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I received this email this morning: Dear MyTelegraph User, As part of our continued investment in your digital experience, we have now completed migrating our website to a new platform, which we hope you’ve had a chance to explore. We would like to inform you that from June 8 the MyTelegraph section of the website will no longer be available. If you want to preserve any of your content, please follow the instructions below on how to export your My Telegraph blogs. |
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Boadicea's Chariot 
And no suggestion that there will be a comments facility on articles on the DT website.
No facility at all except via Facebook or Twitter, Sheona.
Just cancelled my subscription and told them what I thought of the Barclay Brothers. A sad day. i regret that a once great newspaper seems to be in terminal decline.
Over on Guido Fawkes there’s news of other cuts to the DT, including the staff canteen!
http://order-order.com/2016/05/24/telegraph-bloodbath-new-jobs-cull-underway/
Stifling public comment. The MSM and Politicians want to control the agenda, they don’t want the ‘great unwashed’ to have a voice.
Well to hell with them, I won’t be renewing my subscription which is paid up to next year, If I’d known what they were up to I wouldn’t have taken it out in the first place.
Aren’t the Barclay Bunch the duo who bought an Island in the Channel Isles and demanded to change the way things were run? Why should anyone expect them to value traditional values – like a good British Brekkie?
Seriously, it is sad MyT is going, but I gave up on it a long time ago – it was a great idea – but without technical support and proper moderation it became too much of a problem to post there. My only surprise is that it lasted as long as it did,
Jazz – demand a refund on the grounds of “changed conditions”.
I own to a sneaky allegiance to the Daily Mail, since my Father (and one of my Fathers-in-law) worked there from the very early 1930s. I find it interesting that the DM has a UK, Australian, and US free on-line version, while other newspapers are producing subscription-only publications. I’m well aware that it is not the most serious, or respected of newspapers – but I can at least read the UK news and am allowed to comment thereon.
I rather suspect that subscription-newspapers will, eventually, fail. There are many ways of finding out what is happening around the world – and without ‘quality’ editorials there is no reason why anyone would bother to pay for news that can be read elsewhere for free and can, usually, comment on.
Well, Arrers! The decline and fall of the Big House! There’ll be a few weasels on the loose…
The mobile online Mail is a decent read uninterrupted by irritating ads. Unlike the DT and the Indy.
Thanks for the link, John. What a shambles the DT has become!
Such a shame
I’ve used the export/import thingy to copy my blog, but as expected they arrive without the comments, due presumably to the Disqus system. I’m not sure why I bothered, but it only took a few minutes. You can do the whole thing at one go.
Yes, Boadicea, the Barclay brothers own an Island off Sark. I’ve been expecting it to close for years, but now it has been announced I’m quite sad.
Jazz, I haven’t subscribed to the DT for years, and then it was just for the crossword.
Hi Janus, could be a few lost souls wander in. 🙂
Knew they were killing it when I wrote about it on the 17th.
Thanks for the confirmation Ara.
i really don’t understand the DT, nutters obsessed with some TV programme about Thrones and Kim Kardashian’s obscene arse! Worse than the national Enquirer!!!
Complete bloody pantomime.
Hi Tina, yes, a very prescient post.
The DT is an absolute disgrace, but standards have been slipping since the Barclays took over.
Alamo/Sigourd Shack/Seanofthedeads achievement, he took down a site single handed. Barclays on Brecqhou now distancing themselves from him, 12 major CCRC cases against him. His sole pal? A perjurering ex cop? Bearsy and Boa. Take a bow. In cyberspace nobody can hear the satire.
Hi Araminta. This is Chester (aka AE Darrowby) from MyT. Sad news indeed.
Hello Chester. Yes, it is, although I haven’t contributed much recently, I will miss it.
You really have got to hand it to the Dark Empire. If I now Google ‘My Telegraph’ from Chrome, the first return on the list is ‘The Times’ website with an invitation to subscribe. They have presumably nipped in with a paid placement for possible MyT disgruntees instanter.
Interesting, John.
I used to read The Times, but I really do object to paying a subscription, I used to be able to read some free articles per month but they stopped that, although I can still do it with the FT.
Goggzilla, Good evening and a Good New Year to you.
I don’t expect you to be around here for long, Shangers, and I probably won’t bother following you and the other one around the Internet in future but I have to say that I usually enjoyed your contributions to MyT and that I will always, DV, have the memories of your interactions with hmb, ara, Brendano and, above all others, Joe Slavko.
