The Golden Age Of Television!

Alright, you don't really need to know my age, however for the purpose of this post it's relevant. For several years now I've noticed a steady decline in the quality of television programmes. Whether TV is being deliberately dumbed-down to make us a nation of mindless morons, or it's just too much effort to make anything worth watching, I can't say for sure. Possibly, a mixture of both reasonings. The fact is, I look back on the halcyon days of televisual festing that myself and my generation enjoyed in the late 70's and early 80's, with gerat nostalgia.

Who can forget programmes like:

• Monkey
• The Saint
• Sapphire and Steel
• Tales Of the Unexpected
• The Professionals
• Duty Free
• Alas Smith & Jones

Those are but a few. Kids TV was equally fantastic, with Will O' The Wisp, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Bagpuss, Captain Pugwash and so on and so forth. However, what's truly missing from modern TV scheduling in particular is the Saturday night super line-up. When I was a kid, the whole family could sit down on Saturday night, expecting and usually getting an excellent evening's entertainment. Nowadays, it's all reality shows and fame hunting wannabe shows. It's bland, pointless, non-entertaining and frankly patronising.

So why do they get away with it? Well to be honest, I think people would sit and watch anything, so the fact that they watch reality shows should be no surprise. The latest Big Brother series is in a way ironic I reckon. They've filled a house with empty-headed imbeciles and empty-headed imbeciles quite happily sit for hours lapping up their non-sensical babble and pearls of wisdom, ie:

Liam mentions Romeo and Juliet.

Brian: "What's Romeo and Juliet? Ain't Romeo that geezer out of So Solid Crew?"

Liam: "No, Romeo and Juliet is a play by Shakespeare!"

Brian: "Who's Shakespeare?"

Liam "He's a famous playwright!"

Brian: "What? Somebody's famous for writing plays?"

Liam: "Yeah, everyone's heard of him!"

Brian: "I didn't really pay much attention at school!"

Personally, I would question whether Brian ever went to school, becaus in my recolletion, you had to do at least a couple Shakespeare plays in Secondary. That and Lord Of the Flies... unavoidable! To be fair, that conversation is slightly entertaining, but just think to yourself how amny people must have been watching that and thinking "Yeah, who the hell IS Shakespeare?" And that's the really sad part, what the hell are kids learning at school? Maybe if they showed some Shakespeare on the TV, kids would have a better idea who he was. However, I suspect that there's a much bigger can of worms to be opened, once you start probing the minds of young adults and comparing what they should know with what they actually do know. I suspect severe deficiencies in several departments! I'm 36 by the way!

The Origins Of Modern English!

Language, something most of us take for granted, it comes so easily when you're a child. Children are able to learn any language if introduced to it at a very early age. But there are so many languages in the modern world, so surely anyone who is bilingual would have a distinct advantage in the job market you would think. I've noticed as a UK national, that most other countries are way ahead of us when it comes to learning other languages. I've been abroad a few times and I've noticed that not only do a surprising amount of people talk in English as their second language, they do so surprisingly well.

So, where did this language of ours come from? Most of us will have heard that English is derived from Proto-Indo-European, but what does that mean? It's sugeested that a race of white people from the Caucus Mountains area (hence Caucasians) expanded out and reached the Indus Valley where they formed the Vedic culture. They then brought back that language to Europe.

The Celtic language was borne from Proto-Indo-European in 2 forms P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, as was Old English which was brought to the UK by Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes). As the Kings of England spoke English that language became widespread although probably intermingled with Celtic. The Viking incursions into Britain added many other words to our vocabulary, as did the Norman invasion. You'd be surprised at how many English words have a French origin. The final contributor was Latin, writers like Shakespeare and Marlowe found the English language prohibitive in scope so introduced many Latin words into their writing, which we still use to this day.

So modern English is really a hotch-potch of languages, but all from a common ancestor: Proto-Indo-European! The odd thing is, that English is changing. There are so many regional accents in England, that the traditional well-spoken English is becoming a rarity, with slang words continually polluting the word pool. Strangely enough, the best spoken English in the UK is in Inverness, up here in the North of Scotland, and Doric (the dialect I grew up with) is considered to be the closest thing to Old English still in existence. We use words like "nicht" and "brither", which are pronounced pretty much the same way as the Anglo-Saxons said them, betraying their Germanic origins. It's a funny old thing, language!

Rain Down On Me... From A Great Height!

