Television programmes

Im the same Blue- but then I do enjoy the occasional game of proper Countdown when its on.

What wrong with Miss Riley Mrs Figg?  

I watched The Great Train Robbery last night on BBC 1, it was great., Jim Broadbent is such a wonderful actor.   

They sure like their food in the U.S. This guy should be 50 stone eats eats n eats. I like the burger by the way         

watching Death comes to Pemberley on BBC 1, its supposed to be what happens to Elizabeth and Mr Darcy once they are married, mixture of crime mystery with early detective story. But boy oh boy they chose the most ugly wooden non descript muppet ever to play Elizabeth, its a shame it could have been a good old fashioned historical romp instead its a snooze.

Doest it have suitable bustlery?

no bustles   

Disgraceful!   

I know  

Watched the first episode in a new docu series- Sacred Wonders of Britain- starting in Stone Age Britain and the first episode covered up to the end of the Neolithic. Presented by Neil Oliver (who oddly enough looks not far off my mental image of Aragorn!) was very good, very informative and engaagingly told. Highly recommend it- its on the BBCiplayer.

For the dedicated you can see his entire last series- A History of Celtic Britain here on youtube (its just under 4 hours long!- but you can always watch it in 4 chunks as it was broadcast)



Worth at the least jumping to 18 minutes in and seeing the bronze mine and how it a made- mind boggling.   

Certainly takes your breath away ! Talk about taking things for granted today. Majority of us moan over the silliest of things & look what ancient man put up with ! and "we" think we're hard done by !

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Watched the first episode in a new docu series- Sacred Wonders of Britain- starting in Stone Age Britain and the first episode covered up to the end of the Neolithic. Presented by Neil Oliver (who oddly enough looks not far off my mental image of Aragorn!) was very good, very informative and engaagingly told. Highly recommend it- its on the BBCiplayer.

For the dedicated you can see his entire last series- A History of Celtic Britain here on youtube (its just under 4 hours long!- but you can always watch it in 4 chunks as it was broadcast)



Worth at the least jumping to 18 minutes in and seeing the bronze mine and how it a made- mind boggling.   

It was very interesting .UNTIL he mentioned a (fictional/wishful thinking) Messianic person on the Scottish Island. You should have seen the face on the archaeologist, half bemused half appalled. He blew it as far as I am concerned.

Why shouldn't Scotland have produced a messianic style leader?   

The evidence is pretty clear now that the whole stone circle, barrows and accompanying agricultural revolution originated in the north of Scotland, and now they have discovered the largest temple complex of its period anywhere in Europe located there, and who knows whats now lost under the north sea.
More than that the practises of these people spread and dominated Europe for over a thousand years.
I see no reason at all the founders of this movement were not deified by the people who came after them.
Nor it impossible that among them were men with a vision of a new type of living, with new ways of doing things.
Ways that did indeed changed all of Europe in much the same way other Messianic movements in other parts of the world shaped theres.
We still bury our dead in the earth or give them to the air, and we still mark them on the earth with a stone monument after all.

The other archaeologist might not want to be drawn to saying anything so definite, but Neil Oliver himself is a respected and leading archaeologist in early British history especially and I dont think his view on the possibilities should be so lightly dismissed.

yeah right. Its one thing making educated guesses and quite another jumping into wild unsubstantiated fantasy. There is NO evidence for a messianic person, or who or what these buildings were for. Its very subtle imprinting of information into peoples minds that has no buisness being there. He should know better. Its not his buisness to make fantasy, and I very much doubt he would have said any such thing if he had been standing on eel Island near London. The archaeologist looked at him like he was talking to a bloke off with the fairies.

As I said it was very interesting until he went Braveheart.

What has eel island to do with it?

The Temple of Brodgar project manager is quote don wiki saying-

'According to project manager Nick Card, the discoveries are unparalleled in British prehistory, the complexity of finds is changing the "whole vision of what the landscape was 5,000 years ago" and that "it’s of a scale that almost relates to the classical period in the Mediterranean with walled enclosure and walled precincts". Additionally, according to archaeologists in general, the site could be more important than Stonehenge.'

