caldrail

I have stumbled across a mention of Rooman logisitcs in one of the Vindolanda Tablets. There's obvious evidence of preliminary discussion by post before anything gets done. As tempting as it is to suggest this was typical, it's too much of an assumption. Nonetheless it does reveal that administration of supply was more about need and reward as opposed to finely detailed schedules and rotas. It would seem then that logistics was ad hoc. By arrangement. Addendum: Here are three most relevant of the tablets I've seen in print. There is another dealing with logistics but since it concentrates on profit and loss, I assume it was between civilian merchants. The Romans are inverterate stocktakers and accountants. They keep lists of absolutely everything they've got, but every transfer of goods appears to be by request. There's no sign of regular automatic consignments. You ought to decide, my lord, what quantity of wagons you are going to send to carry stone. For the century of Vocontius... on one day with wagons... Unless you ask Vocontius to sort out the stone, he will not sort it out. I ask you to write what you want me to do. I pray that you are in good health. Tab.Vindol. II 315 Masclus to Cerialis his king, greeting. Please my Lord give instructions as to what you want to have done tomorrow. Are we to return with the standard to (the shrine at?) the crossroads altogether or every other one of us? ...most fortunate and be well disposed toward me. Farewell. My fellow soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent To Flavius Cerialus, prefect, from Masclus, decurion. Tab.Vindol. III 628 Flavius Cerialis to his September, greetings. Tomorrow, which is October 5th, as you wish my Lord, I will provide some goods by means of which we may endure storms if they are troublesome. Tab.Vindol. II 234 (Incidentially - I've noticed two mentions in sources of cohorts being commanded by prefects).

Nor me. All too clean and sterile. But it's an absolute godsend for heating stuff straight out of a fridge or freezer, and takes very little time. Just as well really. I discovered a spider in my new fridge last night. Didn't take the little monster long to figure how to get into his air conditioned hidey hole did it? He was only a tiny little thing. Shame I had to squish him really. Karma will probably get revenge for that selfish act I suppose. That's health and safety in the kitchen for you. Reduces your reincarnation prospects.

Yeah? Anytime soon?

Time to take Ol' Reliable down from his perch on the kitchen surface. As microwaves go it was a simple beast. Put your food in, select a cooking time... Three minutes?... Yes, let's try three minutes. If I see steam building up I know it's time to cut the power early. How simple is that? No complicated programming or indeed any intrinsic knowledge of cooking required. Just hot food, on demand. There can be no sentimentality in the cutthroat competition of consumer electronics. Ol' Reliable has served his time and the gleaming replacement awaits it's chance to shine, and very impressive it looks. Oh... Hang on... This has loys of heiroglyphs all over it. Ahhh, now, you see, this might be a bit more complex. Time then to swallow my pride and read the instruction manual. Please don't tell anyone I did that. Men aren't supposed to read instrucion manuals. It's why army NCO's have to shout at recruits you see. The list of do's and don'ts is a bit alarming. Apparently I can wreak havoc if the microwave is not used properly. I stand a real risk of being crispy fried, mutated, or spending the rest of my life glowing a shade of neon green. Okay. I get the message. Surely somewhere in the packaging is a rotating amber beacon to fix to the roof so that everyone within cooking distance of the kitchen is alert and stands well back. Don't laugh. This device is the most powerful microwave I've ever come across. It probably registers on orbital satellites searching for astronomical anomalies. So if you're a professional astronomer and you can't figure out that strange blip on the screen - Sorry, I was hungry. It isn't proof of intelligent life on other planets. So if you've already made that hysterical phone call to the President, you might want to start thinking about a career break. Well, no point being afraid of it. Switch on - and the machine gives me a cheerful bleep to tell me that it's primary defence mechanisms are armed and awaiting the ignition code. Put my food in... Now what buttons do I press? I have a horrible feeling this microwave was designed for people who know what they're doing in the kitchen. Let's not get clever. Tune the power down to what Ol' Reliable was and try... Three minutes? Yes. Let's try three minutes... Wait For It... Wait For It... The three minutes went by and no steam rose from the plate. With my former oven, that meant it was still cold. Yet when I try this one I find... The food has been thoroughly re-cooked to the point of being completely inedible. Since there's no Lady Rail to shout at me for being a klutz, I have no choice but to curse and pick up the instruction manual again. Somewhere in this document is the secret of succesful cooking... No. This is too hard. Looks like it's a takeaway tonight then. Am I already too old to operate consumer electronics successfully? No, I can't accept that. It's too much of a blow to my self worth. I'll figure the microwave out eventually. Therefore I've set the scheduled date for completion of this goal to December 2012. Cheap Parking Just lately there's been a billboard outside local newsagents proclaiming that the council are planning cheap car parking. Can you imagine that? Obviously since no-one survives parking in Swindon anymore, no-one stops to shop. The other day I was at the check-out of the supermarket when the lady behind the till looked outside and mentioned that some person was about to get booked by a warden. Funny that. Cars used to be a status symbol, now it's a ststus symbol if you can park safely. In the meantime, roll up, roll up, get your car parking spaces here. Kids at half price. All day family specials. Open all weekend. See real wild traffic wardens prowling in their natural enviroment (Please do not feed).

