The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

(23-08-2013 05:53 PM)Caspin Wrote:  Ah, Assassin's Creed. It is something played in my house and my brother likes it too. The last game was a bit pants but the earlier ones set in Italy were quite pretty.

Today was a lot of fun. I went to the Historic Dockyard here in Portsmouth and saw the Mary Rose in its new museum and also went round the Victory. Really interesting, especially the Mary Rose. I was only about 5 when they finally managed to raise her from the seabed so I don't remember all the hype, but I have read a few books about it and am interested in the science involved in its conservation. They have been spraying the whole ship with polyethylene glycol for the last 20 years so that all the timber will be waxed and preserved. In the meantime they salvaged a lot of skeletons and artefacts and did conservation work on them too. Now there's a fantastic museum built around the whole lot. It will take the next four years for the timber to dry.

As usual I have a tonne of facts in my head right now but I will try to keep them contained. If you want to know more look here: http://www.maryrose.org

Also I had a go with a long bow and managed to not completely fudge it up, so I hope you're suitably proud of me!

Tomorrow I'll be getting the ferry to the Isle of Wight, where I hope the shower will be less aggressive!

If you ever get the chance to get a copy of the book "The Great Longbow", do so (be warned, the hardback edition is a beast in size - like one of Hermione Grainger's pieces of light bedtime reading!), Written by Robert Hardy (the actor & expert in just about everything) & his mate Professor Matthew Strickland (who's a dead ringer for Eric Idle, whom he was at Cambridge Uni with along with the rest of the Monty Python team!) - the latter was my old medieval history professor & all round utter genius.

He started a graduating for honours class in his first year as a uni tutor called "War, Chivalry & Lordship" that after only the first year became the most oversubscribed in the Medieval History department. I'd only done modern history up until that time & his class taught me how much the medieval world mattered. He was on telly for the recent Hundred Years War series on the BBC - really he ought to be on TV more often, but he always seemed to be up to his eyeballs researching & coming up with new research so I guess he only does it when interested.

Longbows are great fun. The professional archers in the English army could loose off six arrows in a minute - compare this to the 19th century armies with muskets who could only do three rounds a minute at best.