the isolation of the area gets you. I'm not the only one who finds the solitude of the Downs so engaging. There's a memorial stone to a hillwalker of the Victorian period near Barbury. Mr Morris and I both share an affection for what is closest to wilderness in our area. People have lived on the Downs since the Ice Ages. Neolithic flint mines, Iron Age hillforts, Saxon lynchetts, and lost medieval villages can be found. Now it's a haunt of the local shepherds and hikers like me, at least until April 30th when it becomes legal for dirt bikes and 4x4's to drive up and down the Ridgeway, reckoned to be Britains oldest track. For now though, the noise of traffic is too far away. What a difference it makes. The silence is incredible. Slowly you become aware of the chirping birdsong, the odd whooping calls of small hawks, the ugly chorus of crows, even the gentle breath of wind, and the only intrusion is the transatlantic white speck with its fiery rumble so far above me. Low Flying Airliner My reverie was interrupted by the very loud sound of an airliner somewhere behind me. Suddenly I realised he must be low. I search the skyline and there it is, an airbus descending through the haze the other side of Barbury Castle. He's too far east to approach Wroughton Airfield. Draycott Foliatt is way too short for an aeroplane of that size. Please don't tell me this is a crash about to happen? He's a few hundred feet up and my mouth is wide open. Then he begins to climb. I hear the engines spooling up, I see the undercarriage fold away. He turns west for Lyneham Airbase, leaving me wondering if this was a practice emergency, or else perhaps the worst example of navigation ever. Don't worry mate, I won't tell anyone. New Species Found! I saw the monstrous creature on the road outside Wroughton Airfield. The old airbase was built in the second world war to house a maintenance unit, who took aircraft fresh out of the factories, fitted them with military stuff, and sent them to frontline squadrons. The Royal Navy still use a yard on the southeast corner and some of the hangars house local businesses. A taxi driver slows down beside me and with a cheery smile asks "Hey mate, do you know where Swindon Carting is?" You just passed it, there. That old hangar. That's my good deed for the day. But I also spot the large mammal sneeking in through the fence. What a monster! I've discovered a new species of giant fox. I name it Foxus Megabiggus. More Low Flying Walking home - or should I say struggling home? - I pass Wroughton Airfield again. A group of radio control enthusiasts are flying their creations and I cannot believe my eyes. A humungous model of a Lockheed Hercules four-engined transport was circling around making the loudest racket you imagine. You have to admire the work the creator did on this model, it really is huge. The Hercules is a familiar shape to me, I've seen them flying over Swindon for forty years, but it was spooky watching this familiar shape fly at what looked like twice the speed of the real thing. It takes me back to a Great Warbirds air show one year in the 90's, here at Wroughton. Despite the low cloud, the RAF transport plane gave a display with its wingtip barely above the grass. The Hercules, or 'Fat Albert' as we call them, certainly proved agile for its size. Happy Ending of the Week It seems after checking the ordnance survey maps that my day on the downs was a thirty mile round trip. The frog hadn't made it across the path. Heading for the pond the other side it lay there clutching the grass lifelessly, cooked dry by the sun. He was only three yards away from safe wetness. Well, the happy ending to my day was that I made it home, and drop bruised and battered into a hot bath. Oh no... I caught the sun... I look like a lobster...

There is one spot in Britain at least _ I don't remember where it is - that the soil is forbidden from being disturbed too deeply either by archaeology or development, because the Romans were smelting metals on the site and levels of arsenic and other poisonous materials are too high.

At this time of year the weather can vary a lot here in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire. Today the morning began with chilly fog - it's lifting already as I speak - and yesterday we had bright sunshine which left me sweating despite the cool air. Taking a stroll around Coate Water I was struck by how Meditteranean the water was, a nice shade of blue, enlivened by silvery reflections off the ripples caused by the waterfowl on the water and the dog chasing them away from the bank. Usually the water is something closer to battleship grey, which I suspect has something to do with the normal sky conditions. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day. Yesterday I met Alfie. He's a great dane, all nine and a half stone of him, ten months old and for him the world is something fresh and exciting to experience. Actually, he's a dog in lovely condition and despite the brashness and curiosity of his age a well mannered canine. Probably just as well. I got the impression his owner was struggling to get Alfie to go home. So many trees, so many smells, so many people to say hello to. Car of the Week What a car. It's an old Volvo, the one with the really awkward horrible shape? Better than that, it's painted baltic grey with some clever primer highlights. The real showstopper though, is the custom wheels. With a stroke of genius the owner took some shopping trolley wheels off a mini and bolted them on. The whole ensemble now resembles a neglected dog kennel nailed to a kiddies pedal car. Bit small for Alfie though.