Rain rain, nothing but rain, but don't worry! Only a fool wouldn't say that climate change was to blame, of course it's climate change. But is it man-made? Well that's another question isn't it. Vastly conflicting reports on that particular aspect of it. Anyhow, it's been pouring down here for several days now, and although we're OK where we're at, I suspect others (perhaps in Elgin) could be in for a bad time of it.

Over the last 10 years or so, each year has seen greater flooding here in the UK, than the previous. Of course, in a cosmic redressing of the balance, some poor sods will be suffering severe drought someplace. Nature is indeed mysterious.

Since the waether is so bad, I spent the day re-writing my CV. The most recent version was 2 years old and things have changed quite a lot for me in that time. On another note, my daughter's school sports were meant to be today. They were originally supposed to be last Friday, but demonstrating amazing foresight, they cancelled it because the grass was slightly damp. Well you could go bog snorkelling there now!

Apocalypto Now!

Last night we watched Apocalypto, and even though I knew it wasn't going be remotely historically accurate especially given Mel Gibson's track record rewriting history (possibly to suit his devout Catholic agenda), I was prepared to give it a chance. I'd like to see how he would have dealt with the Spanish conquest mind you.

All in all the story's pretty basic. The tribe belonging to the central character Jaguar Paw, get attacked (full on and brutally) by another more powerful tribe. He manges to hide his pregnant wife and kid in a deep pit then gets himself captured with the rest of them. Their captors take them off to be sacrificed in order to appease Kukulkan because there is drought, pestilence etc. By some seemingly divine intervention (you can imagine how this appealed to Gibson) Jaguar Paw manages to escape. His ex-captors badly want him dead, but he has to survive and get back to his wife and child before they die in the pit.

It's only at this point that the film really comes to life. He's being pursued relentlessly through the jungle, trying to survive and well... it's classic action. However, I doubt that this is a film you would want to watch repeatedly. My wife got a bit fed up with the subtitles, but I think that in that respect, Gibson got it right. American accents on native tribesmen just would have been awful. In other respects, it seems that every commonly known aspect of Mayan culture is rolled out to please the viewer. Probably attempting to enable us to relate to historical concepts we're already familiar with ie. blood sacrifice, their ball courts etc. The cheesiest part however was the arrival of the white man at the end, I just couldn't see the point of it. Still, worthwhile seeing, if only once!

European Constitution Or Fourth Reich?

So, Tony's done a deal on the revived European Constitution, and it only remains for Gordon Brown to ratify it ASAP (at least before anyone can examine the detail). What's more, Tony has allegedly secured agreement on Britain retaining all the powers we wanted to keep, so a referendum will no longer be necessary (he says!).

That's the official story anyway, but as a Eurosceptic, I doubt that there's much more than a thinly veiled bunch of double-dealing going on right there. Only last week it was said that the UK's desire to hold on to those key powers would potentially scupper the whole deal, if we insisted on it. Then it goes through without any complaints at all? So, what's changed? Obvious really, it's clearly been agreed that we can keep those powers, just until the signature dries. As soon as we've signed up to it, the fineprint will reveal that each right that we've retained will be slowly whittled away piece by piece, until we're powerless against the jackboots of the Eurocratic Army!

First up, Germany and France (probably Italy too) want to re-write the history books, that part about the World Wars, let's play those down for a start, or better still, remove them altogether. Genocide of the Jews, can't have that either, because let's face it, we thought we'd won the War, but no, that was just a battle, the real victors are about to emerge and take control of their empire, just as they originally intended.

The whole EU thing just stinks so badly. The only thing that will come out of bringing so many countries together is, when one of those countries realises it's getting a raw deal and wants out, the big guns will say "Too late, you signed up to it, try and get out and we'll crush you with a New Blitzkreig!" So then, every country will take their side, and you have another World War.... nice.

What's more, the Eurocrats are as corrupt as can be and refuse to allow any auditing into their financial double-dealings. Those who were caught flagrantly stealing billions of euros were pensioned off with a pat on the back... absolutely ridiculous. Believe me, the whole thing will end in tears, it can't fail to!

Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave!

I'm currently half-way through reading David Miles "The Tribes of Britain", and it's fascinating reading. I guess that it's particulalry tailored for me in the sense that I'm a keen genealogist as well as deeply intersted in history. Probably should have done a history degree, still might!

