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Showing posts from August, 2006

Elected as member of the Association for Heritage Interpretation

I have just heard I have been elected as a full member of the Association for Heritage Interpretation after a fairly long drawn out process. That means I can now be: Kevin Flude MAHI MIFA ho ho!

London lecture series

Currently giving a series of lectures on the history of London - I'm at one of those points where I'm going to have to make a major change in the narrative - so much change is happening to views of Roman and Dark Age period.

What is Google/Blogger up to?

It has taken my one hour to get to my blogger dashboard. Somehow by having a google login I cannot get into my blogger dashboard. Its crazy! It sends you to something called Blogger Beta and will not let you by any means get to your blog to change it. Complete nightmare. Then I tried to email google - you try finding any point of contact between the world at large and google? absolutely none. Big corporations seem to hide their emails under huge inpenetrable layers of protection.

News in Science - Ten men fathered Europe - 14/11/2000

News in Science - Ten men fathered Europe - 14/11/2000 Having read the news article but not the original publication, it is not entirely clear to me exactly what it is saying. The study identified three types of 'distinct geography and culture' 1. Basques and Western Europeans 2. Middle Eastern 3. Eastern European populations from Croatia, Ukraine, Hungary and Poland." Then it talks about lineages and markers and it is not entirely clear how they relate to the 3 distinct types of geography and culture above. 1. the oldest male lineage M173 is found in half the men in the study and dates to the Paleolithic - "M173 is an ancient Eurasiatic marker that was brought in, or arose in the group of Homo sapiens (modern humans) who entered Europe and diffused from east to west about 40,000 to 35,000 years ago, spreading the Aurignac culture." 2. M170 'dates to about 22,000 years ago and is associated with the Gravettian culture' - this Britarch affirmed (but not

British Museum but where's the British stuff?

The BM is becoming even less about Britain by the day. They have now closed the one gallery that had anything of the Stonehenge era. This coming on top of closure of Roman and Celtic galleries means most of the important British archaeological items are not on display. Our most important archaeology is not on display in one of the world's leading museums Why couldn't they have planned it better? Closed one while working on the other? Also the RB gallery was not one of the oldest galleries and could have been left longer? Had a proper look at the Procession on the Elgin marbles . Its all about the marshall's trying to restrain the horses --

The Madness of Cycling

In the City today a couple of Italians walked straight out in front of my bike - they did not even look, just walked straight out. I nearly went over the handlebars again - no one hurt. Last couple of weeks have been a disaster re bikes 3 weeks ago back wheel stolen outside Tricia's house from Poppy's bike 2 weeks ago the gears fell off the back wheel of my bike 1 week ago a car knocks me off the bike and runs over my front wheel destroying it Today, pedestrians throw themselves in front of me and coach runs over my favourite (and irreplaceable as they are no longer made) squire D-Lock Combination lock. Yesterday I witnessed a mad vespa driver smash into the front of a car, and today saw a motorbike rider knocked off. (both drivers just bruised) Is it safe out there? At least no one hurt badly and me not hurt at all. We need dedicated cycle lanes!

Textile Conservators - Annabel Wylie and Poppy Singer

Recently I set up this web site for Poppy Singer and Annabel Wylie. If you need any historic textiles conserving these are the people for you! They have worked for many of the leading museums. Textile Conservators - Annabel Wylie and Poppy Singer

Php/MySql Web applications

Spent the evening looking at setting up Php/MySql databases - with view to transfering a Museum modes database into an online Gallery and using it for general purposes. Having set up a php mailiing list system - phplist. I have now read tutorials on Php and Mysql on the web at www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/ and came to the conclusion that there must be code generators which do the hard work of setting up the boring Add, Save, Next, Prev, search routines. Look at my furl archive to follow the traces - link to right. My conclusions was that this review DbQwikSite3 Review gave the best advice - DbQwikSite and Code Charge Studio are the most promising.

Modes Web Server

Surprised to see that the museum database system - called Modes written by the MDA, sells a web server version which means you set your computer up as a server. Although they also offer a hosting service, seems onerous on the museum to set up their own server - surely would have made sense to set their system up to be hosted on your own host? Its about time that the MDA changed over to open source - they have been trapped in their own proprietory system since the 1970's.

Test your Website using free HTML validation and spell check

Test your Website using free HTML validation and spell check

The Roundhouse - my part in its history - from Deep Purple to Fuerzabruta

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Went to see Fuerzaruta in the refurbished Roundhouse last night. It was good to be back - I first went to the Roundhouse in Nov 1969 when I saw an amazing bill "Polytechnic Arts Festival" of: Yes,Manfred Man Chapter III, Deep Purple, Brian Auger trinity, Atomic Rooster, Liverpool Scene, Free, Village. Next visits were to see Stranglers, Ian Drury in about 1977/8? Also saw Steve Berkoff's excellent Hamlet there. Then a big gap until we took the kids to see the Chinese State Circus there in the 90's. Then back in July 2006. fuerzabruta is an amazing piece of what might be called Kinetic Theatre. It has 2 main parts - first part - a man running on a belt, dodging and hitting various obstacles, second part women sliding on water above your head. There are 4 main set pieces - one the man running on a huge treadmill dodging the obstacles. Secondly a woman swimming with a man mirroring here movements underneath the transparent bottom of her pool, thirdly a vertical sh

Daniel Defoe - radio London interview

Robert Elms show rang me up today to ask me to talk about Daniel Defoe live on the Robert Elms show on Radion London - because. I guess, of the Daniel Defore walks I have done. They had someone expert on Blue Plaques - who was very well briefed and I thought they hardly needed me but I did ok and managed to mention the Old Operating Theatre Museum! My main contribution was to point out that the reason Defoe was in Stoke Newington is that this was a centre of non-conformists, following the 5 mile act. General Fleetword, and the Morton dissenters academy were here to.

YouTube, Lebanon and pop videos

I investigated youTube.com to see what it was about. Some interesting videos on the Lebanon Crisis - one showing a grilling of a Isreali spokeswoman cut with images of civic destruction in Lebanon, another purporting to show Hisbolah rocket lorries hiding in civilian infrasructure. It was convincing showing rockets launching from civic areas but if a gunman hids behind a group of civilians you don't open fire, killing them all do you? Of course it is the gunman's fault - but you expect individuals, gangstars, terrorists to be irresponsible - you don't expect the same from civilised governments? I find the destruction of Lebanon that was rebuilding itself after years of civil war so sad. It shows up Isreal as the local bully and I cannot see how Britain can have in any way supported it. Taking on Hisbolah is one thing - bombing an international airport, bridges, power stations - clearly to teach Lebanon a lesson appalling. I am also shocked that Britain and American can