'Researchers say the site may have in fact been the original model for Stonehenge and other later, better-known British complexes to the south. The idea of Orkney as a font of Stone Age culture isn't completely new.
It's been suspected, for example, that so-called grooved-ware pottery, which became dominant in Neolithic Britain, originated in Orkney and spread south. According to Card, it now appears that the crockery style may have ridden a cultural wave that included notions of stone circles and henges—ritual grounds enclosed by low earthwork "walls".'- National Geographic

The people of the Neolithic – the new Stone Age – were the first farmers in Britain, and they arrived on Orkney about 6,000 years ago. They cultivated the land, built farmsteads and rapidly established a vibrant culture, erecting giant stone circles, chambered communal tombs – and a giant complex of buildings at the Ness of Brodgar. The religious beliefs that underpinned these vast works is unknown, however, as is the purpose of the Brodgar temples.
"This wasn't a settlement or a place for the living," says archaeologist Professor Colin Richards of Manchester University, who excavated the nearby Barnhouse settlement in the 1980s. "This was a ceremonial centre, and a vast one at that. But the religious beliefs of its builders remain a mystery."

And it dates to about 3500BC thats 1000 years before Egypt put up a Pyramid and nearly 2000 years before Stonehenge.

I dont think its a huge stretch at all to think that there was one or more visionaries driving the beginnings of it in the far north of Scotland when it all started there. And I dont doubt that it was tied up with their beliefs and religions. And a religious visionary is a Messianic figure.

its fantasy. theres not one shred of evidence.

PLUS I object to the use of the gender specific word Messiah. They could have been a fertility cult of 'priestesses' for all we know, so to use the word Messiah is disingenious and devious.

Messiah literally means 'anointed one'- it is not gender specific   

More broadly it just denotes a spirtiual leader of note who has a distinguishable effect.

In this case the effect cannot be denied- these people in Orkney shaped British and hugely influenced European culture right back at its roots- not just in how they treated the land, but in religion, technology and and whatever the hell they were doing with the circles and the like-

""We have discovered a Neolithic temple complex that is without parallel in western Europe. We need to turn the map of Britain upside down when we consider the Neolithic and shrug off our south-centric attitudes," says Card, now Brodgar's director of excavations. "London may be the cultural hub of Britain today, but 5,000 years ago, Orkney was the centre for innovation for the British isles. Ideas spread from this place. The first grooved pottery, which is so distinctive of the era, was made here, for example, and the first henges – stone rings with ditches round them – were erected on Orkney. Then the ideas spread to the rest of the Neolithic Britain. This was the font for new thinking at the time."

I dont see the problem here- the Rings and Temple were clearly used in a manner which had some spiritual and religious significance- we know it started with a small group of people in the far north and spread everywhere, their culture, beliefs, technology and religion and practises.

So if there a small group of spiritual leaders who ushered in a revolution that changed Europe Messianic is a perfectly appropriate way to describe such people.
I personally doubt there was one single figure, but there couldnt have many at the start, those first pioneers who for whatever purpose devised the Circles and their workings.

I dont think messianic is the right word. Its too loaded with all sorts of symbolism and gender specific significance. He specifically mentioned a Messianic person, not a Group, one person, which seems just plain fantasy. They may have been a Group of shamans or druid types we just dont know who or what they really believed in. The stone circles may have been put there as an astronomical or a guide for the seasons, it may not have been anything to do with a religion as such, and saying the word Messiah immediately conjures up religion, it may not have been religion anything like we know today, they may have worshiped the stones themselves or just used them in dousing for energy, who knows how their minds worked? Its impossible to get into their mind sets. I know its only a popular tv show and not academic, but he still should watch himself when using loaded terms.

Treehouse Masters

Good show, reminds me of Hobbit holes, but in trees.

I wanna tree house   

Anyone else watching Episodes?

You would think a comedy show from the creators of Friends staring Matt Leblanc would be some sort of blockbuster comedy nonsense, but I actually think it's rather understated and quite good. Pleasantly surprised, really.

Matt Leblanc talks about it here:
https://youtu.be/H3yxTurmB9k?t=14m59s

I actually like Graham Norton a lot   He's just camp enough for me without being over the top. I liked him as a priest in Father Ted   

I agree, Azriel.   

I'm not sure I'm overfond of the concept, but it works a treat anyway. For some reason he gets his guests in an enviroment where they feel more able to open up and laugh at themselves than they do in other interviews. Couple that with the calibre of guests he gets and you have a great television show.

That's not to say I love everything. His monologues are nothing to write home about, and the taste in the prewritten material not always spot on for me at least.

But I really do enjoy it, when he has the right guests.