The book examines the inhabitation of the British Isles from pre-history right up until the modern day. What is truly fascinating, is just how wrong our ingrained perceptions of our own history are. For instance, the Roman invasion of Britain. It would not be uncommon for many British citizens living today, to suppose that they had some Roman ancestry, seeing how the Romans invaded Britain and ruled it for almost 400 years. Well that assumption would be mistaken, for the majority of the Roman army weren't Roman in the sense we would regard them to be. The majority of the army were legions from Northern France, Belgium, Spain and North Africa even. There were very few Italians in there.

Secondly, the Romans formed garrisons across the country, with some men undoubtedly taking local women for wives, but it's doubtful that men who were already married would have brought their families across with them. In all likelihood, recruits from British tribes would soon begin to form local garrisons, avoiding bringing more troops across from the continent where they were engaged in fierce fighting with the Germanic tribes.

The Norman invasion follows a similar pattern. While many individuals possess names of Norman origin, it is unlikely that they are descended from any of the knights who accompanied William the Conqueror to Britain. Those knights were aloof Frenchmen, the majority of whom married the daughters of their fellow knights, and kept it that way for centuries. They merely replaced the Anglo-Saxon Chieftains who ruled previously. Their input to the gene pool was minimal.

Even the Viking incursions into the British Isles, which occured sporadically over 2 centuries, but intensified towards the end left little impact genetically, even in the Scottish Isles, the DNA demonstrates only 25% of Scandinavian genes.

The fact is, that the majority of the British people are mainly descended from the original inhabitants of the British Isles, who were not even Celts as you would suppose, I'm talking about the original Neolithic and Iron Age inhabitants, who only adopted the Celtic customs and dress. Yes, even the English when tested demonstrated 80% DNA belonging to the original Brtish tribes. That other 20% has in all likelihood been brought in by foreign traders who settled in this land since the Norman invasion, particularly those from Flanders and Brabantia, who brought their much needed skills over here.

So, where does that leave us genetically? Does it really matter? Perhaps our most recent peaceful influxes from overseas will have a much greater impact than anything that's gone before. It's getting to the point, here at least in NE Scotland, where the local people may soon be a minority. You might think I'm joking, I'm not, and at the risk of sounding xenophobic, I don't think this country can handle the number of immigrants coming in if it's sustained at present levels. It will reach a tipping point! And when it does, I'll blog it!

A Brief History Of Time!

Today, as I'm feeling slightly better, I'd like to take a look at something which affects us all greatly. We can never get enough of it, we're always running out of it, although we can't see, smell, taste, hear, or touch it, and yet every single thing we do depends entirely upon it. I am of course talking about... Time!

What is time then? I don't have much, so I'd better get on with it. Time is a device we created to measure the passage of the seasons. The first measurements of time were probably developed around the same time as neolithic people began to experiment with agriculture. It's widely considered that the Neolithic stone circle builders were creating gigantic measuring devices, aligned to the Solstices, which would allow them to plot accurately the correct times for sowing their crops.

But, since time is a subjective matter, merely our mapping of numbers to the Earth's rotation and its cycle around the Sun, what if we were to be removed from time? That is to say, plunged into an environment where the passage of time could not be measured. And, what if our theories about time are wrong? If time is not a constant at all!

What got me thinking more carefully about time, was some material I stumbled across on the Net, a year or two back, regarding the Serpo Project. It's the type of material most people would disregard off-hand as a hoax, but I'm open-minded, so I read through it. The basic premise was that alien technology was recovered around the time of the Roswell incident, of which, certain equipment allowed NASA to make contact with an alien race. An exchange program was set up and a dozen Earth astronauts travelled to an alien planet known to us as Zeta Reticuli. The crew members all kept separate diaries of their stay there. With me so far? I know, sounds far-fetched doesn't it?

The really interesting bit for me was the obssession with time that emerges from the "diary entries". They report that the planet is a binary star, that is, it has 2 suns, and because of this time behaves bizzarely. The astronauts lose track of time altogether and cannot adjust to the clock-cycle used by the natives (Ebens). If you have some spare time, I would recommend you read through some of that material, especially if you're a Sci-Fi fan. It really is like something out of Star Trek (with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy of course... always)!

Just What the Doctor Ordered!

No worldly wisdom form me today, because I'm feeling like shit. I've had a really bad head cold for four days and everyday I've been hoping it would improve, but it's only got worse. So this morning when I woke up, I started coughing and had agonising pains in my chest, so I thought "enough's enough, I'm going to make a Doctor's appointment!" In Buckie, you can see a minor ailments nurse instead of a Doctor (if you're not dying), who can prescribe antibiotics, precisely what I was needing. So, I have a chest infection as it turns out, and the nurse gave me Amoxicillin.

