Happy New Year

 

On Discworld, this year has been declared the Year of the Beleaguered Badger - but I could only find a picture in Spanish.

Happy New Year!

Farewell, Edward of Wickham

 Most people will think of Jeremy Bulloch in his role as Boba Fett, but I remember him best as the leader of the village of Wickham and ally of the outlaws in Robin of Sherwood.

He's just died, aged75.

His son Robbie played Edward's son Matthew of Wickham.

He also appeared in Doctor Who - in the Time Warriors (the story that introduced Sarah Jane Smith) and, even earlier, in The Space Museum with the First Doctor. 

They Seek Him Here....

 They seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere....

I'd been aware of the existence of the 1950s TV series of The Scarlet Pimpernel for some time, but I'd never got round to watching it before.

Well, I've now seen the first episode, and it is a delight!

I'd been a bit worried it would be very mannered and stage-y, but the cramped sets actually make the sword fighting more believable, and the acting is first rate all round.  

Marius Goring makes an excellent Pimpernel, and it was a bonus to discover that Robert Shaw is playing his friend and lieutenant Sir Anthony in the first episode.  He was great fun in The Buccaneers as a pirate captain trying to live a more honest life.  Even better, the Prince of Wales is played by my favourite Friar Tuck, Alexander Gauge!

Patrick Troughton turns up in the second episode, as another of the Scarlet Pimpernel's friends, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.

At the end of the first episode, Sir Percy kisses the girl he's rescued.  Since he worshipped the ground his wife Marguerite walked on in the books, I don't think he would have done that if she'd been around for the TV series, so I can only conclude that Sir Percy is single for the moment.

Darth Vader is Dead

 RIP Dave Prowse, Sith Lord and Green Cross Man.

Here he is rehearsing the light saber battle with Obi Wan Kenobi (and I think it's delightful that Alec Guinness is wearing slippers here!):

Destruction at Stonehenge

 I'm disappointed in the headlines from the Observer today:

"Druids face defeat as bulldozers get set for Stonehenge bypass: Ancient artefacts will be lost when tunnel for A303 is built near site, campaigners claim."

First of all, it isn't just druids who have been opposing the proposed tunnel for the A303.  It's archaeologists.  Professor Mike Parker Pearson is a member of Highways England's independent A303 scientific committee, and he has been vocal with his opposition to the scheme on archaeological grounds for years.  He's an expert on the landscape surrounding Stonehenge, where he's been working for many years, and the new bypass will cut a swathe of destruction through that landscape.  He likens the destruction to burning ancient manuscripts - once gone, all the information that could have been gleaned from the area destroyed by the road building is gone forever.

In June this year, a giant Neolithic structure was discovered nearly 2 miles from Stonehenge, close to Amesbury.  It was previously unknown, and consists of a series of huge shafts, each more than 5m deep and 20m across.  They had previously been dismissed as natural features or dew ponds.  The circle of shafts is centred on Durrington Walls, one of England's largest henge monuments - and all of this is part of the same prehistoric landscape that includes Stonehenge.  They are not individual sites - they are part of a greater whole.

Another opponent of the tunnel scheme is the Chairman of Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust, Andy Rhind-Tutt.  

The Unesco World Heritage Committee, which designated Stonehenge (and the surrounding area) a World Heritage Site, also oppose the scheme.  They are concerned that the road scheme will impact adversely on the Stonehenge landscape because the tunnel is too short.

And it's not just "ancient artefacts" which will be lost - it's all the evidence of archaeology along the length of the new dual carriageway.  Professor Pearson says that the rescue archaeology (which has to take place in advance of new construction) will only be expected to retrieve 4% of the artefacts present.  He estimates half a million artefacts will be machined off without being recorded.

Disappointingly, one of the supporters of the tunnel scheme is Anna Eavis of English Heritage, who makes the point that the present road is "noisy and smelly and looks awful".  This is probably true, but the tunnel scheme is not necessarily the best way of tackling that problem.  She also claims that any archaeology which will not be preserved in situ will be recorded - which is emphatically not what Professor Pearson claims.

In the next week, the tunnel scheme may finally get approval from Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.  It may help road congestion, when it's finally finished in five or more years time, but it will harm an important part of English archaeology, and World Heritage, forever.

Sean Connery has Died

 

He wasn't just Bond, of course. 

He starred in some of my favourite films, including Robin and Marion, The Name of the Rose, and The Man Who Would be King with Michael Caine. 

He was Spanish in Highlander, Irish-American in The Untouchables, and Russian in The Hunt for Red October (and he'd been Russian before, in Anna Karenina for the BBC).    

He was Indiana Jones' dad. 

He sang in Darby O'Gill and the Little People. 

He wore high boots and a red loincloth (and not a lot else) in Zardoz.

He had a fight on the roof of a steam train carriage in The First Great Train Robbery.

He was a cop in space in Outland, a prisoner in a military prison in The Hill, and a truck driver in The Hell Drivers.

That's quite a range for an actor who will mostly be remembered as James Bond.

Jill Paton Walsh has Died

 I first knew about Jill Paton Walsh through her children's books, especially A Parcel of Patterns, which is about the village of Eyam that sealed itself off to stop the spread of the plague (quite a topical subject now).  Another I enjoyed was Fireweed, set during the Second World War.

She also wrote detective novels with the main character of Imogen Quy, so she had experience in the detective fiction genre when she came to continue the Lord Peter Wimsey series of novels, from the notes that Dorothy L Sayers had left.  Opinion in Sayers fandom is divided on these, but I enjoyed them, even if some people do see them as a form of fan fiction.

She was 83.