caldrail

How do I make it through? Honesty, persistence, and the occaisional argument with a bureaucrat that doesn't know which end of the human anatomy is which. Never demand what you're not entitled to. Always insist on what is yours by law. Always do what they require you to do. Always apologise - never make excuses. They've heard them all before. Other than that, treat job searching as your job, and do a little of what you enjoy whenever you can. I'll be honest. Long term unemployment sometimes feels close to a jail sentence, but learn to live with it. Take pleasure in small things (not necessarily literally) and take a look outside. Sun shining? Take a breather. Enjoy the world for a short while.

Or riot control at naval re-enactments? Maybe? Or did the Romans get fed up the smell of unwashed pirates on the otherwise very pretty Mediterranean? Soap not included.

I weigh around 13 or 14 buckets of groats. Might need to check again. It's been a while.

What was the Arminius' motivation? An interesting question. Most people might simply state he wated to free Germania, but as we know, Germania was a region, not a national state or identity. My own thought was that besuides any personal dislike of the Romans, he had very much in mind to bring an alliance of tribes together to obtain a level of power he couldn't do with the Cherusci alone. Of course he may well have vehemently disagreed with the taxation imposed by Rome and needed the alliance to ensure a victory against Varus, the greedy man chosen by Augustus to collect taxes, and after all personally suckered him into the ambush. Wasn't he made a Roman citizen and given a high ranking in the Roman military? Yes, he was a citizen after he left the legion and I believe achieved equestrian rank. Didn't he see the benefit of remaining part of the empire? He obviously decided that removing the Roman grip on his people was a better option. Although he had become a Roman citizen, that doesn't mean he dropped his tribal identity at the same time. Even if I changed my nationality to some foreign state, I would in all likeliehood still see myself as from the country of my birth. I also find it perplexing that the Romans changed their policy toward Germanaia, after one defeat, especially when you consider that previously military activity as led by Drusus and later Tiberius (pre-emperor) was very successful. They had actually marched as far as the River Elbe, defeating several coalitions on the way. It appears that they were well on their way to consolidating their gains and completing the conquest. The 'conquest' as you call it was actually an attempt at colonisation rather than a war against a nation state as had happened in previous centuries elsewhere. In any case, Augustus believed the scheme had already matured to the point that the natives could be successfully taxed. It is clear that Varus committed a fatal blunder, which is something that happens; it certainly wasn't the first military blunder on the part of the Romans. He was conned well and truly, wasn't he?

Another thursday with a sort of un-thursday feel to it. That about sums the day up. Truth of the matter is I'm struggling to think of something to report, other than this morning was bright and sunny. Oh yes - I walked around the park earlier. Like you do. Nice Place To Nest In the middle of the lake is one of those infernal fountains that sprouted in every public park some years ago. Recently a bird had built a nest right next to the sput. Like living next to a waterfall in reverse. Now the fountain has been turned off and the bird can rear it's young without the constant noise and dampness it was tolerating in a desperate bid to find somewhere that those pesky humans wouldn't be able to get at the eggs. Nonetheless the nest seems vacant and disused, even with the water flow deactivated. Bump Last night though there was a minor drama. I heard the crunch from upstairs and knew immediately that two motorists had collided. There's a pedestrian crossing outside my home which funnily enough does seem to cause the odd accident or two. What happened was a car had stopped correctly at the llights. A van pulled out of the side street nearby and while turning left, the driver was looking right to ensure he didn't collide with oncoming traffic. Which he promptly did because he was looking the wrong way. I Bumped Too We've all done it. Looked one way and driven in another only to get an unexpected shock. I'll spare you the anecdote of that woman in her green fiat hitting the lampost while parking her car. Think I've written that one up a few times. No, instead I'll be fair, and admit I too have bumped other motorists. Some people seem to make a habit of doing things like that. For my part, I regard that as poor driving, and in any case I was always taught to keep a good eye out, a policy that prevented me from major accidents over the years. Back in the days of my bid for rock superstardom, I aso did a spot of van driving now and then to boost my meagre earnings from the music industry. That was a long day. Thirteen hours at the wheel delivering and collecting parcels. On this particular evening, I drove back and off the motorway to head for the depot at Wootton Bassett. The roundabout was very busy. Naturally, since it was the evening rush hour as I pulled up to the end of the slip raod leading into the junction. The Audi in front of me pulled away into a gap and I wearily began to wait for my chance to weave into the steady flow of cars heading out of Swindon. Hang on... There's a gap... Yep, that's my chance... So I pulled out only to discover the reason that everyone in the passing cars were staring at me in horror was that the Audi had stopped on the roundabout off to my left, because his gap in the traffic turned out to be more optimistic than mine. Bump. Well... He broke the mercedes badge on the front of the van I was driving. I put a mercedes shaped dent in the back of his company car and bent the boot lid so he couldn't close it again. Guilty as charged. Although the audi driver did stop in a stupid place. Well he did. Here Come The Cops Two police cars cam round the bottom of the hill just now with lights flashing and sirens blaring. I think after twenty years or more I can afford to relax. It's been long enough for my little accident on junction 16 of the M4 to be forgiven and forgotten. Now if only they'd arrest the two spotty young loudmouths who declared their intention to break into my home, I could relax even further. Does strike me as a bit odd though. They've made two abortive attempts to break in already and clearly prefer to do so quietly as to avoid, shall we say, imperial entanglements? So why shout threats in the street? I don't get it.