No, I don’t expect you will survive, S, but like John, I still remember some good times we had on MyT. I’ve just checked it’s actually you!
In cyberspace very few people can hear the satire, but some do. 🙂
Hi, Araminta. Regards to Bilby on this sad night.
Interestingly, as a DT subscriber I did not get the e-mail notification of the demise. I wonder if they were trying for damage limitation by not spreading the news to those of us who were still funding them.
Thank you, Mr Mackie, and kind regards to you, as ever.
A sad night indeed.
I’m beginning to miss Brendano…………well just a bit.
Jazz, ” just a bit “, I see, well I appreciate Brendano was not popular in some quarters but I’ve always liked him.
Well, here you all still are! I mean, here are you all, still. MyT almost dead, and me now with nowhere to blog or comment on those days when I need to. There was hardly anyone from the old days left on there, anyhow. Sabina posted some nice pictures of her garden the other day, and adextra and Vet were always good value. I wonder where Kevin will go?
Nice to see so many familiar names here.
Hi Tambman.
Yes, we are all still here and it’s good to see you. I imagine there are quite a few regulars on MyT who will feel a bit lost, but I’m not sure I will miss Kevin!
I have just sent the following email :-
From: OZ
10:07 PM (1 minute ago)
To: telegraphenquies@telegraph.co.uk
Dear Sir or Madam,
I attach a copy of my email dated 28 April to your digital services department. I await forlornly the courtesy of a reply.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: OZ
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 8:35 AM
Subject: Subscription
To: digitalservices@telegraph.co.uk
To whom it may concern.
I paid 75 hard-earned pounds last October to read The Telegraph online. All was fine, but now I am suddenly unable to access the service for which I have paid because I am not prepared to disable Adblocker. I wish to read the news, not be bombarded by adverts which make accessing your website clunky, slow and extremely irritating. I will never even read an advert, let alone buy something as a result of these unsolicited intrusions.
Please either allow the unhindered access for which I have paid or return my subscription forthwith.
Yours, in green ink,
OZ
To add insult to injury I am informed today by a friend of the following email she received:-
“Dear MyTelegraph User,
As part of our continued investment in your digital experience, we have now completed migrating our website to a new platform, which we hope you’ve had a chance to explore.
We would like to inform you that from June 8 the MyTelegraph section of the website will no longer be available. If you want to preserve any of your content, please follow the instructions below on how to export your My Telegraph blogs.”
I am saddened that as a subscriber to the Daily Telegraph I have not been afforded the courtesy of a similar communication and can only assume that courtesy is an old fashioned concept in short supply in your revamped organisation.
As described above, since paying my subscription in good faith I was subsequently told I may no longer receive the service for which I have paid unless I disable AdBlocker on the DT site. It now appears that in future I will not even be able to communicate on the site, or even with yourselves, unless I submit to the irritations of an unwanted social media account. I have never had any account on either Facebook or Twitter, nor, having a real life to lead, do I intend to acquire one or any of same.
I consider the terms of the original subscription offer (which I accepted and paid for) have unilaterally been altered to such an extent as to void the agreement. Please cancel my subscription at from the end of this month, crediting immediately my account from which the fees were paid last October with a pro-rata refund of £31.25 being five twelfths of the original payment.
For the record, I shall most miss Matt, Charles Moore and the crossword – in that order.
Yours faithfully
OZ
Such a shame. I shall miss it, but I would miss The Chariot more.
OZ
Hi tambman. Good to see you.
Uncharitable of me i Know, but I am really not prepared to waste a second of what remains of my life in speculating where Kevin might, or might not, go. He was, in my opinion, always a complete waste of space, breath and time.
Hi OZ.
The DT really is quite unbelievably high handed with regard to its subscribers. I suspect that there will quite a few of them demanding their money back and deserting.
I am not really surprised by this. At one time the DT was a good paper with excellent writers. Mostly, the good ones have migrated to other sites such as the Spectator. They have been making the same mistake that many newspapers have. They’ve cut costs in things like writing and editing, that what attracts people willing to spend money, hiring eejits that couldn’t construct a coherent sentence, much less argument, if it came in an IKEA flat-pack with proper instructions. They are not attracting new audiences but are managing to scare away the last of their reliable customers. Life goes on, all we can do is salvage what remains.
If none of this makes any sense, my apologies — I’ve started working a number of 12-hour days and am far busier as a result than in the past.
