And Did Those Feet

This is my contribution to London Walks 'Tips for Winter Walkers' The Daily Constitutional from London Walks®: #London Walks Guides' Tips For Winter Walkers No.3

This is a really excellent article on rebuilding after World War 2 Public Housing in Poplar: The 1940s to the early 1990s | British History Online

Divorced, Beheaded The History of the Kings and Queens of Britain   has sold 81,406 copies. Hard Back - 50,655 Paperback - released Sept 2015                      5,862 E book      -  24,432 Audio Book        557 Total 81,406 Nice review of it here  Divorced, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude - TheBookbag.co.uk book review To buy it http://www.amazon.com/Divorced-Beheaded-Died-Britains-Bite-sized/dp/1782434631/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=  The Citisights Guide to the History of London  When this was published by Virgin, they printed 10,000. I think they sold about 2,000 before remaindering it. The 8,000 left were, I believe, sold not pulped. I have no way of working out the sales of the I'uni...

This article confirms my belief that we have left the Post Modern age and have entered the Participatory Age - it is no longer about subverting the norm, or stealing from the past it is about collaboration and participation. Architects "are never taught the right thing", says Alejandro Aravena I suspect that Corbyn mania is part of that trend, and if Corbyn can move in that direction and go against the regressive flow of the hard left, then we might get somewhere. This 2011 Edward Doxc article in Prospect Magazine suggests it has been replaced by an age of Authenticity. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/postmodernism-is-dead-va-exhibition-age-of-authenticism

Excellent article on Queen Boudica's revolt. Boudica: Celtic War Queen Who Challenged Rome | History Net: Where History Comes Alive – World & US History Online | From the World's Largest History Magazine Publisher

I'm thinking its time I finished my PhD.  I began it in the early 1980's while working at the Museum of London.  I was enrolled  for a PhD (part-time) at Birbeck College. On the retirement of Vera Evison, my supervisor, I was transferred over to the Institute of Archaeology. It was in Computer Applications in Archaeology. ( This link takes you to the BBC Billingsgate Film and a few seconds in you will hear me talking about using Computers.) Early Computer Graphics site plan (from GPO site) Progress was slow although I published quite a lot of early articles on the subject. The research was based on an  IDMS relational database which lived on a  Mainframe Computer at QMC in Mile End, although I remember some visits to the Computer Centre at Guildford St.   It ground to a halt mainly  6 years into the research and it was now all on PC's or UNIX mini-computers.  The Museum of London supported my work and within a few years I had set up ...

The Walk went ok - I had too much information and not quite well digested enough so it damaged by normal Tudor walk without making it a great Cromwell Walk.  This often happens on first walks imho, and may also have been partly because the route was far away from their homes so we got right into the Dissolution before we had discovered who they were.  So this is the route as it should have been: 1. Tower Hill - imprisonment and executions  I read the final, reported, words of Cromwell and More in their executions which was 5 years apart. 2. Cooper's Row City Walk 3 Walk around the Walls to Bishopsgate 4. Austin Friars. Cromwell at home amongst the local inhabitants, many foreigners including Chapuys. hie was friends with the Prior who preached in favour of Anne Boleyn (the congregation walked out) and here, Robert Barnes was imprisoned during the time of Wolsey (see Wolsey did not have them burnt at the Stake unlike the saintlike Thomas More.) 5. The Barge - whe...

Great Museum, nice cafe, good lecture on Christmas from the Staff but the Christmas displays themselves were a disapointment. It felt as if the Museum had a Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe budget of about 10 sprigs . It was the opposite of 'bedecked'. Christmas, through the ages, has been about conspicuous consumption and homely spectacle.  Of course, it was downgraded in the Puritan period.  So, I'm not sure whey the Museum decided to give us a minimal and tasteful Christmas.  Perhaps, they did not want the Christmas displays to overwhelm the period displays?  If so, then this meant that they were giving an inaccurate view of Christmas in the past. Each room had interesting information on Christmas but quite low key and really it did not feel like a Christmas exhibition, it felt like a minor addition to the main displays, and I think this is not in the spirit of 600  years of Christmas.

I have just come back from a meeting with the Actors rehearsing for Peter Whelan's 'The Herbal Bed' a play about the accusation of adultery laid against Susanna Hall, daughter of William Shakespeare and wife of physician John Hall. I gave them an introduction to medical care at the beginning of the 17th Century.  I have been working on a book about this subject. The very first draft is available for less than £4 from the wonderful feedaread.  Its called 'The Four Humours of Shakespeare' and it gives not only an introduction medicine in Shakespeare's time but also how Shakespeare used medicine in his writing.   http://www.feedaread.com/books/The-Four-Humours-of-Shakespeare-9781785102134.aspx The Herbal Bed - Peter Whelan - 2016 - Productions - English Touring Theatre

Chance to get to see the Roman FortGate which is open Sat, 9th Jan 2016 Sun, 28th Feb 2016 Fri, 18th Mar 2016 Fri, 15th Apr 2016 Last day is on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Archaeology events

London walks asked me for my resolutions and here they are. The Daily Constitutional from London Walks®: #newyearsresolution Finish That Novel & Visit The Old Operating Theatre @OldOpTheatre

The Roman City 10:45  Sun 10th Jan 2016   Bank Tube, exit 3 (by the war memorial in front of the War Memorial An archaeologist-guided exploration of Londinium (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi).   The Walk will look at the anatomy of the Roman City of London and investigate how our view of  Londinium has changed.

Thomas More & Thomas Cromwell's London - The City of Wolf Hall More  14:30 Sat 9th Jan 2016  Barbican Tube Austin Friars The Walk creates a portrait of London in the early 16th Century, with particular emphasis on the life and times of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More. More and Cromwell had much in common, both lawyers, commoners, who rose to be Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, and ended their career on the block at Tower Hill. The walk starts with an exploration of Smithfield  - site of the stake where Heretics were burnt alive and to St Bartholemew's Monastery - given to Richard Rich after his decisive role in the downfall of Thomas More. We  continue to St Paul where Martin Luther's books where burnt, and later, were Puritans attacked dancing round the Maypole. We walk along the main markets streets of London, to Thomas More's birthplace, and to the site of More's and Cromwell's townhouses before finishing at the site of the Scaffold where More ...