I have a slight problem with this theory. Since a vessel floats because it displaces water equal to the weight of the vessel, filling the hull full of water tanks isn't going to make for a very sea worthy ship. A small modest tank for either personal use or expensive luxury fish perhaps, but large scale commercial appplication? The Romans weren't known as great sailors.

The encouragement was toward tribal leaders who were co-opted as part of the Roman administrators. The population themselves were free to carry on being iron age folk and usually did. By coincidence I saw a Time Team special last night about Boudicca, and the archaeological remains of Venta Icenum "Marketplace of the Iceni" was a failed roman town that displayed evidence of native roundhouses next door to roman style occupation. Leaders who agreed to become part of the Roman system were often well rewarded. Vespasian is supposed to have given Fishbourne Palace to Cogidumnus (hope I spelt that right). However, I understand the client-king system was geared toward Roman ownership. Although a tribal leader could rule without interference if he was loyal to Rome, he was obliged to hand his kingdom to Rome as an inheritance. That was the source the Iceni upsising. The king only gave half his kingdom to Rome and left the rest to his family, which was promptly requisitioned by the legions somewhat aggressively, and in the case of Boudicca's daughters, somewhat imorally. The other important aspect is to understand the nature of Roman control. They based their political network on urban centres, thus they created colonies if necessary, and whilst early on an administration centre at the 'capital' of tribal areas was considered enough, by the 2nd century administration was being dispersed to better control the outlying settlements - though in fairness it's obvious the Romans had little interest in small native villages and generally didn't bother them. I suspect the natives were content with that arrangement. The biggest force in persuading the natives to adopt Roman culture was not actually political control. It was commercial pressure. Roman goods must have been enormously seductive (something Tacitus alludes to) and with the availability of foreign fashions and luxuries, even on a modest scale, the temptation existed. That however does not mean the commercial sphere was directed for political control. Far from it. Roman merchants were notoriously rapacious and all the evidence suggests that personal profit - especially in a dominant culture that classes status according to material wealth - was the motivation. It was therefore commerce, fashion, and luxury that created the Roman world, whilst the patricians ran it, bearing in mind they were also the social class that ran the legions too.

That's why I don't like it. It remains a hugely misleading term.

