GhostOfClayton

Also, once elephants were adopted by the Romans, each mahout was issued with a hammer and spike. This was specifically to drive into the animal

I'm not even DOCTOR Coxitup - just plain Mister.

Two lighthearted but interesting TV programmes about this are : The Supersizers Go . . . Anvient Rome and Heston's Roman Feast I think I still have the former on DVD if you'd like a copy.

Roll on 2013. I will be another year older and another year dafter by the time I see this.

It's pretty much life size - the lady on the photo isn't diminutive, Mars is standfing on a plinth. However, his feet are sadly missing. Roman things to see in York: Yorkshire museum Roman Baths Museum Roman Column by the minster gates (and also the modern statue of Constantine) From the city walls near Monk Bar you can see the remains of the east corner tower of the Roman fortress, (the site of York

It won

It's dated 300 to 350AD, and was found in the city of York (Eboracum - former Legionary HQ, colonia, and provincial capital of Britannia Secunda). It's thought to be the best example of a Roman statue ever found in Britain. He greets you as you enter the main part of the Yorkshire Museum in York, and, when I met him, I found him to be very impressive. A quick note about the Yorkshire Museum for Romanophiles. It's not exclusively Roman, but the vast majority is. It's spacious, clean and well laid out, and well worth a visit.

I would be negligent if I didn't draw your attention to the excellent statue of Mars in the Yorkshire Museum, York. He's so impressive, he acts as their poster-boy.

Prof Brian 'All the guys want to be him, all the girls want to be with him' Cox I mentioned in my last blog that the excellent Stargazing Live program started on the BBC on Monday night. It was a treat for us all. For the comedy fans, there was both the towering genius that is Dara O�Briain, and the much underrated Andy Nyman. For pretty much everyone, there was Prof Brian �All the guys want to be him, all the girls want to be with him� Cox. For fans of people who have 'the right stuff', present via comm-link was the chiselled and craggy all-American hero Capt Eugene Cernan, veteran of several Apollo missions, and the last man to set foot on the Moon (that we know about, eh, conspiracy theorists?) Capt Gene 'Right Stuff' Cernan Rounding off the team was Liz Bonnin (who surely must adorn the bedroom walls of many pre-pubescent nerdy-boy) reporting on the SALT telescope in South Africa. Liz "Nerdy-boys'-dream” Bonnin They were joined on the couch by the handsome Dr 'Boy-Next-Door' Kevin Fong, and the very easy-on-the-eye Dr Lucy Green. Are all astronomers good looking, or do the BBC just choose beautiful people to appear on our screens? I remember having quite a crush on Heather Couper when I was a pre-pubescent nerdy-boy, so maybe they are. If I ever get to own a telescope, will I become good-looking? Dr Lucy 'Easy-on-the-eye' Green As an aside, Prof Brian Cox is also beautifully, refreshingly and relentlessly intolerant of woolly thinking. I would love to be that intolerant of woolly thinking, but out of politeness and professionalism, I often have to tolerate it, and it pains me to do so. Dr kevin 'Boy-next-door' Fong I digress. I heard on the radio yesterday afternoon that live stargazing events were to be held around the country, and there was one only twenty minutes� drive from Aquis-of-the-Romans. I had to go. So myself and Mrs OfClayton headed out to the Visitor Centre at the foot of the mighty Pons Abus. We were not the only ones. The place was heaving . . and very, very dark. After briefly pausing to watch the weather being presented by the North of England�s premier comedy weatherman, giving a rare outside broadcast, we hit the sea of telescopes that had been set up on the grass beside the centre, all pointing at a different bit of the firmament, gloriously cloud free and twinkling with infinite majesty on this particular evening. I immediately joined the queue to look at Jupiter through a Dobsonian reflector (see, I know the lingo!) the size of a dustbin. Perfect view! The bands across the planet were clearly visible, as were the four principle Jovian satellites (Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa). I briefly looked up to see a BBC film crew bearing down on the telescope�s owner. �What are we looking at here?� asked the reporter. �Jupiter�s moons�, replied the astronomer. �OK. Could you two stage a conversation?� he indicated me. �Ask what you�re looking at, that kind of thing.� �Righto!�, I said. My whole life is an act. I could do this. They started filming, and I looked into the eyepiece. After a considered pause, I said, �Wow! Is that Jupiter?�, with a degree of enacted naivety. �Yes,� the (strangely not as good looking as a TV astronomer) telescope�s owner said. �You should be able to see the dark bands across its surface.� �I can,� I replied. �And there are some bright points of light either side of it. What are those?� That�s when it hit me. I was playing the part of the casual visitor beautifully, but people I know would be watching. They would be nudging each other saying, �That�s thickee OfClayton. He doesn�t even know about Jupiter�s moons. Ha, ha!� The thought comes too late to stop myself saying something to the effect of, �Jupiter has moons?� Oh, God! Horrid realisation that this may be more than a local BBC fiim crew, they may be national. This may go out on Stargazing Live. It may be going out as we speak. Is it also on BBC America? The BBC World Service? I could already be a global laughing stock. �EXTRA, EXTRA, the Chicago news vendor would shout across the city. �THIS JUST IN. GHOSTOFCLAYON THICK AS SHIT�. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I watched the local news later. I was on, but only as part of a sweeping shot that got the back of my head looking into a telescope. They did, however, show a vox-pop interview with the woman who had been behind me in that queue. She was far better looking than me!