The Gauls I imagine. He was conquering their homeland after all

Possible? Almost a certainty. Roman emperors sought military glory to underpin their reputations with the public, to give themselves political credibility, and in some cases to impress other powers. It was after all to establish himself as a true Roman conqueror in the traditional sense that Claudius undertook the invasion of Britain. After all, Marcus Aurelius wasn't by nature a military man. He was known as a philosopher so he definitely had other reasons to personally lead troops than the pursuit of glory. With Marcus Aurelius however, beware of considering his reign in isolation. Hadrian had established a lasting peace previously both by the adoption of certain frontier policies but also by appeasement. Such tactics were bound to have a limited life and in Marcus Aurelius' reign, the dam burst. Antoninus Pius in my view did little more than live in Hadrians shadow, remembered as a great emperor because he so little to upset anyone, and certainly wasn't a man concerned with the frontiers in the way Hadrian had been. This lack of concern was bound to encourage foreign powers and alliances and eventually Marcus Aurelius was left to pick up the bill.

Last night I watched a program by a tv & film actor who plays hard-man roles and wanted to know the truth about the kind of men he portrays. The gentleman he interviewed in that episode, now a reformed character, once 'taxed' drug dealers with intimidation and violence. The program was intended to shock law abiding people about the reality of the dangerous men we so rarely encounter. The strange thing is that I wasn't shocked at all. Even when the character showed the passionate depth of his inner demons for the benefit of the camera, I saw something I'd seen in others before. Is it my age and experience? Possibly there's an element in that, though in all honesty violence has never been a large part of my life. It is true I've associated with some people who were certainly more dangerous than me from time to time, but that association was superficial in nature. The danger was always somewhere else. I could go into a lot of anecdotes about the aggression I've witnessed over the years, but why bother? You've seen it too. Violence is something deep in our animal psyche. It's a hunting instinct, a survival mechanism, a method we inherited from our genetic ancestors for sorting out who bonks who or where to put the fence. This is the huge problem with mankind. The one thing that ensured we went to the top of the food chain was the very same thing we now despise in ourselves. And guess what? It appears this inner conflict between our instincts and our social conciense is nothing new. Crusaders may have broken the commandments by killing men, but since it was Gods work against heathens, they rationalised it and considered the entire act self-absolving. Buddhist Samurai fretted about their lethal lifestyle. They considered that the greatest punishment a samurai could receive for killing was to be reborn as a samurai. It seems then that we have a love-hate relationship with our violence. Some enjoy it, others disdain it. Never be suprised by it. Nature likes a broad range of behaviour in social animals. It ensures the tribe has all the temperaments they need to survive as a group. However much we like to kid ourselves that we're somehow noble or special, we're still the same nasty animal under the skin. It's just that some are nastier than others. Upset of the Week It seems the alsatian dog that often gets it's exercise along the alleyway behind my home has decided the territory belongs to him. The mongrel being walked the other way didn't agree. The two dogs both decided they didn't like the other, and immediately began barking and straining at their leads, both owners shouting and cursing at their dogs to shut up and behave. Good grief, hounds, you can both widdle on lamposts here. Everyone else does.

What is a ghost? Is it a remnant spirit? A recording of past events imprinted on the solid reality of our surroundings? A fold in space that allows vision of past events? or just bats in the belfry? In mosty cases I suspect its no more that our pattern recognition system working overtime. There was one case in England recently though where a cctv caught some guy in tudor costume peering out a fire escape door. When checked out, the guards found that no-one had accessed that part of the building. Spooky! Actually, come to think of it, didn't someone take a photo of a phantasm staring out of a window just recently?

A lot depends on the personalities involved. Few humans are completely compatible, and the Roman system was designed to have a co-ruler as a brake to your own excess. As far as I can see (please put me right if I'm not) the Romans were happy with dual leadership for the simple reason it prevented dictators - the reign of Tarquinus Superbus had made a huge impression on Roman culture. Sometimes it worled, sometimes it didn't. When you take into account that the republican democratic system requiring co-equal consuls to run the cities affairs, it becomes obvious that the system worked well enough for centuries. It was more to do with imperial periods that the system didn't work too well because the co-equal rulers weren't required to get along for one year, but were sharing ultimate power by thier own agreement so the temptation to push the other aside and enjoy the waelth and status alone must have been immense. Not only that, these men had risen to command by the usual Roman intrigues and politics, not by the consent of the people, so they were less inclined to co-operate right from the start.