Dear John & Mintoushka, I am surprised my message lasted more than a nanosecond. Yes, the site was great in ’07, a good melange of posters. We need to ask why Mods allowed a mildly annoying mulatto such lassitude. “Innit” promised to write the history of the site, alas too late now. I miss many of those who fled, I was not prepared to cede cyber territory to a loon. If I misjudged B & B then apologies. A rare commodity from me. Excuse me, I have a Chief Constable to scalp. Live long and prosper, Shanghai/Kiska/Begbie.
I told you we could expect some visitors…..
I guess that MyT is being closed for the same reason that comments are no longer available on the DT main site, I.e. gave too wide a forum to those whose views were at variance with those of the establishment.
This is just another stage in the strangling of free speech, a dangerous thing to do because some folk will find other means of making themselves heard.
Looks as if we’re doomed to relive some bloody periods of history all over again.
Lassitude – or maybe latitude?
Anyone who abides by the rules is welcome. They’re not too onerous. 🙂
As far as I can see, free speech has been strangled for some many years – and the consequences are already being felt… ‘Folk’ will always find a way to get themselves heard.
Christopher.
I don’t think anyone was surprised but what a shame.
No, despite the longer hours you are making perfect sense. 🙂
As a follow up and in the interests of fairness, I have received the following from the DT.
Dear OZ
Thank you for contacting The Telegraph Subscription Service.
Regarding your enquiry, the notification on screen is an optional request to disable any Adblock system you have in place when viewing the Telegraph website. Should you choose to continue navigating the website with Adblock enabled, you need only to click the ‘close’ button in the top right corner of the notification.
If this button does not appear you may not be logged in with your registered email address and password. The on screen notification does contain a prompt asking you to login with your active Telegraph subscription account. Once logged in you can then dismiss the notification without being required to turn off any Adblock you have installed.
Alternatively you can login via the link below: https://auth.telegraph.co.uk/sam-ui/login.htm
Once logged in please navigate back to our homepage: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
However, if you do continue to have issues with your extension disabled/whilst logged in you may need to clear your stored cookies relating to our website only. This will then allow the website to log you in as intended. You can also disable the extension and login via our homepage and then enable the extension again if you wish to do so, after cookies have been deleted.
Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at digitalservices@telegraph.co.uk. Alternatively, you can call our free helpline on 0800 316 3500, or for outside the UK 0044 1622 33 5007. Our representatives are available to take your call, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm.
Kind regards,
Katherine Barry
Digital Services
Telegraph Media Group
I have not tried the options yet and will let you know. In the meantime I hope the above will be of use to cherished colleagues.
OZ
OZ, i am losing the will to breathe let alone read the DT. 😷
Seems like MyT at least is already disabled. I can no longer access the website, though that’s probably no great loss.
Very few of us can access MyT, Sheona. The trolls and spammers don’t appear to be having a problem, so it really is not worth the effort at the moment.
Yes, MyT was a brilliant idea initially, and all credit to Shane Richmond and Higgins for launching it so smoothly and efficiently (I speak as a beta-testing ‘guinea pig’.). But then so was the Titanic.The difference is the manner in which the two met their end – sudden and spectacular in the case of the Titanic, but excruciatingly careless, protracted and entirely predictable in the case of MyT – like serially ignoring the shoals and sandbanks on leaving harbour, constantly turning a deaf ear to voluble passengers yelling “watch out”, or “sharp turn to starboard” etc.
On a different subject, might I use the good offices of this more permanent fixture of a site to request feedback on my latest idea – re the true purpose of Stonehenge? It’s one that tourist- and grant-hungry English Heritage and UK’s archaeolology establishment apparently don’t want you to know about….
Referring to Araminta’s comment earlier today, good! Let the trolls and spammers fight for whatever oxygen is left on the wreckage of MyT as the plague ship drifts into oblivion. The task for the remaining site controllers and their mods should be to stop them returning.
OZ
HI Colin.
Yes, it was a brilliant, unique concept which was neglected, badly managed and was probably doomed to failure, but it limped on despite this.
Sad, it could have been so different.
OZ, I could be wrong but I think any controllers or moderators have already abandoned ship.
Blessed (or cursed) as i am with a good memory Araminta, one asks at what point in time did the rot set in irrevocably? I say it was a piece of fantasy script slipped in as ‘amusement’, one that mischievously and seemingly ‘light-heartedly’ portrayed Shane Richmond as an uninhibited gay, and continued doing so, as if revealing “common knowledge” (no prizes for guessing who decided that was what we wanted to read).