"How long have I got mate?" Asked an optimistic motorist at the bottom of the hill last night, planning to use the loading bays cut into the pavement. He was of course not asking the question to me, but one of the two traffic wardens busy handing out tickets to motorists who didn't think to ask. I can't call them traffic wardens anymore (nor anything less polite). Instead, they're called Traffic Flow Monitoring & Enforcement Officers or something similar. I should know. I've applied to be one a few times. Obviously I'm not considered cruel and heartless enough. Unfortunately for our motorists, the two gentlemen pursing their lips at yet another hapless victim of their expensive bureaucracy most certainly had no qualms at handing out summary justice. Luckily, however, the nearest one warned him "No time whatsoever Sir. Double yellow lines." So that was that. Meanwhile a frantic crowd of late opening shop assistants sprinted for their cars in a sort of Le Mans start. Having cleared the bottom of the hill, the two officers waited briefly to catch any cheeky drivers returning immediately, then wandered off to extort their tolls elsewhere. Peace And Quiet This morning has to go on record for being the quietest morning in the library ever. No phone calls, no old age pensioners seeking a librarian to remenisce to, no wierdo's struggling with reality, not even BFG's insistence the world stops because she wants to get off. But it's more than that. There's so little traffic moving outside. Ah. Now I get it. People haven't journeyed into town this morning because parking is getting harder. Hmmm... I wonder how this helps the local economy? Especially since teenagers are now required to pay up to 120 times the value of their cars in insurance. One lad was quoted

Could you call an invasion 'offering' and 'encouraging' Roman culture? The Romans did implement Romanization. The whole fact that the Roman Empire existed was because the subjected people in many areas became like Romans. It wasn't only the men in Rome who acted like Romans... Nope. they didn't, and it's important you realise that, because the arguement of the last few postshas been about the extent to which the Gauls adopted Roman culture as opposed to those regions that didn't do so. The idea that the Roman Empire was a uniform society throughout is a fallacy, a misconception. Palmyra for instance was famed for its mix of cultural influences despite being part of the empire, most of the time at least. One can hardly claim the Judaeans were being romanised either. All the Romans required of them, as indeed all they required of any subject people, was that they obeyed laws and paid taxes. Could I call an invasion an 'offering ' or 'encouragement' toward culture? No, of course not, but you have to look closer at the motives for the conquest in the first place. We're used to the concept of invasion and inclusion into a monolithic state. It might be said we do so in the light of the ideological struggle that we call the Twentieth Century. Rome did not export such an ideology. It was concerned primarily about security and profit. Territory meant very little back then since it was mostly wilderness anyway, unlike today where we own and value areas of land intensively. Even in religious terms the superstitious Romans were happy to include foreign deities., which in a sense is the opposite of romanisation. Why did they not simply insist populations worship a standard pantheon? The fact the Romans gave them latin names is not that significant. The local elite were after all part of the roman political structure and since they spoke latin, for local patronage it made sense that they should rename these faiths given the attitude the Romans had toward barbarian language. That does bring up an important point. The export of latin and its insistence on use was more to do with enabling communication and political/mercantile control. Romanisation? No, since the Romans never insisted that anyone should have to learn it. However, since that language was one the dominant power spoke, it made sense that people did. In other words, the populations chose to adopt latin. The strength of Roman enterprise meant their styles and fashions also dominated. Not due to some master plan - for which there is no evidence - but rather the idea that people assume the behavioural patterns of the herd that surrounds and protects them. Standard human behaviour in other words, not an active conversion policy. I agree the Romans were aware that populations could be 'seduced' by there culture and yes, they smirked mightily when it happened, but bear in mind that throughout the empire (to a greater or lesser extent) local populations retained their native culture. What is an empire? it's a collection of national or regional states ruled from an external central dominant power, or the city state of Rome as we're discussing it here. Regional identities existed throughout the life of the empire aand although the inhabitants saw themselves as essentially Roman, their cultural ifluences did vary. Could you really imagine towns in Egypt looking the same as those in northwest Europe? Or the lives of the populations being exactly the same? It just doesn't work. I agree on one point. Augustus instituted a system where civic development on Roman lines was arranged to be competitive, so that urban centres that impressed the senate with their works and buildings might find themselves rewarded by concessions and tax-breaks. I call that the Augustan Franchise. Was that 'Romanization'? Nope. The idea that towns might be spawned and developed to resemble little Rome's was not a cultural conversion, but a financial plan designed to cultivate profit. There are anomalies of course. Hadrian had promised to rebuild Jerusalem for the Judaeans. I agree he reneged on that agreement, at least in spirit, by imposing a roman city plan instead of the regionally-acceptable rebuild. That did spark an uprising. However, this was not 'romanisation' either, but the ego of a caesar with architectural inclinations. He wanted a truly roman empire - I have no doubt of that whatsoever - but note how hated he had become by the end of his otherwise succesful rule. In fact, it might be argued that the whole idea of romanisation stems from Hadrians enclosure of the empire, establishment of permanent boundaries, and a foreign policy of 'internalism' as opposed to the proactive intervention that had previously served the Romans well.

