GhostOfClayton

Correct, Macerinus. Over to you.

No one? A clue, then. This statue is situated in the good old US of A. And that's with good reason!

Many thanks to you all for the Birthday wishes. Those of you keeping track of who posts what and when will have noticed that I have been away for a while (New York really is an interesting place, but access to the wifi in the hotel was prohibitively expensive!) I'm back very briefly before a stint in the Channel Islands (negligible Roman stuff!), so need to find time to catch up with UNRV traffic. You REALLY do need to be catching new stuff every day, or it all runs away with you, and when you get back, you don't know where to start!

Nope, that wasn't it either. Anyway, to save the problems holding up the progress of this thread, an easy one for you . . .

This statement has now become true. Find it at Amazon for 25 quid.

Nifty!

Sorry I haven't been about to manage this (always difficult once the season gets underway), and thanks for stepping up to the breach, Melvadius. Othona is dead right, Noricum, so over to you for the next one. It was my own photo, by the way. I happened by the place when I visited Colchester a couple of weeks ago.

. . . and well reviewed by JG, as well.

Hello fan(s) of the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly Blog. The first bit is more of the usual, but the last part consists of me ranting like a Guardianista, so please feel to ignore it if you feel put off or offended by that kind of stuff. I shall taunt you a second time Some of you may remember that, a few blogs ago, it was announced at Mrs OfClayton's place of work that the overall personnel numbers in her office had to be reduced by 50%. After a bit of frantic work on complex excel spreadsheets to calculate the number of people affected, the figure was established as 1. So, we have had three months of worry whilst Mrs OfClayton went through the (frankly degrading) process of filling in an application, and being interviewed for her own job. We finally heard the other day that she was the successful candidate, and could keep her job. I thought that this would be a very joyous occasion, but to be honest it felt very hollow, mostly because it was set against her colleague losing her job. It's a strange feeling, and not pleasant. Are redundancies really necessary in any organisation? Could the aims not be met by natural staff turnover, voluntary redundancy, early retirement, and the positive encouragement of staff to go for jobs outside the organisation? Surely the saving in redundancy payments would help tip the balance. I think some bosses announce redundancies far too easily either to be seen to be making a tough decision, or because they just plain haven't thought it through. The human cost is never factored in! Anyway to 'celebrate' (I use the word reluctantly), we ventured across the engineering marvel that is the Pons Fluvius, to see Phil Jupitus as King Arthur in 'Spamalot'. Anyone who has yet to see this production is very much encouraged to do so, even if . . . . no, especially if . . you're not a Monty Python fan. Yes, it is based on Monty Python & The Holy Grail, but the style is not what you'd called Pythonesque. It has a style all its own, one which suits a theatre audience, but will still please die hard Python fans. And needless to say, it is very, very funny. The Frenchman taunting King Arthur from the tower had me crying with laughter, and I've seen the film more times than I can remember. Parking woes I visited OfClayton Snr in his new Care Home yesterday afternoon (he lives in it, rather than owns it). I normally park in some marked parking bays on the road outside it (if one is free), as it saves me pulling into the small car park, and having to reverse out onto a busy road. Yesterday was no different, with the exception that, when I came back to the GhostMobile, a parking ticket had been stuck to the windscreen. Apparently, there are only certain times I should be using these bays. There was a sign on a nearby lamp-post alluding to this fact, but it hadn't even occurred to me to look for it! �35 fine. And so it begins Having assured us all that they were a new and vibrant party for a modern Britain, and not just a repeat performance of the Thatcher Government with new faces and names, the Conservative part of the UK's coalition Government have now announced a total 'review' of employment law. OK, so this is a review, and we can't say what will come out of it. However, it would be naive of us to think it could be anything other than the systematic stripping out of any employee protection law that has been put in place since the departure of the Iron Lady in 1990 (and probably a few more for good measure). This is pretty annoying on its own, because if you're a responsible employer with respect for your 'Human Resources', none of this would affect you . . it would just ensure all the other employers were working to your standards. But what annoys me most is the weasel words used to describe those employee protection mechanisms by both the CBI and the Government. They call it 'Red Tape' and 'Bureaucracy'. What they really mean is that if it wasn't there, they would not be required to support employees at the times when they were most vulnerable: Being made redundant, being on a low wage, having your job outsourced, being discriminated against by an employer, etc. Now, call me a raving socialist if you like, but I believed that business exists to serve the human race, not the other way round. Obviously, the balance must be struck, or else business could not fulfil its role of serving the human race, but I believe losing these protections has tipped the balance too far in the wrong direction.

It's the strangest thing! If I use the full editor in this thread, no attachments bar appears. If I do the same in the 'Guess the ancient city' thread, an attachments box appears as expected. How strange.

Hmm . . anyone know why the 'attachments' box has disappeared from my reply box?

Too easy, Viggen - didn't even have to look it up. Julia Domna, Septimius Severus, and one of their brat kids.

Graphically, very nice, Sonic. Love the mosaic top border, and watermark-style graphics behind the title. If I were to suggest an improvement, 9and who am I to do that?) there are some big blocks of text in there that could do with a visual to anchor the eye (for example a mug shot - or a photo of someone you wished you looked like - in 'About the Author', that kind of thing.

Did you know this one straight away, Melvadius? Impressive! It's pretty obscure! (and remote)

OK. Two pictures. The first (bull fighter) is just an excuse to show you an interesting little picture and is just a bit of fun, but feel free to identify it if you like. If you can, you'll see why I didn't use it for the 'competition'. The second (church) is the real one. It's obscure yet interesting, so I'll drip feed you all with plenty of clues, but on the off chance someone knows it already, just the picture for now.

If memory serves, the settlement is called Kyrhus or Cyrhus, or something of that ilk.

Syria, you say? Must be the bridge over the Afrin near Aleppo (you could probably spit into Turkey from there, with favourable winds and a run up). Not sure of its name, though.

Melvadius, I'm utterly humbled.

This rules out my next guess of Virunum. The only place around where I'm thinking that now fits any of the facts is Vindabona, but I thought I'd seen pretty much all of the Roman remains there. Was there perhaps something in the Wienerwald that had never been brought to my attention?

So . . . Teurnia?

OK, so, not the Inn Valley, but from your clues, I must be quite close. Not Switzerland, so Eastern Austria, (or perhaps North Eastern Italy, but it doesn't feel high enough for that.)

Hmm . . let's try for a long shot. Austria . . . somewhere in the lower Inn Valley.

I'm reminded of this little gem that tries to outline how other languages (especially those with strong Hispanic or Greek roots) sound to English speakers. (Ignore the first 2 seconds about tornados).

I don't know about Pippa's derriere. She doesn't seem to me to have much of a one at all. Both her and her big sis are a bit 'straight up and down' in that dept (with all respect and deference due to the future queen of the realm).