There were no grounds for thinking that was Shane’s orientation, at least that I’m aware of, and who cares anyway, but the consequences were immediate and inevitable. Shane was scared off the site, and wasted no time in handing over to someone, naming no names, who saw stewardship of the site as a chore and imposition.
As someone said earlier, it takes only one rotten apple to spoil a barrel . Or maybe one rotten apple and a thrill-seeking addicted feeder on rot, obsessionally slurping up every last drop of toxic mind-bending juice, when the best policy should have been IGNORE.
As the lady said, “it’s a funny old world”.
I had to use a TOR router to get through, decided I wanted a final Shanghai themed account. Is site troll closely linked to one Mod? As with the Grand Unified Field Theory, who knows? As to Stonehenge, Astronomy type reason for it being built. Richmond? I know he nearly lost his job over Baby Peter Connolly’s murderer’s identity being posted (it was Tracey Connolly, now in public domain).The deadline draws near for the site, and I must not clog up your TL any longer.
Colin, pls elucidate re Stonehenge. What have you said/wrote to change our perhaps stereotyped ideas? 🎓
Do you think they will give MyT a decent funeral?
I suspect not, Tina. There are only a couple of days to go and the site is falling over. Very few can post or comment.
It’s a case of “Not with a bang but a whimper”.
I can’t help but think that the DT have made a big mistake closing MyT and not allowing comments. Probably the MSM journalists and the Establishment got tired of having chunks knocked out of them by Hoi Polloi.
I totally agree, Jazz. Very shortsighted of them.
Hello again Janus
The title of my current posting was recently shortened and made more explicit in a vain attempt (thus far) to attract rebuttals, derisive put down comment etc:
“It’s time to get real about Stonehenge – Britain’s permier ‘SKY BURIAL’ site”.
Link to posting:
http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/its-time-to-get-real-about-stonehenge.html
Yup, I’m now pleading for someone, anyone, to shoot it down, so I can withdraw it as a passing flight of fancy, and return to the world of sanity.
ButI here I am, still waiting patiently, week after week, to hear a single sound, persuasive reason why the “sky burial” role is wrong. That’s despite talking to and/or emailing 3 professors of archaeology who do little more than hum or haw or change the subject (at least so far).
Please Janus, or anyone else reading this, Give me one ood reason why Stonehnege was not simply a de luxe version of “Seahenge” , the latter described in a BBC artickle way back in 1999 an an “excarnation ” site with no loud protests as I recall.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/388988.stm
Note the similar geometry, in the one instance a circle of timber posts surrounding an upturned tree stump (“Seahenge”) and in the other, a circle of standing stones with crosspiece lintels surrounding a central “Altar Stone” (Stonehenge). In both instances, one has bird perches that encircle a central bird table.
I reckon that voracious gulls, aka seagulls, assisted maybe by carrion crows inland, served the same role as vultures in those “Towers of Silence” one reads about in Zoroastrian culture, and even modern day Mongolia and Tibet.
Enjoy your dinner
PS: sorry about the typos.
OK, Colin! Pre-history is of course a riddle wrapped up in a thingy. So rituals are almost impossible to identify unless the participants provided cave pictures for our convenience. Did they ever hint at excarnation? I don’t know. Was cannibalism also involved? Such topics were quickly tabooed by Christian teaching, like so many other human traits.
I suggest you try to involve the Time Team crowd, now underemployed, at least by the Beeb. Phil Harding of Wessex Archaeology might just be interested (his subject, his home parch).
“So rituals are almost impossible to identify unless the participants provided cave pictures for our convenience”
Isn’t that rather like saying that no prosecution is possible without CCTV evidence, that all circumstantial evidence,, establishment of a motive etc is worthless?
See today’s Sarah Knapton feature on Stonehenge in the Telegaph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/05/original-stonehenge-was-dismantled-in-wales-and-moved-to-wiltshi/
There you will see UCL’s Mike Parker Pearson deploying what I consider to be somewhat tendentious evidence – circumstantiial no pictures!- to claim that cremated remains were brought into the site from outside (not to be confused with his separate claim that Stonehenge had a smaller bluestone presence initially in Wales that was later moved lock, stock and barrel to Salisbury Plain with additions of local sarsen megaliths).