To compound my misery, it's raining heavily and it's fairly cold as well. Welcome to British Summertime. I'll tell you what, I've perceived a noticeable change in the seasons over the last few years, climate change is happening, whether it's man-made or naturally occuring (probably both). We used to get a good foot of snow here in Winter, and usually just before Christmas. Now we only get some very light snowfall in Feb/March. Summers are becoming wetter too, we used to get nice long, hot, dry summers and rain and wind in April/May and Sept/Oct, but now it's just all over the place with very short intense hot spells.

Fortunately for me, I'm keeping my spirits up by thinking about our impending family holiday on the Venetian Riviera. It's going to be brilliant, can't wait!

Would the Real King Arthur Please Stand Up!

Who was King Arthur? Where did he live? Was he even real? All valid questions, and hotly disputed ones at that. While the English and Welsh have continually claimed Arthur as their own, the only historical Arthur of the time was Scottish. If this is indeed the personage that the tales all point back to, then us Scots ought to feel hard done by (we do anyhow), because so many English Kings have used the story of Arthur, King of the Britons in an English context, as fabricated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as giving them precendent to rule over the Scots as overlords.

The real Athur was most likely the son of King Aidan of the Scots, who had crossed into Scotland from Northern Ireland and established a kingdom in Argyll. The Scots would later supplant the native Picts, and on their arrival in Scotland would have had the Picts and Britons as their near neighbours. All of these factions were to unite to fight against a common enemy, the Saxons, who were constantly pressing Northwards, particularly against the Britons, who found themselves in a dangerous buffer zone across central and lowland Scotland. Arthur was a prominent figure in the ensuing battle, possibly leading the federation of Kings into battle, and while there is little historical record of the man, perhaps the vigour and bravery he displayed before his death in that battle, earned him a reputation which lasted for centuries.

So, we can see how history has again been perverted for propaganda. King Arthur actually fought against the English, not for them. The Britons were later driven out of their Scottish kingdom and formed a new kingdom in Wales, which is why legends of King Arthur persisted there. The Romans had built a fort at Camelon or Camelot, near the Antonine Wall, close to Falkirk, and it was most likely from there that Arthur led his men out against the Saxons. To think of the number of visitors to Tintagel Castle, who have no idea who Arthur really was. If anyone wants to read a truly detailed and wonderful explanation of Arthur's Scottish origins, then there is a free book: Arthurius - Quest For Camelot by David F. Carroll, available for download online. It's an excellent read and clarifies the matter far more concisely than I could in these few paragraphs!

Roman Destruction Of the Druids!

The Roman invasion and conquer of Britain (except for us tenacious Scots) was to all extents a peaceful invasion. Many of the tribes had already established contact with Rome, and several deposed chieftains had actively encouraged Claudius to embark on the venture. However, Rome was not concerned with tribal quarrels, but with the expansion of the Catuvellauni, which had jeopardised and in many cases extinguished lucrative trade routes between Rome and Britain.

I don't want to discuss the details of the Roman invasion here, everyone familiar with the history of that period will be well aware of the tactics used by the Romans, they forced chieftains to pledge their loyalty, then imposed crippling taxes upon the local populace. Dissenters were brutally crushed and any survivors would be sent as slaves to Rome, there to be sold.

I want to look at a specific area of the Roman expansion across Northern Europe, particularly Gaul and Britain. For some reason, the Romans were determined to annihilate the druids. The reasons for this extermination are not clear and history only informs us that it was the druidical practise of human sacrifice which so appalled the Romans, a practice which they themselves had once been partial to. Perhaps it's my suspicious mind, but I get the impression that there are far deeper issues involved in the reasoning behind the purge.

The annals of history don't tell us much about what it was the Druids did, they were not allowed to write their secrets, but we do know that training took up to 20 years, and may have involved learning in astronomy, astrology, herbology, medicine, and any other number of sciences which had a basis in nature, although some or all of these may have been regarded as magical arts by those who were not initiated.

Is it possible that the Romans feared the power of these men? Or was it the sway the Druids held over the people that drove the Romans to dispose of them? After all, cut off the head and the body no longer poses a threat. After the last stand of the Druids at Anglesey in 60AD, they no longer remained a force to be reckoned with. They may have possessed knowledge or secrets which died with them, we'll never know, and Britain became a civilized nation, apart from us Scots!