Many years ago I promised a flight in a cessna to one of my workmates. Having already booked an aircraft, I received a telephone call from the flying club telling me that the aeroplane had lost oil in flight. Indeed it had. I saw the little Cessna 150 parked at the back of the hangar with a brown windscreen, a sort of dusty and fly-filled gunge across the plexiglass curve. No matter. They promised me another airworthy machine that was more or less the same. I shouldn't have any problems. Yet when I arrived at the airfield I saw someone sat in it with perhaps only half an hour to go before my allotted time. As it turned out, the gentleman had tried to fly it but found the radio unserviceable. No matter. I went up to the tower and asked if I could fly non-radio. They agreed with some caution. It wasn't just the radio. On taxiing out with my passenger aboard I found the brakes weren't balanced. That could make landings somewhat interesting. No matter. I figured I was up to the job and the runways were long enough to avoid the need for hard braking. So we took off. At an indicated four hundred feet I followed stabndard practice and raised flaps. Except... It didn't look like four hundred feet. Odd... The pressure setting is correct... As flights go, it was trouble free. The sun was shining, the skies were clear, and we had a somewhat noisy hour flitting here and there across southern England. Time to descend for landing, I yelled at my passenger over the roar of the engine. Whether he understood I have no idea but I got a nod from him. Throttle back. The world becomes a strangely quiet place in the cockpit of a light aeroplane with an engine running at idle. Slow the plane down with a slight backward pressure on the stick and aim for seventy knots. Trim the aeroplane to settle at that speed. Eighty knots registered. Trim back a bit. Eighty knots. Okay... Trim back a bit more... Eighty knots. Huh? Trim back just a little more.... Eighty knots. By now the aeroplane was feeling unresponsive and adopting an uncomfortably nose-high attitdue. I don't care what the airspeed indicator says - this cessna is going to stall any moment now. Sure enough I heard the first, barely perceptible warble from the stall warner. Nose down, add throttle, stay flying. It seems my airspeed indicator had failed. Not a safe situation. If I flew too slow on approach, recovering from the stall was not going to be possible. I flew home and landed purely by feel. Phew. The reason I mention this anecdote was that I heard about the report from investigators looking into the crash of a french airbus into the atlantic a few years back. It turns out the pilot had taken a legitimate rest break away from the cockpit, and while the co-pilot was flying, the airspeed indicator returned an 'erronous value' resulting in a stall. The airliner descended from cruise altitude in three and a half minutes to hit the sea tail-down. Stalls, in which the airflow over the wing is either too slow or turbulent to generate lift, are one the first danger situations a pilot is taught to cope with. What a stupid and unnecessary tragedy. More to the point, why did the co-pilot of a trans-atlantic jet not recognise the symptoms of a stall condition and maneuver out of it? More Safety Concerns I see from recent news reports that car safety research is looking into automatic collision avoidance. That's already available on a one or two models available on the forecourt, taking the form of a sensor that brakes when a crash with an object in front is interpreted as a danger. So far it only works reliably at low speed. The reporter approached a car in front and looked away to talk into the camera. Obligingly the system worked and halted his vehicle. He said "It means that even if you look away, the vehicle will still stop." Now the thing is, at first glance this all seems very clever, but I remember a newspaper anecdote aabout a law passed in Italy concerning the dangerous driving of taxi drivers. Because there were so many shunts caused by taxi drivers braking too late or too closely, the government decided that all taxi's should be fitted with better brakes. So the result was exactly the same accident rate, because the taxi drivers braked even later and closer knowing how good their new brakes were. And now we're going to have these collision detectors fitted as standard. Is that actually a good thing? It might avoid the odd accident, but when drivers begin to lose that sense of awareness and caution, not worrying about looking where they're going since they know a gizmo will protect them, will it really reduce accidents? Speed might be the popular culprit of death on the roads, but a lack of observation is far worse.