I’m presently putting together a detailed dossier for Prof. Tim Thompson at Teesside University, (bone cremation expert) and now I know the basis for MPP’s ‘importation’ theory (the basis of which he failed to make clear when I spoke briefly with him two weeks ago) will probably add him to the mailing list shortly.
Thanks for the tip re Phil Harding. I will give it some consideration, but would first like to hear concrete counter-arguments from the academic community and from folk here for that matter.(academics having no monopoly on commonsense). . So far there have been none that have given me the slightest cause for concern. But then i would say that, wouldn’t I (boring old science fart, single-mindedly constructing a working model of reality, one that is capable at least in principle of being potentially falsified by different lines of evidence, circumstantial evidence included if there were enough of it).
Have added a new comment to my posting (see link above) with a friendly nod in the direction of this site too…
No, Colin. That’s frankly disingenuous of you. Pre-history provides some physical, even dating evidence but motive and rituals are hard to identify. Check out Erik von Daniken for the dangers of misreading evidence.
“Pre-history motives and rituals are hard to identify.” I am heartily sick of watching programmes about pre-historic sites and being told, in a sepulchral voice, that ‘clearly’ this or that was used as sympathetic magic, or for some religious purpose.
So I will tell my tale about Catherine Gorge in the Northern Territory.
The first time I went, the guide on the boat, a white fella, pointed out ‘ancient’ rock paintings and told us that the aboriginals used them for ‘sympathetic magic’ to entice the animals to appear.
The second time I went, the guide was an aboriginal who pointed to the rock paintings and said that they had been put there so that tribes visiting the gorge knew what animals lived in the area. The colours used were indicative of the different tribes that had been there and seen the said animals. And the pictures were somewhat akin to a notice board outside Woolies or Coles (our two main supermarkets) displaying the wares on sale – or in this case the animals that were available to be caught and eaten.
I know which of the two scenarios I prefer!
I loathed neolithic and even ancient history at university. Most of it is conjecture based on at best fragmentary evidence. In some cases written evidence can provide a window, albeit a very limited one, into ancient rituals of motivations. For example, oracle bones provide at least some perspective on the most ancient Chinese cultures as the writings provided some concrete evidence. Similarly, ancient Japanese motivations and views are able to be divined somewhat through the Manyoshu, Kojiki and Nihon Shoki but how long is uncertain.
I’ve found it is important to avoid dismissing well-considered theories on very ancient history. Even if evidence is only anecdotal it is better than nothing. Having read Native American history has taught me that in Neolithic cultures there were numerous practices and that many groups and sub-groups could and would diverge. Could sky burials have been practised at Stonehenge? Yes, if other cultures within the same region practised them they could well have been practised there. Could there have been cremations practised there? Certainly. At different times different practices could also have been more dominant or even exclusive.
Thanks for your comments thus far foks – some are especially heartening.
I have not mentioned all the supporting evidence that, taken collectively, pattern-builds to become a mosaic of growing conviction – that being in my experience the way new ideas gradually evolve and supplant older ones . We’re talking about single steps rather than quantum leaps.
The priority right now is to finish compling that dossier, the one which asks, basically if you’re happy with the BBC’s description of timber circle Seahenge with its central upturned tree stump as an excarnation (“sky burial”) site.
If so, what possible objection can there be to ascribing a similar excarnation (“sky burial”) role for Stonehenge and indeed all the other Neolithic or Bronze Age stone circles (bird perches) with a central “altar” (bird table)?
What we’re talking now is about feet-on-the-grouind analogy and extrapolation – not pulling entirely new ideas out the air., and certainly not attempting to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
Speculation rarely helps! That’s what Erik relied on. A central feature could have had a variety of uses. An altar? A beacon? A hearth? Etc.
There’s a difference of degree involved in this, Janus. Forms of burial and space aliens creating civilisation are vastly different — especially when the same form of burial was used within a few hundred miles at most.
The scientific method is absolutely dependent on “speculation”. But it;s not “speculation” as the term is generally understood in everyday usage. Not for nothing is it given a grander description as ‘hypothesis-making’, How do the two differ?
Speculation is usually content to remain an exercise of the imagination, seen as sufficient in itself. Hypothesis-making in the scientific method is something entirely different, being the starting point of a long arduous road of making predictions and then systematically testing them to destruction in some instances, to see whether or not the hypothesis holds up, or whether (as is so often the case) it can be quickly falsified.
Science is essentially masochistic. Not many people know that..
