caldrail

Thats the problem with What If situations, you can ignore how the world actually is and end up with an episode of Star Trek. Allegorical, and entertaining up to a point, but without any sense of reality the whole story is no more than a fairy tale. Possibly my views are different to most peoples, but the story is actually intended to depict a 'real' alternative history then human dynamics cannot be ignored. People act in certain ways, cultures come and go, and when the limits of society are exceeded it fragments. Of course, if you prefer science fiction, then be my guest, as long as the story is honest about what it is.

They had a certain style of combat on the battlefield depending on technology, fashion, and availability. There were things that were desirable - a good position on the battlefield, keeping your cavalry on the wings to utilise their mobility and counter enemy outflanking moves, keeping infantry in groups to allow them to support each other etc. Thats all very well, but if the enemy does something you're not expecting they have the initiiative. Ancient warfare is sometimes expressed as a competition between equipment much like modern warfare can be. Not so. Whilst it does make a difference, in the ancient world a man with a sword is often as godd as any other, including your enemy. So what advantage can you find? Position, timing, ambush, ruse, feint - any sort of trick to lull the enemy into a bad situation. Remember Lake Trasimene, with Hannibal tying torches to cattle to make the romans think they were leaving?

No, the problem with Jaguar is that they lost their way in the 70's. Up until that point, they built proper sports cars like the SS, C Type, D type, XKSS, E Type etc alongside their luxury models. You might even include the unsuccessful XJ13. When they got to the XJ12, everything went wrong. Instead of finishing it as the mid-eingined supercar rival to lamborghini it was initially intended to be, it was turned into a budget luxury saloon and boy was it bad. Instead of selling cars to sports car enthusiasts, Jaguar sat back and sold cars to the golf club. They still do, and somehow those Aston Martin clones they build just lack conviction. AD is of course a paid up member of the golfing set and therefore finds the less sporty Jaguars as desirable. Actually, it isn't really the car. AD is trying to pee me off for reasons known only to him. I don't get introduced to anyone, I don't get asked to attend meetings, I'm not involved in anything remotely resembling management - Lets be honest (because he isn't) - He had no intention of training me to replace him. Perhaps I should sue him for loss of earnings? Enjoy your Jagwah AD.

I came across a quaint little tale recently and I'm curious to know if there's any truth to it. The story goes like this... Back in the closing days of the Ottoman Empire, there was a palace fire and a french embassy official happened to see a looter carrying off a thick volume entitled 'History of Rome', supposedly written by Titus Livius and thought lost for centuries. He haggled with the man but since he didn't have the asking price, he made an agreement with the turk to meet and buy the book. The turk never showed up. Quite how the sharp eyed official recognised the book for what it was supposed to be is anyones guess, particularly since this was during civil disorder, but I'd like to know if there's some basis to this tale. Anyone know anything?

