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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I just realised that neither the adults nor the children could be allowed 'out' while the scheme was operating.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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King Arthur's Britain: The Truth Unearthed was on BBC4) last night, presented by Alice Roberts, which I forced myself to watch despite knowing the ending [spoiler alert: he was a fictional character created by Geoffrey of Monmouth] but was rewarded by two mildly interesting points which were available online but I hadn't known
(1) DNA sampling showed Anglo-Saxon immigrants were genetically very similar to modern Dutch and Danish, and (2) Anglo-Saxon jewellery from a burial site wasn't Anglo-Saxon but locally made
| Using high-energy physics, archaeologist Dr. Duncan Sayer examines an unearthed broach with a traditional Anglo-Saxon design, but discovers it was made using a common 5th century British technique. The discovery suggests a blending of British and Anglo-Saxon cultures. |
To most people, including me, Anglo-Saxon bling is most characteristic of the period. If it isn't Anglo-Saxon there really doesn't seem much left.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Hatty wrote: |
(1) DNA sampling showed Anglo-Saxon immigrants were genetically very similar to modern Dutch and Danish, |
I am beginning to suspect that this (DNA and ancient history) is really a dying paradigm, it's only telling us that neighbouring populations are similar to each other and that similarity declines with geographic distance. That isn't really that helpful. THOBR makes a case for language revealing more about hidden ancient history. The point is that the original language has to be learnt by new migrants and continues only with slow changes, therefore it will tell you more.
I suspect Mick will post that this is not the case, I haven't understood the Book, but what can I do?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is not the case. THOBR claims that because
| neighbouring populations are similar to each other and that similarity declines with geographic distance |
you can use either as a measure of the other. Hence if
| DNA sampling showed Anglo-Saxon immigrants were genetically very similar to modern Dutch and Danish |
it showed that the Anglo-Saxon language is similar to Dutch and Danish languages. That's orthodoxy of course. But it doesn't demonstrate that they were immigrants. You'd have to come up with, as a minimum, ten natives with a dissimilar DNA for every Anglo-Saxon to show that. And of course they can't. But they should be able to even if the A/S removed all the natives (the orthodox explanation for this situation) because Roman Age and Iron Age Britons should have that dissimilar DNA in order to be speaking the dissimilar Brythonic. And they can't do that either (though there is some wiggle room because they're using the wrong baseline).
| Wiley wrote: | | The point is that the original language has to be learnt by new migrants and continues only with slow changes, therefore it will tell you more. |
THOBR says this doesn't happen. New migrants will simply learn the native language which won't change and disappear into the native gene pool which won't change.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Many would become disheartened. Wiles sees it as a triumph of his predictive capacity.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It's called the dialectic, Wiley, we must all take our turn in the barrel.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Guilt (BBC-2)
No, I can't follow it either and do you know why? Anger. All the powerful, competent people are played by women unless they're also villains in which case they are women unless the script calls for a crooked toffee-nosed Scotch banker of the old school. Mark my words, even he'll be a woman soon.
When are we going to get the chance to show we can be powerful and competent too? Just give us the parts.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | It's called the dialectic, Wiley, we must all take our turn in the barrel. |
I know it's bad of me, but Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain" is going up and over the pram edge. When nanny brings it back, it's going up and over the other side. Great. That actually feels better.
It's a false paradigm, trying to combine genetics, archaeology and historical record. It's not bringing forward interesting ideas, it's just a mechanism to confirm, with "scientific genetics", the latest orthodoxy of the other disciplines.
How could I have been taken in? Well very easily actually, as a failed inventor myself I wanted it to fly. It hasn't, just like all of Wiley's flying machines. I have plenty of experience of dropping into the canyon. I know the signs. If it's not creating interesting ideas, it is flawed.
Nice try but genetics simply blurs the botched ortho. It gives it a new undeserved, supposedly scientific, cover story.
Thanks again, nanny, up and over one more time, great, finally out for ever.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Very well put. I think I've mentioned that I had a friendly but wary relationship with Oppenheimer at the time. The real problem was that he was not an academic geneticist, so neither fish nor fowl. The real clue though is that -- as far as I know -- nobody has followed up on his work. If it was soundly based it would surely have opened the floodgates, such is the public interest in this general area.
As it is, everything had to be closed down by careful ignoral.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Breakfast News Doxy: Could you sum up the election results for the viewers, Richard. Like, you know, who won?
Political Editor: Well, of course it's too early to...
Breakfast News Doxy: Can I stop you there, Richard? How do you mean it's too early? This is breakfast television.
Political Editor: We've only got a quarter of the results in.
Breakfast News Doxy: You mean this election will be quantitively different from every other election held since the birth of the universe and in every democracy in that universe, in that the last three quarters of the results will be in some meaningful way different from the first quarter?
Political Editor: You can't be too careful in this business. Many a slip twixt lip and cup.
Breakfast News Doxy: I'll give you a fat lip if you ever say shite like that on my show again.
Political Editor: Language!
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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But seriously it is time to judge the respective TV performances.
1. Both the BBC and Sky were painfully amateurish after being spoon fed the slick pap of US network coverage.
2. Sky used to be superior but they have stopped paying much attention now that Rupert is being divested.
3. The new 'graduate intake' is pitiful compared to the old stagers sacked from Fleet Street for alcohol-related problems. They know their stuff but can't deliver it in the required world-weary way of 'seen it all before'. John Curtice is on his last election cycle.
4. Memo to reporters and anchors: talking into the mike while a returning officer is talking into a bigger mike is not a fair match.
5. Memo to people in front of election screens (BBC): if you're going to stand in front of it for hours on end why not have the board facing us? An acute angle might suit you, and it might be more arty, but we can't read the damn thing.
6. Memo to people in front of election screens (Sky): there is no need to say, "You'll see Treddle Valley North flashing on our map (pause, two paces sideways, points) here" every time. Just the first time is plenty.
7. It's a results-driven business. Having "Windsor and Maidenhead Royal falls to Momentum/Green coalition" passing across the bottom of the screen while your man in Medway Towns is telling us for the fourth time he's fed up with waiting is not good enough. We want to hear what he's saying without distractions.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Emily Thornberry is now looking so like Jabba the Hutt that gallantry can no longer prevent me pointing this out.
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Grant
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Nothing demonstrates Starmer’s incompetence more than putting that woman on the front bench. Has any member of the public ever said, “I really like that Thornberry woman.�
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Emily is the Labour Gerald Ratner, she trashes her own side. She was previously sacked by Milliband for mocking a Rochester man who had a St George flag outside his home, then there was the incident when she instructed solicitors against fellow Labour MP Caroline Flint. Why you would stick her up as your spokesperson is beyond me.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Has any member of the public ever said, “I really like that Thornberry woman.� |
Yes, this one. I appreciate she is a by-the-numbers hatchet man, but by God she is more colourful than the grey men sitting on the Front Bench beside her e.g. Yvette Cooper.
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