Yeah yeah…. If you can support your hypothesis with relevant evidence, fine. If nor, it’s (fanfare) speculation. 😎
If I were trying to sell snake oil medicine, would I bother coming onto this site inviting folk to shoot down the idea?
Having proposed that Stonehenge was a site for “sky burial” I am simply inviting folk here to say why they think it is wrong. In what way is that selling snake oil mediciine?
Science is driven by hypotheses, but with the proviso that in order to qualify as SCIENTIFIC hypotheses. they need to be testable in principle AND be able stand up to fair and informed criticism
Sure, there are plenty of hypotheses that are not testable in principle, which means they are not scientific hypotheses. I say the “sky burial” hypothesis is testable. e.g by applying existing techniques to show that those vast accumulations of cremated bones at Stonehenge had initially been EXCARNATED, i.e. defleshed. .
The trick in archaeoloogy is knowing what to look for. Hypotheses (the scientiific variety) can and should play a vital role
Janus: you’re being somewhat bloody-minded about this. Long ago Western scholars denied the existence of the Shang Dynasty before they finally, grudgingly had to accept it. Until recent decades Western scholars denied the existence of the Xia Dynasty, but then they grudgingly had to accept it — even though the Chinese had long maintained the existence of both. There is a difference between accepting the far-fetched and acknowledging that there might be something to a hypothesis based on similar structures built at a similar period of time within the same basic cultural region.
No I am not! I have no objection to excarnation at all, if Colin’s research supports it – or with cannibalism for that matter. Just waiting for the evidence. 😎
If the target is those who speculate about funerary rites, while allowing the evidence to vanish without bothering to investigate, then there’s much bigger game than this bemused blogger.
I refer to this follow up article from the BBC, as recent as 2014, revealing the existence of “Seahenge 2” aka Holme 2, right next door to the Seahenge 1 discovered in 1998.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-28128336
There and elsewhere we hear the Norfolk “historic environment officer” parroting a predecessor saying the new discoveriies are too boring for words, and he’s let the sea flush them away without bothering to investigate what was being reported as a “burial mound”. back in 2001.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1111952.stm
Burial of what or whom? Seems we’ll never know., but that hasn’t prevented Norfolk’s archaeolgists from bandying around the term “coffin” (supposed) without a scrap of tanggible evidence. Result: the burden of proof is now shifted to those who have been deprived of the evidence. Forgive me if I continue to proselytize the hypothesis, nay LIKELIHOOD that Seahenge was indeed an excarnation site, as assumed in the BBC’s 1999 report, PROBABLY designed I suspect for gull-assisted (?) sky burial, and that Seahenge can legitimately be regarded as a working model to explain the similar geometrical configuration of Stonehenge.
Maybe “sky burial” it’s not the kind of heritage that Norfolk’s supposed guardian’s of our national heritage wanted or imagined. Maybe the notion of sky burial jars somewhat with their rosy, idealized view of the past.
Maybe English Heritage itoo s also party to this attempt to evade the true facts, given the uncritical way it presents Stonehenge in its tourist guide as “Britain’s greatest ancient temple” right from the very first page..
Nowhere is there a single mention of Seahenge in its 50 or so pages. The same appears to be true of Prof. Mike Parker-Pearson’s 400 page book from 2012 ( “Stonehenge” :exploring the greatest stone age mystery). I have yet to scrutinize evry single page, but “Seahenge” is certainly not in the index,
Stonehenge’s “Altar Stone” gets scant mention too,. On pp 31/32. MPP begins with 17th century William Stukely descibing the central 8-10 ton Altar Stone as “recumbent” on solid chalk “which had never been dug”. Then ignoring that idescription of a non-implanted megalith lying bench-like on its long side,AND the largest of the out-of-area bluestones. he goes on to say: “Its shaped end shows that at some stage in Stonehenge’s past it was probably a standing stone.”
Yup, that’s the “evidence” we’re given for assuming that a recumbent megalith must surely have been a standing stone previously! That’s despite it having a unique mineral geology (it’s a green micaceous sandstone, sedimentary, non-igneous,,native only to parts of S.Wales, different from the local sarsens and even the other imported (igneous) bluestones.
The temptation is to say “I give up”. Nope, I’m not giving up, having now got the bit between my teeth.
Good on yer, Colin, as our host might say!