Walking along an old railway cutting near where I live, I noticed the rocks had fallen away. Now I know the rocks of that particular place were once the sandy floor of a shallow sub-tropical sea during the Jurassic Age, so out of curiosity I clambered up to where the rock face has come away and examined those rocks for any sign of fossils. As much as I'd like to find something special, it wasn't likely. This area was an archipelago back then, a coral reef to the northwest, and right here a seaside paradise like the ones we spend loads of money to get drunk beside every year. As I look underneath the broken surface, my eyes open wide. The impression of an ammonite shell is clearly visible. These 'squids in spiral shells' are extinct, and if you look carefully, fairly common in the fossil record, though the vast majority are no more than an inch or two across. Not this one. At least twelve inches across - a very impressive specimen. And very missing. I looked around the rubble but no sign of it. Gone. Sold at a carboot sale and propped up beside someones fireplace in all likeliehood. No-one else will see it. It makes me wonder how many historical artifacts, so vital to our understanding of times past, have been hidden away for the pleasure of the selfish collector. The modern trade in Egyptian antiquities is well known, although I suspect the great majority are fakes sold to the gullible. About three years ago I ventured into the pub up the hill. That pub has a reputation for violence, not entirely undeserved, but on this particular night I got talking to some old chap. He mentioned he knew a secret, and I casually enquired further. "I know where to find the tomb... of the..." He had to think about this bit.. "Ancestress." Now this was way cool. Sensing this chap was out of his depth, I pressed him for information. Where is this tomb? "I can't tell you, its too dangerous." So you're an adventurer then? You're one of those blokes who smuggles stuff from Egypt? "Yes, Egypt." He agreed, unable to think of something more original, "I rescue stuff from Egypt, I'm the Del Boy of the Desert, crossing the sand dunes." In your Reliant Robin? "Yes." But you've got no suntan? "I go at night." You do meet interesting people in pubs... My Week at Work My boss has finally given up trying to sell his BMW to me. Why he thought it would give me managerial credibility I don't know, I'd look more like a drug dealer. So now he's trading it in for a Jagwah. I know because he tells me. On the hour, every hour. Worse still, we've dscovered that a major contract has been lost and that means our client-specific stock has to be relabelled. Literally thousands of labels to be applied. Plenty of opportunity then for AD to discuss the merits of Jagwahs. I'm in Hell....

It does make me wonder about people sometimes. Over here in Blighty there's a 'newspaper' called the Daily Sport (invent your own puns and witticisms). Its full of adverts by women seeking sex. Also you sometimes get a page full of grannies trying to find young men for romps and good times, one 77 year old claiming that these lads will discover her experience. There's an advert by a middle aged woman saying she likes to dominate and any respondees must be respectable and call her mistress. Now I don't buy this paper (wouldn't want to be called a hypocrite) but our tame forklifter does. What on earth for? There's no news in it, and the sport pages are the last five or six. I look askance at our workmate and wonder....

63%. I lost a few men but I think I got away with it....

I've just come across an interesting snippet. The Gauls had developed their own coinage by caesars time inspired by greek coins they encountered during their expansive phase in the 4th century BC. Vercingetorix doesn't appear on very many many of them at all. Granted this might be the restricted sample found, but it does also suggest he wasn't as powerful or popular as generally believed.

There is of course the view connected with that concerning human mental processes. Since we're all pretty similar there's bound to be a tendency to think of the same things. I don't know how true that is, but I remember a game I once set up for sci-fi players. They all had the same map and were told to go out and colonise the nearby systems (and hopefully argue a lot about territory - the whole point of the game). Each player without exception went exactly the same way! The way they perceived the map unconciously suggested to them all that a certain route would be best.

Earlier this morning I opened my emails. As usual there was the usual collection of unsolicited and unwanted stuff from people I've never heard of and probably don't exist. Salvador Hale - Male Enhancement Hampus Showers - Arissa says I feel tight in her now Shan Spivey - Enter her with your throbbing manhood Grant Saunders - She loved my large manhood Abhijit Lukic - Non stop bedroom action And so on. Those were the polite titles too. Who sends all this rubbish? Does anyone seriously believe I want to look at *or*-mail like this? There's currently 156 emails unread in my bulk folder and its all stuff like this or worse. Whoever is sending this garbage - Give up. I'm not interested. There was a guy at the place I used to work for who regularly downloaded porno-images. Another chap had tons of jpegs on his work PC that showed women in various silly poses. Why do people enjoy this stuff? I just don't get it. Its a photograph, an image, and its not even real since its deliberately staged. I just cannot understand what there is to get excited about. Its an obsession with sex at the end of the day. These are people that boast about their sex lives but don't actually find anything fulfilling in it (if indeed their partners exist and actually bother with them). People who may well sneer at me slobber and grin over a few distasteful jpegs instead. You're way sadder than me, lads. Sorry, you just are.

I agree. Although greek/roman vessels travelled far into the indian ocean and indeed may have been travelling as far as china in some very isolated cases, this was happening much later than the period you suggest. The first real expansion of greek culture occured through the efforts of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, again much later. Akso, whilst there was a period of exploration in ancient china I don't think it was that long ago, and there's no record they ever sailed into the mediterranean. Is there any possibility of the symbols depicted being nothing more than a coincidential resemblance? It seems hugely unlikely that there's a common root to both scripts.

