history

Roman Fish Salting in the Mediterranean

Roman Fish salting bath For years I heard about Roman pisciculture baths near the sea in Spain and I thought that this is where they would keep fish for eating, like they did in medieval Europe. That idea is wrong. The pisciculture that you have near Javea, Cadiz, and other parts of the Mediterranean coast were for the production of Garum and other salted fish versions. The Vault ceiling of a water pipe built by the Romans

The Romans on Twitter

Over a few months I have seen that tweeting about the Romans is growing in frequency. The accounts that I see are tweeting about Roman Britain. They share images of mosaics, digs and new discoveries. It is a way to follow archeology and Ancient history in a modern context. https://twitter.com/romanmosaics/status/1411934843928199170 By following tweets about the Romans in Britain it is a way of being reminded on a daily basis about new discoveries, new experiences, and new places to visit.

Empire Of The Deep and Brexit

I am currently reading Empire of the Deep, The Rise and Fall of The British Navy and to read it within the context of Brexit is interesting. We already know that the British gave up on the Catholic Church because Henry the Viii wanted to change wives and the Pope said no. (I am oversimplifying it, for the sake of this blog post.) While reading Empire of the Deep I see that the English have a very long history of being at conflict with Europe.

13 Minutes to the Moon

13 Minutes to the Moon is an interesting podcast dedicated to the Lunar Landings. This podcast, along with audiobooks, is interesting because they allow us not just to read the dialogues that took place but to hear what the controllers and astronauts heard. At one point in Episode two, you hear two communications loops at once. It’s a shame that they didn’t balance the audio so that loop 1 was in one ear and loop 2 in the other.

The Bomber war - Documentary and book

When I was in Spain I started to read “The Bomber War” because it’s a topic I do not know much about the topic. It’s interesting to read about the technology that they used for guidance, for detection and for the bombing. It’s also to read about how one thousand bomber sorties were sometimes orchestrated. I’m only 40 per cent of the way through the book at the time of writing.

Dziga Vertov and Social Media

A century ago Dennis Arkadievitch Kaufmann, more commonly known as Dziga Vertov, the spinning top, came up with the concept of the All-Seeing Eye. The Kinoki. The Cinema Eye. His idea was that with time life unawares could be documented and daily life would be captured by cameras for everyone to see. https://youtu.be/yzxrSX79oz4 Until recently the idea of filming and documenting everyone with video and photo cameras was an act of fiction.

Google Arts & Culture

Google Arts & Culture App Google Arts & Culture is an app that allows people to look at Arts and culture from around the world easily and intuitively. This app allows you to learn more about arts and culture based on your current location as well as by topic, art medium and more. With this app, you can look at 360 images of monuments and locations. You can also zoom into artworks.

D-Day Film archives on Facebook

Yesterday D-Day Film Archives were shared on Facebook. These film archives were of landing crafts landing troops on the beaches, of battleships firing rocket salvos at the coast, of gliders being pulled by planes, of paratroopers getting and more. Over the years films have been preserved by transferring the footage from one film stock to another and then transferred from film to tapes. The problem with film and tape is that they are stored in a physical location that only archivists have access to.

Tudor Monastery Farm - A documentary series

I took advantage of a rainy day to watch a series of documentaries by the BBC called Tudor Monastery Farm. It is a documentary series where three individuals live the life people would have lived at the relevant time period for a year. During this year they try farming, mining, fishing and other skills and crafts from the time. These are observational and experimental documentaries. They take the observational cinéma verité and Direct cinema approach to factual television production.