Aaargh! I hate the word 'romanization'! It conjures up images of people being brainwashed. No, they weren't. The Romans never turned barbarians into Romans. They offered roman culture, they encouraged its adoption, they even kept those who chose not to conform to the sidelines, but never did they force anyone to do as the Romans (though I suspect they handed out a fair few lectures) That the Gauls had adopted Roman culture wholesale is not disputed. The proportion of natives that remained 'ethnic' would be much smaller than other regions. Bear in mind that a certain amount of cultural colonisation had already taken place before Caesar campaied there. Southern Gaul was far more pro-Roman than many realise and bear in mind that Caesar was able to bring gaulish allies to the battlefield, however unreliable or inffectual they m,ay have been. Knowledge of classical works does not identify you as a member of a social elite. It may help, in that it suggests you have an education, but then the Romans employed educated slaves as teachers and entertainers too. I would suspect that many members of the ruling elite were somewhat less educated than some of their peers. Perhaps more to the point, we must realise that Rome was a conquest state. The elite of AD9 may have looked well upon education as a mark of sophistication, but it was far from the essential quality. As far as Augustus was concerned, the ability to generate tax revenue was more important than knowing some poetry, especially in a society whose politicians were also military commanders by default. The ida that sophistication was the ideal of the elite is also distorting the picture. We have for instance a mention of Saterninus as 'the odure of the senate'. Although that doesn't specify education exactly, it isn't hard to speculate that he was less sophiscated than some found tolerable. Bear in mind that status in Roman society wasn't based on knowledge, but primarily wealth as indeed it always had been. Second was military credibility. This too had always been a feature of political life in Rome. There are tales of senators ripping open toga's and pointing at war wounds to passionately demonstrate that they had fought and risked all for Rome. The idea that education was a marker of social status is therefore not entirely correct when dealing witht he Romans. Since the Romn education system was geared tward debate and oratory skills rather than knowledge, we have a clear indicator that the Romans preferred to leave the business of learning to those they kept 'below stairs' for that very purpose.

Oh what fun we have in the museum. Young L turns up as usual, breathless and excitable, and immediately gets to work searching out this weeks favourite tracks on his mp3 player. He's having a Queen-fest just of late. His favourite is Bohemian Rhapsody. Well, maybe not mine, but at least it wasn't one of those sugary 'let's be friends' singles that Queen sometimes turned out. Ugh. "Do you like Bohemian Rhapsody?" He asked me. It's okay. It's just that I can't listen to it without seeing four long haired nerds in a cheap car headbanging to the rocky part. Guess you need to have seen Waynes World to understand why I have such a nostalgic view of the song. So the three of us - Myself, Young L, and my boss (volunteer manager DR, who really ought to be mature enough to know better), engaged in a deep meaningful conversation about life, the universe, and museum exhibits before I realised the magic moment had arrived. So with a fake drum flam I set them all off headbanging along the front desk to the jolly rocking bit of Bohemian Rhapsody. The magic is still there. And The Rest Of Today? Our brief musical interlude amounts to just about the most interesting thing that happened. Friday is otherwise preserved for job searching, which is never exactly a fun thing. Trawling through the same old websites, sending off emails and letters to the same old addresses, and receiving the usual rejections whenever some kindly person can be bothered to to send one. "Are you registered with any agencies?" Is the usual question I get periodically by claims advisors checking that I'm actually known to the world of seeking employment. Yes. "Which ones?" They ask. Pretty much all of them by now. Pick an agency, any agency.... IS this the agency you were thinking of? Employment agencies are a pet hate of mine. To all intents and purposes they're legalised slave traders, and these days getting into warehousing (my natural enviroment when not performing Bohemian Rhapsody in public) requires that I do business with them. Except they don't like me. It's enough to make me start singing operatic rock songs while dressed in a leotard. If anyone has a vacancy going, now's a good time to hire me.