The problem with the conventional view of Vercingetorix is Caesar. He liked to exaggerate his achievements and they wouldn't have been so impressive had the gaulish leader not been such a noble and capable leader. To be honest, he may have been, after all he did defeat Caesar once - something which Caesar never forgot as it cast doubt on his reputation as an invincible general. The treatment that Vercingetorix got after capture wasn't just about him being a man who resisted Rome - it was about a man who had resisted Caesar.

Not entirely so I'm afraid., Only the external threat of roman aggression allowed Vercingetorix to unite some of the Gauls. Don't forget, there were gauls who were perfectly happy to assist Caesar in return for being left alone. Also, the alliance of gauls under vercingetorix only happened at the end of the campaign.

Cue upbeat theme music and close ups of scantily clad women between clips of Caldrail goofing Hi there, and welcome to Eye on Rushey Platt. I'm your host Caldrail. In todays entry - Did Miss L do that to her hair on purpose? Why has AM been banned from his favourite library PC? Does DS know I've heard her mocking me as she walks past my home on Friday night? Is there any truth to the rumour that SB is about to get his revenge? But first, a shocking new development down the road. There's a commercial building that used to be a music store, more recently an internet cafe, and left empty when its owner decided to sell the property for the outrageous price of

I'm saying nothing...

When you read these books, or any other source of such information, there is something important you need to understand. Warfare is not a game of chess. Whether on land, air, or sea there is no standard countermove to any action inititiated by the enemy. Sure, there are things that will probably work and certainly those that won't, but so much depends on circumstance. Generals who rely solely on detailed prepared plans are likely to come unstuck against those think on their feet. For an excellent overview of control anf the psychology of the ancient battlefield I recommend the following publication. Greek & Roman Warfare: Battles, Tactics, and Trickery by John Drogo Montagu.

I notice that these alternative histories always assume the Rome was victorious and conquers all. That doesn't work. No culture has ever been able to complete such a victory although there's been plenty of ambitious or megalomaniac leaders who tried. Any culture has a finite number of population from which it can draw its military personnel. The more people it uses to fight, the fewer people there are to support them. In other words, you reach a point where further conquest becomes too difficult or expensive. Rome expanded quickly during the republic partly because it was stronger than its rivals, but also because those rivals had an existing infrastructure that Rome could absorb. A wilderness does not, as Augustus found out. Also, without modern communications, it becomes increasingly difficult to control armies at the frontier of your conquest, and also increasingly difficult to support their efforts. Its like blowing up a balloon. At first it will expand rapidly then slow down as the volume increases and your breath runs out. Furthermore there's a human trait that reappears time and again in expanding cultures. They seem to run out of the urge to conquer further. Particularly noticeable with 'barbaric' tribes such as gauls, huns, vikings, or any others I can't recall at the moment, it also afflicts more civilised cultures. Macedonia conquered territory as far east as the Indus valley but had to stop, even with the charismatic Alexander urging them on. Trajan pushed into the middle east and conquered territory as far as the Caspian Sea, but Rome was unwilling to retain its conquest under the less militaristic Hadrian. Clearly, the expansion of cultures is partly dependent on the leader who sets it in motion. Conquest does not occur by itself - it must be set in motion, and there is a balance between the power and leadership of the individual responsible and mass of soldiers or civilians that enact it. For Rome to conquer the whole world is assuming that roman culture remains essentially unchanged. No culture is static - it evolves - it changes from something often young and fresh to something older and more tired, as if waiting to be replaced by another in a sort of analog with natural life. Rome in 2005? They never stood a chance. You might argue it was possible because say... Egypt had a coherent civilisation for something like 3,000 years. Thats true, but notice also that egypt as a nation was gobbled up by Rome and therefore afflicted by its fate, and also that - importantly - the early coptic christians destroyed the religious life of egypt that had helped preserve their national identity for so long. There's a temple on an island along the Nile with a stone plaque commerating the efforts of those who had vandalised the pagan images on the walls. Rome on the other hand did not base its culture on the bounty of a large river (Yes, I do know about the Tiber!), but turned from agriculture to conquest and in doing so ensured their empire would eventually wear out. Throughout the Pax Imperia, Rome was living off the fat of conquest and as such was economically doomed in the long run. Their economy was unsustainable because it was not developed enough to sustain more conquest, thus the roman legions were increasingly turned toward a defensive stance, further encouraged by the pressure of barabarian incursions. As for America, I've said similar things in that their nation is based on classic principles and ideals. But its not Rome. Its a nation with some parallel development, inspired by the ancient world in some respects.