I am not new to archaeology (old classicist, inquisitive type). I have noticed that the experts tend to be protective of their theories and dismissive of others’. Romanists seem to be the worst. Prehistorians can be similar. Don’t give up. Follow your nose!
You really shouldn’t go suddenly empathizing with my point of view so early in the day, Janus. It risks having me think I’m doing something right at last on the blogosphere, to say nothing of making me choke on my Oatibix. 😉
Aye weel, CB. I really have to dive into this discussion after yours of 10.14 inst.
Oatibix? What sort of nonsense is that? A total waste of the nutritious and wholesome wonder that is/are oats. I stand with the Good Doctor, oats-wise. Good for both horses and people, in my opinion.
Moving on, see this excarnation theory of yours? Interesting, but I do worry about the lack of large carrion birds in Britannia (stern, wild and prehistoric). It must have taken a hoor* of a long time for our small native vulturish species to downrender the deceased to bone. I have my doubts about said theory.
Whatever. I enjoyed reading your exposition. It’s what blogging should be about, a mon avis.
* hoor – This is a worry. I have spent all of my life, to date, believing that ‘hoor’ was a modifying word which indicated extreme effort. Google insists that it is just a Scots dialect word for a woman of easy virtue. I believe that Google is talking total keech.
Backside is out today! 😎
John Mackie: I do feel for you, ruminating on the frightful indignities visited on the noble oat kernel south of the border. ( i confess: my first postgraduate employment was at Quaker Oas Southall, W.London without a single glen or deer antler peeking above the horizon).
Soi yes, I do understand your sensitivities re oats – physics and engineering being your national strong point.
But you’ll have to take the word of this chemically-literate Sassenach that the allegedly therapeutic beta-glucans (“soluble dietary fibre”) of oats do manage to survive the brutal treatment they get south of Berwick. Being viscous, and being resistant to digestion in the small intestine, they are reckoned by the entire oats industry at any rate to tie up cholesterol and/or their bile acid derivatives in the gut, preventing reaabsorption via the enterohepatic circulation, thus tending, in generously funded medical research papers, to lower plasma cholestreol, lowering by a mind-boggling 0,05% the risk of atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction. Better safe than statistically-sorry.
The oats beta-glucan /lay-off-me narrative is what I’m forever ready to spring on my GP in a last-ditch attempt, should the need arise, to prevent him prescribing me those miracle statins and their side-effects, thus depriving him of one of those Tony Blair soak-the-taxpayer GP-contract salary top- ups.
Er, how’s that , Colin? I blame JM for questioning your oatbix. Puffed wheat was my preference, shot from guns, allegedly.
Not allegedly, Janus. I had the job at Quaker Oats between school and university of Puffed Wheat “gunner”, loading and firing wheat from those noisy, smelly guns – highest paid job in the factory. Each gunner had three adjacent guns to manage out of a total of some 12 times that number arranged in two opposite rows. Each gun was a nearly horizontal rotating steel barrel, repeatedly loaded and fired every 4 minutes or so with a charge of wheat grains then injected with high pressure steam then heated over gas burners.. Every single step of the sequence, first loading with wheat from an external hopper via a slung suspended feeder pipe (some 14lbs per shot as I recall),then injecting steam ,then bleeding off the expanded air, firing, blowing out the barrels with compressed air), had to be done strictly according to the clock.
Firing each gun was the real fun. One pulled down a handle that dislodged the hinged seal from the end of the barrel. There was one almighty loud bang, as the puffed wheat was shot out into the collection chamber, then down a chute to the weighing and packing department. Correction – most of the puffed wheat. Getting the remnants of puffed wheat still in the barrel out with a compressed air line was the worst part of the job – the hot air/steam and occasionally bits of puffed wheat tending to get under one’s allegedly protective leather glove. We were offered pink crystals of mineral salts in our brief breaks, with cups of water. They were supposed to replace what we lost in sweat.
I’d have given up the job after a week, had it not been for the fact that my dear old Dad, told on Day 1 what the job involved, saiying I’d never last a week doing “real factory work”.
I must say that as a child Quaker Oats was my favourite cereal. I didn’t mind porridge either (we made the real stuff at home) as long as it had no lumps in it. At prep school no cereals but porridge every morning with a spoonful of Demerara sugar dumped in the middle of it. We used to stir the whole thing up into a pale brown sludge……delicious !
Well now, all these prehistoric types sat there in Stonehenge and ate their porridge. After which they prayed for giant carrion akin to pterodactyls to save them from having to consume any more of the goat food.