Unfortunately changes in doctrine are not so easily made in every case. Thus we have generals seeking to conduct cavalry charges in both the first and second world war. We have the French armed forces using infantry/armour tactics in the 1940's that were proven to be unsuccesful in 1918. And so on... There's an inertia in military circles amplified by victory and prolongued peace. There are traditional values that persist beyond reason. Worse still, the military are usually subject to political control which may well insist on inappropriate doctrine. You can probably think of examples yourself.

Common misconception that people in historical martial arts have often corrected(and I myself was once believed this claim) You missed the point. Dirty fighting in any period including the Roman always goes on, but that doesn't qualify as a martial art. What the 'people in historical martial arts' conveniently forget that fighting as an art is not about violence on the battlefield, nor even the alleyways, but a method of physical efficiency and self-improvement. Does come in handy sometimes I guess, but a little ahistorical for the cultures we've discussed.

No sooner had I asked where the wet weather was than it turns up on my doorstep. It's a dreary dull morning here in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire, though I should say it's stopped raining just this last few minutes ago. It seems I chose the right day for my hike. Yesterday I stopped for a breather in a small out-of-the-way field to enjoy the sunshine and the little enclave of rural bliss that is Horse Meadow. Four horses quietly grazed elsewhere. White, bay, black, and a curiously unsocial palomino stared at his colleagues as they wandered slowly across the finely cropped grass. Eventually the horses migrated across the field in search of nourishment, or as they got closer, curiosity as to what this human being was doing. They were a little unsure of whether to approach or not, and eventually the palomino plucked up the courage to say hello. To be honest, the sight of a horse, albeit not a particularly big one, looming over me as I sat in the sun was a bit intimidating. I had no choice but to stand up. The horse, finally satisfied I wasn't going to feed it or ride it, decided to investigate my rucksack. Oh no you don't! I'm not going through that again! Fares Up Again Citizens are outraged. Letters are being written. Journalists are rubbing their hands at another scandal. It seems the bus fares are being increased today and no-ones happy about it. Not only that, some bus routes are being discontinued. If this carries on we'll be riding horses again. At least until the government realise and tax them. Caught Red Faced talking about the council, it seems they've been striving to stamp out unwanted srtreetside adverts. Apparently you need planning permission for those, which involves many forms to fill, offices to visit, people to beg uselessly to. How amusing that the council have caught one of their own facilities advertising their services on a banner without permission. Ooops. Local History i saw a fascinating article about an archaeological dig at Lydiard Park, the grounds of a stately home not far away. Considering the era was only the last century calling it archaeology seems a bit exaggerated, but it's interesting nonetheless. Apparently, like many other lcountry estates, it was taken over by the military in the Second World War. used as a training base for the Home Guard, then assigned to the US Army, then after D-Day used as a POW camp until 1948, when it was turned into temporary housing until 1961. Can you imagine living in a community of crude nissen huts in a muddy field? Sometimes it feels like I've got it bad today. Stories like this remind me I haven't.

Did 'The Pits' really exist, like modern cage fighting? There's no evidence of pit fighting in the Roman Empire. The audience liked to see what was going on. A pit was too restrictive. Wasn't there a real life Gladiatorial legend called Crixus, or something similar? Crixus was a fellow trainee along with Spartacus and one of the three chosen leaders of the breakout, who later argued with Spartacus, went his own way, and was killed in action against the Romans shortly after. Martial recounts the inaugral event at the colosseum and I believe a gaul called priscus was one of the champions celebrated. Further info here... http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/Martial-Colosseum.html Would the childless widow of a Dominus really 'be forced to re-marry'? That would depend on whether there was any inheritance or political issues that commended a further union. It isn't beyond belief that something like happened (I can't think of an instance) because women were the property of fathers, guardians, or husbands. A woman on her own? Unthinkable. Yet we do know that some women in the empire were functionally independent, such as a woman in Pompeii who ran a business after her husband died, though in fairness we know she was courted with a view toward marriage.