As with any frontier, some romans made a living trading with germanic tribes. Furs and animals for the arena for instance come to mind - I'm sure there were other resources the germans could sell or barter. However, the germans lived in a totally different enviroment to that of the typical roman pleb. "Fearful forest and stinking bog" according to Tacitus. These were large men, much closer to the average height of modern europeans today than the romans who averaged 5'4". Size matters. In the reign of Julian the Apostate there's a documented raid on german settlements living on islands along the Rhine. There was no provocation for these raids, it was purely a speculative action. Roman troops sneaked in, even swimming aboard their shields at one point, slaughtering the inhabitants and making off with their valuables. Clearly there's an element of contempt here. The germans, although apparently peaceful at that time, are regarded as legitimate targets. Conversely, the german tribes look southward at the roman empire and want their riches for themselves. Some tribes take a legal route and offer services as allies, receiving roman pay for what they enjoy doing. Such men were billetted with their families amongst roman families, and you can imagine the friction that might result in households because of it. These german tribesmen were aggressive warriors. In the time of Caesar his Aedui cavalry were sent packing by a smaller group of german horsemen who threw stones at them. An elite guard is of germans is formed to protect the emperor from the praetorian guard. Varus found out first hand how they could be. I don't think you can assume that the lower classes had a coherent opinion of the germans. Many only knew of them by reputation which often exaggerates things. I can imagine there were some romans who got along with germans like a house on fire - and others who wouldn't touch a smelly barbaric tribesmen if you paid them. They weren't roman, nor did they adopt roman ways (at least not until they overran the place), and therefore in the roman mind - lower class or not - they were typically viewed with either disdain or distrust.

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T1842

You were castigated? You were lucky. I got sacked from my last job because I worked faster than anyone else. No great physical effort involved (apart from going up and down stairs all day), it was just that one other worker (GH) wanted to sit on his backside drinking coffee all day. His boss (DS in my blog) supported his efforts because they were good mates, and wanted him promoted so he could sit on his bum drinking coffee all day etc etc just like she did, whilst she played games and practical jokes with her favourite companion buddy worker who would have sat on his rear like the others had he not done her share of the work for her. Unfortunately, she couldn't do that while my scanning rate was twice that of GH. He even used a program on a laptop to download the files and reload them as his results, and I still did better than he did! Finally, she sacked me for undressing in the office and being rude. No comment. Fact is, most people like sitting on their bums drinking coffee all day and don't people who work hard in their midst.

Do I have to admit that in public? yes. Never really liked Little Britain though.

Undoubtedly, but their views influenced their clients and so forth. Its entirely possible that scruffy plebs had different ideas, but I find difficult to see how different they would be. In any case, they generally didn't write books so its difficult to find what they thought as opposed to their better educated social superiors. Elements of germanic dress were adopted for fashion or practical reasons. Whats so unusual? Romans always adopted cultural ideas they thought worthwhile. That doesn't mean they were best mates with germans, it means they saw things the liked and copied them. Incidentially, its worth readng Tacitus's account of the germans. You find a very unroman culture and whilst Tacitus is as objective as roman wrters could be, he clearly looks askance at them and sees them as a curiosity. Obviously he had few, if any, dealings with germans himself, but would lower class people belonging to a strong dynamic conquest state see them as instrincally equal? No, but I will accept that romans who dealt with germans on a daily basis had different views as happens on any such frontier. Good or bad, according to circumstance and experience.