You could have said that because GhostOfClayton is available in all these universes, no woman is safe . . . actually . . . . point taken.

Addednum to the above: Thanks to Crispina, who VERY kindly made a trip to her local library, borrowed the book, and scanned the last two pages for me. It turns out there was an interesting turn of events in the very last line, so it was especially welcome.

I could perhaps stretch to the value of a modest telescope.

Yep - makes sense.

Which Legio was the IVth Cohort of Gauls part of?

This one's on at other times as well, but here's the next showing: 'THE MAN WHO SAVED ROME' Country: UK Channel: C4 (& C4 HD) Date: Tuesday January 17th 2012 Time: 0305 Length: 80 minutes Episodes: 1

I have so many nieces and nephews that, even if they all took up cheap hobbies, the sum total will be expensive. Anyway, if I use my December money for food, water, sanitation, warmth and being able to stop the car, I still need to find telescope money. I hear there's cash to be made down the docks doing favours for sailors . . . I presume that means sewing buttons on and such.

Yes. Happy Birthday.

I�ll start with a seemingly random series of stuff that�s happened (or is going to happen) to me, and then explain their relevance. Number 1. I spent much of December sitting behind a desk. The downside is apparent to anyone who has to sit behind a desk. The upside is that I got paid for it, and so am now the proud owner of some money. Number 2. Every Christmas, Kindle have an event called The 12 Days of Kindle. This involves reducing the price of many great titles to (usually) 99p. A title called �How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog� caught my eye, and I�ve been reading it with interest. It taught me one thing: There are two types of people, those who don�t know what quantum physics does, and don�t understand how it does it, and those who DO know what quantum physics does, and don�t understand how it does it. Thanks to the book, I�m moving from the former camp to the latter. I will hasten to point out that I�m not some scientific genius (though I did get a Physics A-level). The concepts are not beyond any reasonably scholarly person. Read it � you�ll see what I mean. Number 3 � The Radio Times hit the doormat of OfClayton Towers yesterday. On the cover was a big picture of Professor Brian �all the men want to be him, all the women want to be with him� Cox, advertising the upcoming �Stargazing Live� TV event. They did this a while back. Very good telly. Very interesting. Made me want to get involved. Number 4 � I�ve been watching a few episodes of the wonderfully funny Frasier. Classic comedy. US TV at its best. Number 5 - I live in the sleepy little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans, which is inconveniently located at the arse end of nowhere! So, how are these all connected? Well, seeing Frasier (who has a nice refractor telescope, seemingly only ever used to observe people in neighbouring apartment blocks), made me realise how much I�ve always wanted a telescope. And now Stargazing Live is due on our TV screens just at the time when I have some money in my pocket. Bad timing! I should seriously consider using that money to buy food, water, a roof over my head, brake pads for the GhostMobile, etc. etc. However, I still find myself pricing up telescopes, and looking up at the un-light-polluted night sky above Aquis-of-the-Romans wondering about the bejewelled firmament that could be just a couple of lenses and a mirror away. What has that to do with Quantum Physics? I hear you ask. Well, in order to explain, I�ll have to teach you something about quantum physics. This is why I mentioned I had an A-level in Physics earlier. It wasn�t to blow my own trumpet, far from it. It was to highlight the fact that I�m in no position to teach even classical physics, let alone quantum physics. But I will, anyway (what a rebel!) One of the enigmas in quantum physics is that particles like photons, electrons, etc, behave like a wave and as a particle. These are mutually exclusive, but they happen. Go figure! The upshot of this is that, if you take, say, a photon and send it somewhere, it can take any number of different routes to get there. It doesn�t just take one of them, it takes them all, though some of them are more probable than others, and plotting just how probable creates something that behaves like a wave. I didn�t state that very well, and any respectable physicist would sneer, but it will do for the purposes of this blog. Because of this, and other incongruous aspects of quantum physics, there have been many attempts to interpret why there is this seemingly so counter-intuitive behaviour at the microscopic level. One such interpretation is known as the Many Worlds interpretation. We�ve all seen the Star Trek episode where Evil Spock arrives from a parallel universe (you can tell he�s evil, because he has a goatee beard!) The physics underpinning parallel universes is this Many Worlds Interpretation. We�ve said that our photon could take any number of possible routes � countless quadrillions of them. In the MWI, the photon takes all of them, but each one seeds a new future (or parallel universe, if you will). Now imagine how many photons there have been in the whole universe since the dawn of time. How many times they have branched into these countless quadrillions of new universes, and each of those new universes instantly branching into countless quadrillions of new universes. Yikes! Anyway, I reflected on this, and found myself thinking thus. In the multiverse (the term coined for the collected whole of all these universes), there must be incalculable numbers of GhostOfClaytons, who think �sod it!�, and blow all their money on a telescope they can ill afford. Given just how many of them there are (countless quadrillions), surely I would be forgiven for taking the plunge, wouldn�t I?