Heroism or villany is in the eye of the beholder. You could never provide an absolute answer to this question because everyone has a different take on it, to a greater or lesser degree. Human beings love to categorise though. We are very much a race of aggressive accountants. The problem when dealing with dicactorial characters is that however much we might approve of their acheivements, we tend to ignore the motivations that led them to it. Now I'm the king of the Romans Oh, the latin VIP I've reached the top and had to stop And that's what botherin' me I wanna be Alexander, And stroll across the world And be just like the that other guy I'm tired of reading reports Oh, oobee doo I wanna be like you I wanna walk like you Talk like you, too You'll see it's true A guy like me Can learn to be a hero too

As weekends go, this was not a good one. For once monday morning has come as something of a relief (How often do you hear that?). The source of my agony isn't anything to do with the usual gripes. There was no hassle with benefits, noisy neighbours, or things that go bump in the night. It was instead my own fault. Always cook your food properly. How often have I heard that? Normally I do of course, but the exotic flavoured chicken dish I spotted in the supermarket was too good to miss and perhaps I wasn't all that careful. I mean, we all cut corners don't we? Go on, admit it, you do. Anyway I did and suffered a spot of what might well have been salmonella poisoning. There was quite a nasty fever which has thankfully subsided by now, although I'm still suffering mild diarrhea. Not only is the experience incredibly uncomfortable, it also renders you exhausted every time you lift a finger. So naturally when my microwave decided not to play anymore I had no choice but to pop down the road to the local domestic hardware store and - gulp - purchase another. It was then I discovered how weakened i was. Microwave ovens aren't hugely heavy as such provided you don't have to carry them seven hundred yards. I made it uphill with three rest stops and under the circumstances consider that an achievement. Now please, just leave me alone - I want to drop into a chair and rest... A Different Affliction I read this morning of a tragic case where an online-game obsessed teenager killed a young girl to obtain cash to feed his habit. Immediately there are calls to ban the game and statements that games are bad for you. No, they aren't, it's addiction that's bad for you. There's a chap I used to work with who's addicted to bingo. Although on a good wage, he never has any money to spend, because he fritters it away on crossing numbers off on a card, hoping that he at last will be the one to shout "House!" and walk away with a few quid. I honestly confess I'm an avid games player, within certain boundaries. Why not? It passes the time when I'm not busy. Then again, part of my motives for using this software is to add to it. These days it's common to find a cottage industry of talented people creating 3D models and textures to extend the gameplay. I find that an interesting and creative hobby albeit a little frustrating at times. Despite growing up with Tom & Jerry cartoons, years of destroying countless alien and demonic invasions on a computer, and maybe the odd game of Dungeons & Dragons (Be honest - you haven't lived if you haven't), I have not felt compelled to end someones life for another few minutes of pleasure. Most of us don't. Sadly though you will always find people who become too attached to gaming because it allows them to escape the reality of their own mundane or worthless existence. No-one can use these games as an excuse. Nor is some infernal power to blame. We make our own evil. Please Excuse Me I'd love to stop and type more, but my bowels are sending warnings that should never be ignored under any circumstances. Must... clench... buttocks...

That's kind of an interesting view Doc. For me, sport was always about taking part. Whether I'm stood on the sidelines or sat in front of television, spectating was always a crashing bore for me. I suppose then I've had little or no time for commentaries on sporting events. Does that necessarily spoil the spectacle? It is true I can watch motor racing without complaint. It must be something about the internal combustion engine that strikes a chord with my musical sensibilities. Now that racing is likely to turn to electropop instead of heavy metal orchestras I might have to think again!

It would, but you don't find many titled jobseekers. I'm probably the first our job centre has encountered and they were determined to erase it and restore me to conventional rascal status. In any case, there's sufficient law to give errant nobles a bloody nose if they don't comply - titles do not imply immunity as some of the actions against senior politicans following the expenses scandal will illustrate.

Did the gauls use savate kicks, you mean? No, they didn't. There's a general consesus on that.

I can't tell how how pleasant a day it is right now. Bright sunshine and a cool breeze. Even the mood is relaxed as I go about my business among the throngs of people feeling exactly the same way as I do. Okay, I avoided the marching band, but hey, each to their own. The museum has been unusually busy too. Paying customers? Whatever next? Asking that question was my mistake. For those who've ever watched the comedy series My Name Is Earl, Karma is alive and well outside of California too. Karma never misses a trick. Unable to blow a winning lottery ticket out of my hand for asking dumb facile questions, or have me mown down by a passing saloon car and thus sent to hospital to think about my place in the universe and how to be a better person, it instead created a problem for the guy who runs the job club. So he's not in today. Most of the time being Lord Caldrail isn't a problem. Even yesterday a very polite lady phoned me about a vacancy I applied for and asked me if she needed to call me by my title. Bless. Course you do dear - although I was equally polite and told her 'Caldrail' was sufficient. Unfortunately, some of the time you need to do stuff. Laurence Olivier (as "Crassus") said it best in the 60's film Spartacus - "The problem with being a patrician is that sometimes you're obliged to behave like one". So Karma arranged for me, as the senior unemployed noble, to run the job club today and cope with computer illiterates and other disadvantaged jobseekers. My name is Lord. What's In A Name? It's a funny thing really. My Employment Mentor did her level best to persuade me that using my title was not helping my job search. I knew she was wrong of course. Half the time it seems the title wasn't even noticed at the top of my CV. But it was nice that one job agency rang me and confirmed that the title got me noticed. I knew I was right all along. Thanks, Karma.

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.