The DNA evidence needs to properly interpreted. The anglo-saxons were very keen on britain for a some time, hence the roman shore forts. Pevensey for instead was attacked by saxons in the mid fifth century and it appears the locals were slaughtered. Raids like this were uncommon however. The saxons were coming across to bag new farming land (which britain had in abundance, and the saxons were keen farmers), but also because rising sea levels were flooding theirs. The supposed conquest of britain was hotly contested by the local warlords (it may even have spawned the King Arthur legend) who had quickly taken over the collapsed roman administration with petty kingdoms. Had the british been united, such raids might possibly have been contained in much the same way as the later viking incursions - but that wasn't so. Saxons captured land in fits and starts rather than a prolonged military campaign. The Battle of Beranburgh above Wroughton in Wiltshire has been downgraded from its previous depiction of a mass battle to something far more modest, but this central/western england area wasn't subject to saxon incursions n this scale and aggression until the sixth century, perhaps a hundred years after Pevensey on the southeast coast. The numbers of invaders was certainly less than native populations and therefore the idea of a saxon minority dominating the rest isn't so wrong, and its likely that when a saxon chief wanted expansion, he would gather and concentrate his supply of willing warriors for this end, rather than have lots of raids by small numbers everywhere. Also, the effect of these battle, even if on a small scale, was to open up territory for this intended expansion. The locals had already found out that the saxons were a race 'hateful to God' and either evacuated or accepted their presence.

If you've wondered why I don't say much about fun things at work, its because work isn't fun right now. AD, the guy I've been trained to replace, has decided not to retire after all. Orders are small and right now I spend about ten minutes every morning labelling goods for transport. Job done. I know there are people who would give their right arm for a laid back existence like that, but isn't an inactive workplace the worst possible place to be stuck in? The clocks move backward, everyone else vanishes, the radio plays the same songs as yesterday. Our emails are due to connected in the next couple of days, so at least I can console myself with the need to wait by the phone for the IT man to call. Have you ever noticed how slow IT people are to react? You make a call, and wait forever for someone to pick up your case. I do not lie. Recently I bought some expensive software - it took nine hours to install - and I discover I can't register it the normal way, so its effectively useless. I emailed their customer support, and their suggestions bore no relation to what I saw on the screen. So, after much huffing and puffing, I told the vendor I wanted my money back and threatened legal action if they didn't do so. Then I get a phone call from their customer support telling me that registration is only a ten minute process and would I like to register my product? The real question is would I like to do business with a company that takes three months to get around to a ten minute job? Car Accident of the Week Some of you might have heard of a car accident in Gloucestershire. Some guy previously banned for drink-driving drove head on into a car coming the other way. Its all very tragic and horrific, my sincere condolences to those who have lost. But you have to wonder what difference a government sponsored safety camera would have made. None whatsoever. I remember driving round a corner once and finding a car overtaking a landrover and horsebox coming right at me. I was luckier - I had time to brake hard and avoid a collision. What difference would a government sponsored safety camera have made? None whatsoever. No, I've changed my mind. The safety cameras would have made a difference. The speed limits would have been reduced and drivers fined or banned for exceeding it. Except the people liable to actually have an accident already have. Talk about closing a stable door. And profiting from it. Jesus Moment Of The Week The Jesus Shop has reopened for business. You have to admire the mans persistence, he's gone out business at least once. The window currently has Jesus ads posted up, including the classic Jesus was born as a baby because he loves you. Can't quite see the logic in that, but then religion was never about logic in the first place. A Dogs Life A Dogs brain is more like a Mans brain than a Cats brain. Heard this piece of wisdom on the radio just now. Its so true. Who's ever heard of cat biscuits? Prove me wrong.

They get exiled, like Abba