I'd buy one of those!

I've now completed 'Three Hands In The Fountain

Are you aware of ?

This raises interesting issues about how

Congrats - there must be something in the water over there - that's the second baby photo from that area I've been shown in as many weeks!

You can get a non-blocked version by searching Scottish and Elevator on YouTube. It's quite funny, especially in light of how our overly accented brethren from north of the border have taken to the iPhone 4S.

Chunky, yet hunky! I am hugely, vastly, monstrously, obesely, humongously overweight! My arse is becoming increasingly more magnificent by the month, and I reluctantly have to admit that my paunch has 'death in service' written all over it (metaphorically, not in the form of a tattoo; that would be odd. I seriously need to do something about this, and the time I need to do something about it is now. I can no longer keep saying Future OfClayton should go on a diet, the fat git! Past OfClayton spent too many years eating, drinking and making merry, and now is the time to pay the piper. Of course, I've been on diets before. But like most folk with a bit of excess flab, it was a short term thing, and the man boobs soon returned. In fact, I spent most of 2011 on a diet (very difficult considering the number of nights spent in hotels). At least I told Mrs OfClayton I was on a diet. The jury's still out on whether I told myself as well. One way or the other, my weight at the start of 2011 pretty much matched my weight at the start of 2012 . . . so no matter who told who what, I wasn't on a diet! Now, however, I really feel I'm in the right place (mentally speaking) to go for it during 2012, and become the man I once was . . . and stand a chance of enjoying retirement. I know that retirement age is being pushed further and further into the future, and if you hear me use the word 'pension' , I would probably be referring to a French B&B, rather than any money I may have when I'm old. It'd be nice to have no-one to boss me around (apart from Mrs OfClayton) for a few years, though. Wish me luck! I'll report back as I progress towards the body beautiful. Dragging on I went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at the pictures last night. Oooh, it's a good film! I'd never read the book, and didn't really know anything about the plot in advance. I went along with a friend I've known from school age and, though we usually enjoy the same films, he hated it. It is a dark, edgy film. Quite grim. Bleak scenery. Clipped dialogue. Some moderately disturbing scenes. Gripping drama. However, you really have to keep your mind on what's going on, who's related to who, etc., etc. It's a sort of murder mystery, and you have to be on your metal to work out why the detective (actually a journalist) finds stuff out. You can't miss a second (out of the whole three hours) of it. And that's why I think my friend didn't like it, and I did. You see, he has a problem with his waterworks. He won't admit it, but he has. Every time I've been to a play/film/gig with him in the pat year, he's had to go to the loo at least once during the performance. Let's face it, we're in our late 40s, and we're going to start hearing the word 'prostate' used more and more often. I can only conclude his ostrich-like denial is due to a fear of a doctor shoving a finger up his bum. I share that fear (especially after witnessing one of the scenes in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), but I'm determined that, should my waterworks start to play up, I won't hesitate. I'll grit my teeth and make no fuss whatsoever as the doctor pops on his marigolds and uses me as his own personal Sooty. Worryingly, when I was young, the term 'all-nighter' meant staying up all night drinking. Now it means going a full night without getting up to use the loo. Hmmm. . . .