Pertinax

Only in the Sun "Newspaper" http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006240149,00.html

and this is the end of that trail.... http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?&autom...&cmd=si&img=739

Yep , that dragon is my old roommate ! Terry Jones is the filthy peasant (gruseomely) eaten by the aforesaid monster at the start of the film, Warren Mitchell (Alf Garnett) is Mr Fishfinger (loathsome fish merchant), John Le Mesurier is Pastlehew the King's Councillor and Michael Palin is the witless Dennis Cooper (inadvertent hero and stocktaker of cooperage).

Denial of comfort? Nero liked to pop out for a jar or two didnt he? I was going to suggest sheer numbers of hoi-polloi , if many were unable to cook at home and had no gainful work then the bar/fast food "mall" is the likeliest focus of the bored and dissafected.

A Terry Gilliam film of some vintage, indeed it was my late Father's great favourite, and he has been dead some 20 years. For those who do not know "It is the middle of the Dark Ages, Ages darker than anyone had ever expected" , in many ways a direct continuation of the "bring out your dead " scene in Holy Grail-at least in ambience ie: squalid rank filth. The parental guidance box is very good as a summary: "language-some, mild" "sex/nudity-infrequent" " violence-frequent, comic ,bloody" An old friend of mine is the Jabberwocky-though he has now risen to much greater (office bound)media heights-ha! Pertinax Friend of the Stars. A squalid , scabrous excursion into a festering dustbin of offal. Very funny."Rats on a stick, get your rats!" http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...9931322-1950335

Once again much smarter ancestors than conventional interpretation allows of, and the constantly forgotten variable of the cheapness/ease of water transport in the ancient world -ok I know shipwreck and piracy are the variables but sometimes you have to remind yourself of the role of seaborne communication, not least because of the much more ephemeral nature of wooden ships and port facilities versus walls and roads.

Throne of Blood I rate highly, like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo I suggest that the monochrome makes it a more gripping and direct film.

Here's another snippet from myself: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...9931322-1950335 Hadrian's Wall in the days of the Romans. Probably a familiar title to some .Published 1984, revised twice since that time. This is about useful facts combined with the most evocative of illustrations, its really a re-enactment for the imagination. Plenty of decent information on Wall building and history, but an avalanche of good illustrations.This book is a sort of guilty pleasure after a more "serious" work , you can be a Romanophile of mature years enjoying the "Boys Own" drawings, or a small kid to whom the mystery of the actuallity of the Wall and its soldiery has been revealed.Good bedside browse to pick up information in an ad hoc way if you are not an obsessive Wall prowler ( :bag: ) and probably a good way to get a favourite neice or nephew interested in Rome.All the Wall museums have the main illustrations from this book as a kind of sub-context to their displays.Ron Embleton's illustrations were a gold standard for quality boys comic books. The following link takes you to his amusing Vircovicium (Houseteads) Latrine artwork and if you go to my Vindolanda gallery at msnblog you will find this very latrine,photographed in glorious colour. http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h...cial_s%26sa%3DN Also: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1...9931322-1950335 The Romans at Ribchester by Edwards. Which in its own quiet , small scale way shows how determined, scholarly amateurs make institutional preservation look slow and dead handed. The same story could be told about Cooper at Chesters (Cilvrinum) in the 18th C and Birley today at Vindolanda.What I very much enjoyed was the sensational finding of the Victorian sunday school being built directly onto the old Praetorium substructure.The actions of the small man are vindicated.

A smalll note to add here-I do not understand why this is regarded as one of the Bard's lesser plays , if it were a Jacobean Tragedy, it would be set alongside the Duches of Malfi. Not quite as horribly good as that play, but a first class existential gore-fest in its own right. Hopkins is at his best in the preparation for the feast/revenge, an old soldier full of deadly moral certitude . I suggest my "japanese" context was actually a most appropriate idea.

the horror ..the horror...

I had an experience even worse than that-difficult to believe I know-someone played the Partridge Family " Breaking Up is Hard to Do" at work- I was unable to stop whistling it. Is there some kind of nerological path that forces humans to hum tunes they hate?

To misquote Edmund Blackadder , I believe that the Eurovision "Song" Contest is the manifest work of Satan and all his little wizards. And thats the good bits.

Thats a type of local fisherman of course. -_-

No reason to discount the mercenary theory ,I feel , coastal waterborne traffic between Hibernia and what was later Strathclyde is well attested and indeed a mercenary career amongst the Scotti would have been a most honourable calling. The Novantae were the "strathclyde" raiders into Flavian Brittania ,well poised for waterborne contact with Hibernia..Venuntius decamped to Hibernia in defeat and given the federal fluidity of the Brigantes I half suspect an "overseas" branch. or at least perhaps a blood contact. The "trading settlement" is at least said to be of the "usual" playing card outline. I hope to have more when the "Roman Navy in Britain " is completed. plus bear in mind the sine qua non of the British conquest-you (Rome) could always find some dissafected tribal group with an axe to grind against a neighbour as a strategic ally , the tribes never had a coherent "British " view-the Romans gave them that identity .

In essence because the "fast food joints" were potential trouble spots, given that many of the urban population were unable to cook at home ,if they were able to linger in a "gurgustum" they might develop seditious habits. Nero only allowed veg and pea soup -you wouldnt want to sit next to someone eating that for too long would you? Tiberius banned bread in the "popinae" . Vespasian (I think) allowed only pulses to be cooked and sold. So the "tavern/cafe" was a potential flash point for the mob -so make it uncomfortable. AD may well know a lot more about this topic.

Im sorry, that wasnt well defined was it- transoxonian , as in beyond the River Oxus, NE of the kingdom of Bactria -Chinese Turkestan?

Am I off -beam in asking is that "trans-oxonian?" Or would that be nearer the West ?

this event is next week, I hope to photograph the display for the blog/gallery-lets hope for good weather. http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/birdoswald/events.htm http://www.roman.org.uk/

was that some more maintenance? I need my UNRV fix! ( timed out 10.20 to 11.10 pm UK).