I've given this some thought. My answer isn't something entirely Roman at all. The year is AD 825. Egbert, the King of Wessex, has been campaigning in Cornwall to add the realm of the Welsh Princes to his own. However, he also knows that Mercia under King Beornwulf is threatening to annexe the disputed northern territories of Wiltshire. So he marches northeast to confront Beornwulf. As it turns out, Beornwulf did not attack in his absence. He was nervous of the superiority of West Saxon soldiery and may well have been waiting for reinforcements. The armies met at Ellandun, the precise location no longer known, but thought to be between Wroughton and Lydiard Tregoze (Now parts of Swindon, a clue to why I like this idea). Beornwulf and Egbert deployed either side of a shallow valley through which a stream ran. The Mercian army was superior in number, as much as ten times as strong according to the Winchester Scribe. Egbert wasn't keen to waste his army fighting that lot. He held a council and suggested they should give the territory to Mercia hoping that Beornwulf would go away satisfied. The thanes of Wessex were outraged, and demanded to fight. Egbert was outvoted by his noblemen. The battle began with Wessex mounting an attack on the larger Mercian army. The fight went on for hours on a blazing hot summers day. More men were said to suffocated on sweat than blood. All acoounts mention the great slaughter that took place at the stream which ran red with blood. It was a victory for Wessex. After a blood and guts brawl that had lasted so long the morale of the Mercians broke, and the chronicler describes Beornwulf as taking to flight for all he was worth. It's a little known battle, not well documented, but a highly significant victory for Wessex nonetheless as it secured their borders against Mercian ambition. You want rapped knuckles? Just ask Beornwulf.

If you've seen the film Ghostbusters you'll know it starts with a scary ghost in a New York Library. Well, Swindon isn't exactly spook central, and most of our ghosts inhabit pubs. However, according to our local paper, 'Ghostbusters' have been to Swindon to exorcise a haunting on somebodies premises. Thats a huge leap in ghostly goings on. Imagine the usual amount of supernatural activity in Swindon is.. say... this Mars Bar. This latest event reveals a Mars Bar with... 20% extra, free. This is a huge portent. Swindon is headed for a supernatural meltdown of biblical proportions. We are talking 'end of the world', Wrath of God stuff. Giant Marshmallow men will be grinning as they stomp on Swindonians. The best bit is since I've locked myself out of the flat occaisionally, I'm expecting a cataclysmic encounter with Sigourney Weaver. Unless of course, the whole thing is nonsense. Conversationalist of the Week As sometimes happens, the library computers are offline this morning. We all sit around reading books and so forth waiting for some geek downstairs to realise you have to plug them in. Trouble is, there's a young man of dubious intellectal capacity who just won't shut up. He can't log on. He can't log on again. Why can't he log on? Did you see the football last night? He's got two weeks off College. Hey, he's logged on. He's logged on everybody. Yeah, but Man United lost against them last year... There's going to be another ghost in Swindon if he doesn't shut up.

Thats good to know. I get a warm feeling that in two hundred years from now, millions of school-kids in their flood shelters will be sitting down to cyber-lessons with their virtual teacher discussing the deep, inner meanings and relevance of a twenty-first century blogger named Caldrail. Should be nice short lesson then

Cheers A. Sorry to hear you won't be along, we'll send you a St Albanes slave (or maybe just a postcardium). In theory there's no reason why I shouldn't be along.

Back in my sadly deluded childhood I used to read books. No really. In one of them, there was an account of the life of Jesse James, or more pointedly, the end of it. Now Jesse wasn't a Scottish homosexual as you might expect, but an American unemployed irregular soldier who took up banditry to pay the bills in the 19th century. Stranger than that, he became famous for being shot dead from behind by one of his mates. Anyway, yesterday I saw a tv film about the man, and in typical modern Hollywood style he was depicted as a pretty boy hero, a martial arts expert, turning into a stuntman periodically n an effort to wreak vengeance on the dastardly railroad baron. Its that birth of a legend. Robin Hood made the same transformation. We know him as the dispossessed Earl of Locksley, defender of the downtrodden Saxons against their Norman overlords, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. So why did Errol Flynn burst into wealthy Nottingham Castle and hand back the stag he'd just illegally killed? Maybe things were different in the days of Black & White. That happens to be my point. Look how these people change. They start as social undesirables, and end up becoming noble heroes that fight for the right to give movie stars two years work. It's occured to me that as a social undesirable that won't conform, I stand a great chance of being remembered as a famous hero in two or three centuries.... Caldrail Hoody - The hero that claimed from the state and gave to the shops.... Switch Off of the Week On the news I saw something about the Great Switch Off. Everyones supposed to turn their lights off to demonstrate they want action on global warming. Apparently this started two years ago in Sydney and no-one's found the on-switch since. This does mean of course that since the climate change brigade can't see anything in front of their face, they're not going to able to change anything whatsoever. After all, is it not true that ideas come with light bulbs?