That idea has been mentioned before. It just doesn't work for me. Whilst it might sound militarily sound, it ignores politics. We're used to a clear social division between the two - for the Romans, they were part and parcel of the same thing. In any case, with victory so clearly within sight in the remotest frontier, why on earth would the Romans even contemplate removing troops from a hostile theatre of war, without any security established, to march across europe? For all practical reasons, the war in Dacia was an entirely seperate campaign and even if it did influence Agricola's efforts to conquer Caledonia, chances are it was only an excuse to prevent the man from returning to Rome as a popular conqueror by the paranoid Domitian. Remember that Agricola was asked by Domitiioan whether he wanted a triumph. Agricola wisely refused. The whole thing would have been a stunt to discredit the general and provide an excuse for disempowering him in some way.

:D Jackie Chan in plate mail? I don't think so. The upper class of medieval society bore arms in a fashion particular to themselves. Whilst it was sometimes viewed a sign of competence to employ lower class weapons (such as a knight demonstrating his ability with a bow and arrow), to fight like a common peasant in a bar room brawl is completely foreign to their mindset. I do agree that a real melee might be less than chivalrous, but that doesn't change the nature of beast - or the culture that breeds them. Actually, the modern sense of chivalry evolves from medieval romances, which are exaggerated versions of the rulebook. However, we no longer have any real use for chivalric values other than politeness especially since the social order that was supposed to live by those rules no longer has the same direct ruling function it once had. Further, the rules of chivalry were only set as a standard late in the medieval period when the whole thing was wrapped up increasingly in fantasy anyway. In that sense you're right. However, that does not justify your view that knights fought in an ahistorical manner.

For me the problem is that much of fantasy fiction is based on some very weak principles. Can you imagine powerful spellcasters being allowed to wander around like loose cannons? Or becoming foci of evil and sorcerous territory? Okay these stories are fantasy, but it tends to read like Superman with swords, or sometimes like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Elf. I don't believe that a historicalesque setting is necessary. What matters is that the society depicted is shown to have some sort of class structure (a feature of human civilisation everywhere), checks and balances, and some sort of inner credibility. Human interaction is complex and always there are consequences for every action. then again, a good author will sometimes throw the rulebook in the bin and let prose do the talking. Michael Moorcock has done that succesfully for years.

After much tapping of fingers, I believe savate evolves from experience of oriental forms during the French colonisation of India/Indo-China. The more I think about the less it sounds likely that we can assign a direct ancient origin. After all, 'martial arts' was an eastern phenomenon with modern enlargement in popular culture. I would be careful about the sources that suggest an earlier western origin. It might well be urban myth.

With a quiet wednesday looming and more good weather to enjoy, the temptation to head for the hills was too much. In the early hours of this morning I packed my rucksack and set off into the gloomy twilight. The sun had barely risen a couple of degrees, so only between gaps in the urban landscape did that amber glow light up the sides of trees and houses. The problem with hiking at this time of year is getting comfrotable. The early morning often brings a biting chill, as indeed today it did, and the sun warms all too easily. So one minute you're freezing, the next you're sweating. The experts would immediately suggest I use layers of clothes to control my comfort zone. Oh great. So I have to stop every ten minutes and change my clothes? This is a hike for crying out loud, not a fashion show. Usually I find a compromise and put up with sweat. Rather that then suffer cold. But where shall I go today? Due to my health concerns I haven't been hiking lately so perhaps my fitness isn't at its peak. And worse, my medication specifically lists tiredness as a possible side effect. Okay, Liddington Hill it is. Not too far, albeit a steep climb, and a destination well within my abilities even with a heavy load and weakness pills. As it happened, Liddington Hill was closed off because the farmer was grazing his herd of cows on the hillside. Luck of the draw there, I'm afraid, so I settled for the glorious view of the Og valley and surrounding landscape. Mister And Misses Bull While I sat taking in the panorama of rural Wiltshire, I was all too aware of the herd of cows gathering at the wire fence to see what this human being was up to. Hey, I'm just sittting here - are your lives that dull? Oh. I see. Okay, well carry on looking then. As it happens, one bull of the two I spotted among the herd decided that watching me was boring and that he fancied bovine sex, like bulls do. Unfortunately the bull decided to mount his male colleague. I don't know if the farmer is aware he bought a gay bull, but I think the other bull does. HI These What is going on? All of a sudden people are saying hello to me. People wave to me across the street. A lady called me "handsome" as she passed on the library stairs. Just this morning I had two friendly greetings from young ladies, and that's on my way home from Liddington Hill, all sweaty and looking like I'd been dragged through a bush. Not that I'm complaining of course. I just wish I knew who these people were.

