And Did Those Feet

This is my first post by email. It is very easy to do - simply go to settings, set up a secret mailtoblogger account. Click on the publish button. Send the email to this address. Hey Presto. It is on your blog! -- Sent from my Treo

Previous posts have discussed various options for setting up a Museum mailing list Since then I have tried out Maillistking This resides on your hard disc and manages the entire database via email. Its a 60 day trial and the support is pretty good. The main problems was that it really wants to receive emails via Outlook express, and I had problems getting my system to recognise subscriptions. But if you use outlook express its worth a try. I also came across PHPLIST which you put on your web server and which manages your email list. As a new comer to PHP programming I found setting it up difficult - in fact it is very, very easy to set up but I just had difficult finding out how to refer to my MYsql database as this is the first time I had set this up. Phplist seems to work very well once you have got over this hurdle. It is free and tincan, the distributers will set it up for you for a small fee. I am planning to use it because it means we can send emails to the list and manage i...

Just finished a long read of Peter Heather's book on the fall of the Roman Empire. He concentrates on the continental evidence without much detail on Britain but it does give clear ideas as to why the Western Empire fell. It did not decline because of internal implosion but because of outside threat. His narrative is that the sequence of events that lead to the Fall began with the renewed Persian threat (with the rise of the Sassanians. The Romans need to keep a proportion of their forces on this front and this meant that no longer had the overwhelming numbers to defeat the barbarian threat on the Rhine and the Danube. This Germanic threat had been there since Arminius defeated Varus in the Forest in Augustus' reign so why did it now overwhelm the Romans. Firstly, the Persian threat, secondly, the Huns, with their new technology of bows and their skill in horseback shotting pushed the Goths, Vandals and other groups across the Rhine/Danube and to seek shelter in the Roman Emp...

Britain’s biggest single arts prize long list has just been announced. Prize is for £100,000 award Cambridge & County Folk Museum, Cambridge – redevelopment of a local folk museum that achieves an imaginative marriage of old and new Churchill Museum & Cabinet War Rooms, London – A new museum dedicated to the life and times of Winston Churchill Dorchester Abbey Museum, Dorchester-upon-Thames, Oxon – This superb collection of worked medieval stones tells the 1400 year old story of the Abbey Hunterian Museum, London – New permanent galleries displaying the oldest and most important medical collections in the world The Concorde Experience, Museum of Flight, Near Edinburgh – this £2 million museum redevelopment offers visitors the chance to see the world’s most iconic aircraft up close. National Waterfront Museum, Swansea – The new national museum that celebrates, through human stories, Welsh industry and innovation Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre, Great Missenden, Bucks – Bra...