So where was I at 09:25 this morning? Bet you can't guess... Oh, ok, you can. And you're right I was, waiting for the security guard to open the doors. This morning the security guard began opening the doors, beginning with the coffee bar. A certain young man determined to be first up the stairs, brushed past and rushed inside, making his way around the back of the stairwell. Unfortunately on this occaision, he hadn't noticed the other guard opening the door to the stairway at the same time. So we all tramped up the stairs whilst he rushed round to see the queue meandering to the third floor. You have to admire his keenness. Driver of the Week Leaving the library I crossed the junction and began making my way to the hill. Its a busy circular convergence of routes and as the traffic lights changed, the usual chariot race to get the best lane on exit took place. One driver had obviously gotten bored with waiting at the lights and opened a can, which he chucked out the window as he floored the accelerator. It made quite a racket as it bounced on the tarmac. Thing is, we don't see much of that behaviour in England. Littering is after all a heinous crime second only Warming The Climate, and punishable with a hefty fine. But then he was driving an ordinary car, so I guess in the eyes of some people it's more acceptable.

Brilliant. Now I'm poor again. Sheesh...

Understand where you're coming from. As for me, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I'm writing a novel about Ug, the Neolithic detective, finding out who killed the Neanderthal next door with scientific logic and reasoning. I'll be rich beyond my dreams...

The opening of the library is my daily ritual these days. I come in and browse the selection of paperback novels. Ye gods there's some rubbish getting printed these days. A lot of it is genre based. Half a dozen tales about the Roman period are there, and the details on the back are sounding very similar... Johnius Smithio the detective... On the trail of the man who killed the other one... blah blah blah. I've heard all this before. Doesn't sound like a likely scenario anyway. Ooh look, a novel about Egypt. Johna Smithra the detective... On the trail of the man who killed the other one... blah blah blah. Sounds familiar. Didn't know the ancient egyptians had a police force... Lets see.. Whats this? A novel about mysterious goings in a modern greek monastery. John Smith the detective, on the trail of - Lets not bother eh? Or this one? A novel about mysterious parchments, mysterious hooded men, and a trail that leads to the legendary Sword of Excalibur... John Smith the detective.... On the trail of the man who.... Sigh. Is it just me or are novels getting just a bit less novel than I remember them? Keeness of the Week The security guard finally overcame his lethargy and opened the doors. The coffee bar downstairs was first to open. One young man rushed forwards. Wow. He must be thirsty. Then, before the guard pushes back the doors to the stairway, the young man reappears from the other side and bounds up the steps. Well done. You managed to get in around twenty three seconds sooner than the rest of us. Very impressed. Especially since the guard happened to open the door a minute early and you can't access the internet until nearly 09:31. I amble my way upstairs. Choose a PC, and log myself in. He rushes past behind me, keen to find a PC he can log onto....

No, thats a romantic vision created by authors dating back to the middle ages. Medieval writers loved romance, and did after all reinvent Arthur as chivalric king. In all these stroies the activities of the hero,which may have fallen short of truly christian behaviour, were given nobility of purpose if not status, and the legend that Robin Hood was the dispossessed Earl of Locksley is typical.