The gauls fought as pretty much any other iron age tribespeople. They yelled in a bloodcurdling fashion, rushed forward with a sword, and based their attack on intimidation and slicing motion. Don't underestimate the importance of the sword in celtic mythos. Such weapons often carried a mystical status, sometimes even magical, and form a popular sacrifice in water to find favour with the gods. With this sort of peer example, the less bold would nonetheless seek to emulate their heroic and daring warrior leaders in a similar manner, except perhaps as a mass rather than indivuidually. So in battle you would see the braver ones rush forward to attack, retreating again if necessary, but emboldening their colleagues if the attack proves succesful. Now, as to where this Savante comes in, I'm not sure. There's no mention I know of in ancient texts of such a fighting style (have you checked out the Basque angle? - Just a thought) and in all honesty, it does not appear to have been a great influence in medieval times either. Let me suggest however that Svanate might have had an early origin as a deviant form of wrestling/boxing in post-Roman times as the tradition of fighting publicly for sport continues and no longer adheres to the standards set by Rome. That's only my speculation - I would be curious to see if it proves valid. Although the tribes varied in character, Julius Caesar reports that Gauls, Belgae, and Germans all named themselves 'celts'.

In the many news reports I've browsed through lately, I spotted one modest story that Britain is drying up. All this good weather comes at a price which means the lack of rainfall is going to cause the hosepipe bans and frantic questions in the Houses of Parliament. Curiously enough a recent television report showed a reservoir with dwindling water levels. Time to panic? Apparently not. Despite expert advice and lessons of the past, no-one seems particularly interested that our summer might prove as much of a trial as our last winter was. A couple of days ago I strolled through the park as I sometimes do. The water level is indeed very low, lower than I remember it ever being. A flock of confused geese swim slowly back and forth as their former places to launch begging raids on passing human beings are no longer low enough for them to clamber out of the lake. Mind you, the couple of days of rain we had lately have had an astonishing result. The foliage along the yard and the alleyway beyond has veritably exploded into growth. The trees are in full blossom and now overhang the fence, never mind sprouting along the bottom edge, and pushing roots through the tarmac. Thornbushes are sending branches out like Pinocchio's nose under police questioning. Today? Yet another fine day, abeit a bit blustery. The weather map every evening shoes bands of blue assaulting the country in waves. So where is it? The Big Cosmetic Issue Among other reports is an article about which make-up men hate most in their partners. My choice is make-up you notice. Sublety, ladies, sublety.... Please... I promise to close the toilet seat... From The Past - In Colour Like many people I tend to think of former times as essentially black and white, because photographs of those times are invariably without colour. Lately though I stumbled across a collection of colour photo's taken in America during the forties. Interesting stuff. There's a general shabbiness about rural towns with all sorts of stuff piled here and there. Seeing people caught in everyday life makes the period more alive than the sanitised Hollywood version I'm used to. Which brings me to a darker side of that period. Not the war, though the evidence of that period is noticeable by the pictures of training aricraft and posters displaying the latest news from around the world, written in a style that would seem laughable today. No, it was the realisation that some of the pictures depicted the everyday lives of negroes of the time. Free, as citizens, but still very much second class. I looked at the front of a tin shack used as a bar for non-whites, without windows, or indeed without any obvious sign that it was a bar at all apart from a couple of drinks adverts (one of which featured a happy negro waiter I notice). I have no gripe about this period. It was all before my time and America sorts it's own social issues, but nonetheless the oddly third-world squalor was in no doubt.

Yeah? Please send me all your cash if you're going to leave it behind. Waste not, want not....