Sometimes they killed each other out of kindness and other times they slit their own throats screaming’ save me from the porridge’ The birds kindly did so.
Trouble was, after a few millennia the bones piled up so high that something had to be done. One could no longer exterminate oneself ‘appropriately’. So first they banished the porridge growing to the North, then they built a wall to keep it out, done by that famous hero Trumponius of course. Then they asked the pterodactyl to move on to Africa where they had pyramids and lots of people to eat where they got called vultures. sometimes to be mistaken for culture vultures especially in the Middle East!
All was serene for ever and ever until the bloody tourists and archaeologists came. The end.
Nothing ever changes.
Perhaps porridge killings/immolations could be re-introduced at Stonehenge as a new entertainment? Sounds like a fun thing to watch. Next time round we could use ISIS suspects.
As for statins one informs one’s doctor that you will not take them, simple as that! If the officious prick prescribes them subsequently merely do not cash the prescription! Remember your money pays them!
My brother’s goats ate oats!
Must be off to make strawberry ice cream, not goat food!
There is a surfeit of strawberries ripening manically, can’t keep up with them.
Colin, your autobiographical snippet reveals so much! I presume Elf n’ Softy outlawed your lethal militaria.
Yup, when interviewed for the ‘summer job’ I and others were warned by the HR man that the job was “dusty” (noise and smell was not mentioned) but (wry smile) we could take comfort that it was “edible dust”. Damage to hearing was not mentioned. One of the odd recollections was seeing one of the regular gunners wearing a hearing aid – which one had to assume was switched off, but you never knew (he being one of that common type one encounters in UK workplaces who seem to imagine they are rationed to a maximum of 12 words of small talk per day).
The worst thing was getting behind on one’s cycle, or forgetting to activate steam or gas. There was then a 14ib load of unpuffed wheat to clear out the barrel with compressed air, which took time. Meanwile, the second hand came round on the clock and was the signal for guys down the line to start firing their guns in strict sequence. You had your chamber door open, there was a common exhaust flue linking all the chambers. That blast in the face was unforgettable, and ensured a quick learning curve – don’t get behind on your cycle.
The engineers were testing out fully-automatic guns when I was there, though I suspect they were like Google’s supposedly self-driving cars – someone still needed to be in constant attendance..like, you know, a reserve driver…
I’ve really enjoyed reading this wandering conversation – I’ve even learned a thing or two!
John Cleese re MyT:
“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.”
Yes, written by JC and Graham Chapman but spoken by the peripatetic Michael Palin….😎
Colin.
MyT has most certainly ceased to be, expired and etc.. If you try to access it you are redirected to The Telegraph main site.
Yup, I know Araminta (thus the frightfully botched attempt on my part at making light of the passing of an error). Sorry, I’ll read that again: passing of an era. Incidentally, you don’t happen to know do you what was in that permanently-displayed Hot Topic (“Labor Day USA!”)? Was it exciting stuff? I guess my click bait finger must have become temporarily paralysed for a short while, say 3 years, possibly a bit longer.
So what did finally for MyT? Is there such a thing as death by premature mummification?
I probably did read the Hot Topic at some point Colin, but yes, the site was indeed frozen in time, neglected by the Telegraph management.
I imagine culling journalists, and comments on the main site was a pretty good indication that MyT would be killed off eventually.
I have to say, my visits were not that frequent over the last year or so, not enough variety, little humour and endless squabbles.
When are we allowed to remove our black armbands? Would 5 mins time be considered too soon, too disrespectful? I was hoping to cast my eye shortly over some mirth-making literature, like, you know, the latest tranche of dire warnings from the Remain campaign…Did you know that Brexit might weaken our claim to the Falklands (William Hague)? Who’d have thunk?
Having a mind somewhat inclined to consider conspiracy theories, I have a sneaky feeling that the demise of MyT at this particular time just might have something to do with the referendum. It might be a shame were too many Myters declare their support for Brexit… However, as our correspondent from across the border often says, I might just be wrong!
Colin – 5 seconds might be appropriate! As far as I’m concerned the site died a long time ago – when it was clear that management allowed it to descend into a place where uncivilised debate was the norm.
Nonetheless, it was a great idea – sad that it has gone, and there are fewer places where Joe and Joan Blog can exchange ideas.
Hi Boadicea.
You might well be right regarding the timing, I think others have suggested the same. And yes, it is sad, there really is nothing quite like MyT!