According to the news, there's a record number of people being given counselling to make them give up being gay and go straight. You know, I can't help feeling all this gay stuff is just ridiculous. To be fair, I don't know a lot about it (don't want to, it sounds a bit undesirable to my traditionalist view) but having been on the receiving end of ignorant opinion depicting me as one of their number, I do have some sympathy for those that choose that lifestyle. Thats the trick isn't it? It's a lifestyle choice. I see all this justification about chromosomes and such but such behaviour is a cultural choice. I was watching a program about Japanese Samurai warriors the other day. It turns out that they were advised to sleep with their swords, because wives could not be trusted. Further, they fostered close and sometimes oddly romantic relationships amongst each other, to compensate for their lack of warmth in female realtionships. They didn't see it a gay issue, it was simply what was acceptable and normal to them. I understand that most gays in the modern west are 'happily' married with kids, leaving their real proclivities to a seedy and risque secret life. Fact is, many of them go about their business right under the noses of their mates. There's a gay club at the bottom of the hill where I live, but you never see anyone coming in or out. When I used to work for one particular warehouse, I was labelled gay. Now an insult or two means nothing, but the lads decided that since I wouldn't 'admit it' (or accept their opinion was superior because they were higher in a pecking order more like) I got a whole load of grief for the better part of a decade. There really were some malicious characters in there. The funny thing was, one morning one of their mates whom they socialised with on a regular saturday night turned around and told them he was gay, moving out of his girlfriends house to live with his boyfriend, and thanks for all the pints. I wish I could have seen their faces. I suppose I could beat my chest like they do and boast in true celtic fashion about who I slept with, but then gentlemen don't tell. Truth be told, I'm just not interested in their pecking order. Just their girlfriends. Seven Year Itch of the Week Well it getting obvious isn't it? I'm at that delicate middle-aged point of desperately hanging on to whatever youth I have left. I also think employers are partly to blame. They seem so determined to turn me in to something else, to sweep away my happy individuality and replace it with banal conformity. No, I won't conform. My toilet seat is staying up.

What did those women look like? Well... like a bunch of women out jogging really. I suspect one or two of them enjoy their own reflection, but actually there wasn't one that caught my eye. Is that why she called me a nutter? Actually that doesn't bother me. The world needs nutters. How else could she possibly justify being superior if it wasn't for nutters like me? Silly woman ought to thank me. I've given her life meaning. I also think I've become a bit more aware of these snide opinions. There was a time I would have blasted past in a red sportscar and not even noticed her. But I daresay she would have said a few words about that too

As a small point of interest, the casual use of a descriptive word is typical. In real life, we do the same. It's just that when it comes to studying things we like to apply strict definitions and titles and fill forums arguing over it

Doesn't sound right to me, I can't imagine a centurion being lackadsaisical about whether pilum shafts aren't straight. Having said that, the ease of repair is a distinct possibility. A hard shaft might break off whereas a softer one bends. The former needs blacksmith time to replace, the latter a few seconds of cursing and fiddling.

Women are such fickle creatures. In Newcastle, the opinion of one young lady who passed me by was to say "Ooh not him, he's fat" Now that I'm officially fat, I can no longer attract women in Newcastle. Sigh. Scratch Northumberland off my list. Yesterday afternoon I took a stroll down that road where all the posh houses are, the one that leads to Coate Water. A group of ladies jogging in their lunchtime began discussing my finer points. as they approached in the opposite direction. That conversation didn't last long, and one lady with little restraint reckoned I was good all the way until my neck. I'm also a nutter apparently. Sorry, do I know you? Obviously now I'm officially ugly (and officially insane). Sigh. Scratch Swindon off my list too. Still, lets not be pessimistic. Since the two local opinions are almost diametrically opposed, I've calculated that the woman most likely to think I'm acceptably ordinary lives in Sheffield. Sorry Sheffield. You're officially fat, ugly, and not right in the head. Just one consolation - Swindon wants to be just like you. Trust me, it's well on the way. Weather Forecasts of the Week Weather reports are so amazing. In our modern high tech wolrld, we have satellites recording images of whats going on in the world's climate. Computers that distill that information and make scientific predictions about what weather to expect tomorrow. Not only that, we have weather forecasters that take those results, screw them up, throw them over their shoulders, and completely blow it on national tv. It happened this week. The weekend shift on the weather report predicted a dire Monday and Tuesday. Grim wet weather set to dampen British spirits. Oh? So far Monday and Tuesday turned out to be gloriously sunny. Not that warm perhaps, but thats down to the time of year (or perhaps the frosty young woman who thinks I'm ugly).

By sheer good fortune I saw this last night. I suspect the 'realistic Roman dinner' was nothing of the sort (no slaves, a single linear table with modern upright chairs, no additional entertainment - apart from the Marquis of Bath that is). I wish he served the the prototype of the ejaculating cake. That would have been fun, watching cake shrapnel take out the guests in one big explosion. He did cheat there didn't he? Don't see any mention of dry ice in Roman literature. What was interesting, and indeed the primary motive of Hestons attempt to recreate the dinner in the first place, was the aspect that food should not only be interesting and tasty, but an experience in itself. There he obviously succeeded. It struck me though that creating this meal wasn't exactly cheap, and as always, the indulgences of the wealthy minority of Rome get all the attention.