Pertinax

I had this title on 731 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...8902684-7521431 but it's a harrowing read-though it should be read.As you all know I have Japanese friends of my own age, the War doesnt seem to exist in their psyche. In my own generation here lots of peoples Fathers and Grandfathers were in the East -and they remember it like it was yesterday morning and burnt into their flesh. The "Willing Executioner's " I found to be like being bludgeoned mentally, none of it felt new but I was left exhausted by the polemic. The film "Come and See" (link below) is one of the best commentaries on einsatzgruppen and Wermacht complicity:it too is very hard to watch ,but it feels emotionally honest.Its had a very limited showing ,perhaps you have been more fortunate in the US ? I urge people to watch it as it is a Russian film devoid of pro-Russian( Stalinist) propoganda. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...8902684-7521431

get this..."give me a ceegar" -xlnt parody..hmmm slightly adult content,give it a minute before parody goes wild. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S-Ffj_PSMY...=elevation%20u2

excellent Ercolano , Pompeii , Oplontis and Jovis are great loves of mine also. Have you visited these sites often Phil? I regret I didnt make a photo record of my visits as I was too busy studying the mosaic/wall painting details and the Pompeian herbal references .

I thought Pershing shot them all? (horses) Well , we can get maybe three or four into our Clachan here , Pantagathus wanted to try the pubs anyway, but youd have to double bunk with the goats and wear woad at weekends, and for all-night sacrificial stuff.But 280 million is a big ask, my cousin Togodumus the Flatulent could take a few. Seriously now..I was thinking about this in the context of truly great museums http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/ this being my personal favourite in terms of the awesome density of truly "folk" artefacts-millions of them.. I rather thought they belonged to no-one in particular and everyone if they wished to examine them.You cant keep a museum of artefacts where they are ridiculed as subversive or pagan (the Marbles) or unholy (Afgahnistan) so the accumulation of "valuables" would appear to fall to whichever culture is stable at any given time.So..historical collectoins are another accident of history are they not?

You beat me to it.. As a modern Brit ..can I have restituiton for loss of my Romano -British heritage from any Saxons, loss of Saxon culture from Normans, Loss of Englishness from The Tudors...etc etc ad infinitum, only relativists can draw lines through cultural change.

Thats a good point Phil and I shall alter the title, I myself of course would be Brigantine (if the tribe were still hereabouts), and my kin might be Brigantines-we would be in Brigantia and collectively we are indeed Brigantes. I think it was a late night posting as to the real explanation!

Parthenocarpics can have quite a high population density in areas with parasitic activity-various types of worm for example attacking a type of fruit. Although the parths' have no means of propogation they exist to protect the community they belong to as a whole, some plants can have a 20 percent population by proportion of mature fruits so -id suggest you cant jump to conclusions about diffusion theory at all, as you have to know about parasite populations first.As plant species can be global ,or have niche representatives where does that lleave diffusion theory? I dont say I disregard it ,but I tend to think multiple centre ,simultaneous ((geologically speaking the timescale is totally insignificant) diffusion/coalescence. Unless someone from Atlantis gave them to his Uncle in Bosnia. and I just had to post this warning about MUTANT fruit.. http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DM...it/mythseed.htm

Yes , they used the ballast from merchant ships as an additive -which was frequently the volcanic ash from the Pompeii area, and found that it improved the hardness and the setting time of the mix.The feature I saw on the slab casting used some of this "tufa" in the mix. I would like to add that Sear notes that when reconstruction/overbuilding took place the Roman engineer and architect were quite agreeable to incorporating previous structural elements of older buildings.As an example, a wing of Nero's Golden House ended up as part of the Baths of Caracalla.Vitruvius also gives a clue on population density via reference to use of bricks (De Arch 2.8.17) he expresses concern at the limitations of baked mud brick in supporting the taller housing structures being required ,and he notes the best bricks are made from old roofing tiles because of their great hardness. I should have looped this in before: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=765

The dedicated viewer is very good- follow Virgil's advice -it improves the quality enormously.

and gets a poor review at the Sunday Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-2205264.html "Jones uses the homespun, organic, green barbarians as a sensitive, peace-loving analogy for us, with Rome standing in as the cruel, decadent, industrialised superpower America."-I quote(oh no not again).

Some considerable time ago I remarked about having seen a practical construction display of the casting of a roman underwater foundation. Northern Neil's work on the Fortlet models made me turn up the reference I was missing. The Romans had a strong building mortar developed by the third C BC , which in combo with other facing materials could produce walls of great strength. Slaked Lime was produced in kilns (CaO from burning CaCO3: then slaked to give CA(OH)2and has sand added to it-finally on drying you get crystals of CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) ). Calc carb tends to adhere tenaciously to rough surfaces so it strengthens and plasticises mortar. Vitruvius recommended 3 sand to ! lime-thats a very stiff mix id say.So lime as a commodity was in universl usage, and we can reasonably conjecture its use as wash. However by Augustan times the pozzolana, red ,volcanic dust became the key ingredient in concrete -it doesnt need to lose water at all to achieve strength,the secret is its silicate aluminate nature combining effotlessley with lime to make hydrated silicate of calcium and other related complexes. So you can work underwater and fast. http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/wilke/aquasite/...ekopusbreed.htm heres a nice link to give construction phase types.One tends to think of the Opus Testacum as the definitive technique. this image at Glannaventa is instructive: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=491 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...8902684-7521431 that is the Vitruvius reference (book 2.6.1)

Nine! :bag: