Sunday Roast: I knew archaeology conferences were useful for something

Do you ever have those books that you read as a kid and vaguely remember the plot of, but can’t for the life of you remember what it was called? Well, the Brainy Snail and myself had a joint one back in Liverpool. The description went something as follows:

There’s this boy, he goes to live with this old woman (I think) in a this massive, tumbledown house somewhere in the country. He has adventures with ghosts…

Not exactly something you can type into Google, right?
Well, two years later, we finally have the answer thanks to a random conversation at an archaeology conference (I’d like to bet that the actual conversation took place down the pub. That’s how these conferences really work in my experience).
Courtesy of Random Cambridge Archaeologist and the Brainy Snail, I bring you “The Children of Green Knowe” by L. M. Boston.
Now all that remains is for me to smile sweetly at Curly Durly and get her to rummage through the boxes of books in the Homestead attic to find my old copy. It would be easier just to order it from Amazon, but much less fun 😉

Any one else got any books they vaguely remember? Let’s see if we can leverage the wonderful power of the Internet to find them for us. I also have this film that’s been bugging me for years now: 12(ish) year old boy finds out there really are monsters living under the bed – well, the entrance to their world is under the bed. Can’t remember if the monsters were evil or good (though I am leaning toward good in a naughty kind of way). That’s it. Oh, and this movie has so scarred me so badly that to this day I can’t fall asleep if my hand is dangling over the side of the bed.

Because it hurts like crap but is so easy to prevent, some pointers on how to avoid RSI. Listen to what this woman has to say. You will be saving yourself a LOT of pain and anguish in the long run.

I’m starting to get itchy feet regarding Bright Meadow’s design – I haven’t tweaked it in a while, and I know it isn’t as good as it could be. It’s rather timely, therefore, that Paul is still doing his Customizing K2 series. Even if you don’t have WordPress, this particular post has some good pointers regarding extraneous javascripts and loading things from external servers.

I missed the actual announcement, but it doesn’t surprise me to hear that the FDA denies that medical marijuana helps patients. Whilst I am against recreational drug use, I have seen first hand the relief marijuana gave people dying from cancer when prescription drugs were failing them. I’m with danah on this one – it’s time it was made legal for medicinal purposes.

Until Friday, I wasn’t even aware that the UK didn’t have its own astronauts. Now I know, I think it is silly. We should have astronauts, if only so I can live out my dream of becoming a Xenoarchaeologist! (Yes, I read too much sci-fi).

Genetics and stress are found linked to CFS – see, even more evidence supporting the “we’re not making it up, we really are sick” camp.

Sumeet has this great meme: 50 Greatest Book to Film Adaptations. Get the list, see how many of the books and/or films you’ve read/watched.
Here’s mine:
[b] – Read the book
[m] – Seen the movie
[bm] – Both

  1. [b] 1984
  2. [b] Alice in Wonderland
  3. American Psycho
  4. [m] Breakfast at Tiffany’s
  5. Brighton Rock
  6. [b] Catch 22
  7. [bm] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
  8. A Clockwork Orange
  9. Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
  10. [b] The Day of the Triffids
  11. Devil in a Blue Dress
  12. [bm] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
  13. [bm] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
  14. Doctor Zhivago
  15. Empire of the Sun
  16. [bm] The English Patient
  17. [m] Fight Club
  18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
  19. [m] Get Shorty
  20. [m] The Godfather
  21. [m] Goldfinger
  22. [m] Goodfellas
  23. [b] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
  24. [bm] The Hound of the Baskervilles
  25. [m] Jaws
  26. [bm] The Jungle Book
  27. [bm] A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
  28. LA Confidential
  29. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
  30. Lolita
  31. [b] Lord of the Flies
  32. [bm] The Maltese Falcon
  33. [bm] Oliver Twist
  34. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  35. Orlando
  36. The Outsiders
  37. [bm] Pride and Prejudice
  38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  39. [bm] The Railway Children
  40. [bm] Rebecca
  41. [bm] The Remains of the Day
  42. [bm] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
  43. [m] Sin City
  44. [b] The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
  45. [m] The Talented Mr Ripley
  46. [b] Tess of the D’Urbervilles
  47. [b] Through a Glass Darkly
  48. [bm] To Kill a Mockingbird
  49. [m] Trainspotting
  50. The Vanishing
  51. [b] Watership Down

And for the CC, a wireless Guitar Hero controller.

9 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: I knew archaeology conferences were useful for something

  1. as for UK astronauts, I think Piers Sellers is being a bit selfish by complaining that he had to change citizenship to follow his ambitions. If you give up your nationality that readily are you a true citizen?? The other 2 didn’t give up their nationality did they? I remember all the media coverage about Helen Shaman and I’m pretty sure she didn’t become a Russian citizen just to get on Mir.
    despite that we like to think otherwise, we’re a small country. I think we should spend our money wisely, and if that means concentrating on technology rather than a hideously expensive manned spaceflight programme, so be it.

  2. Spend… money… wisely…

    Between the cracks of those words I made out the following others, lurking – Millennium Dome, Wembley Stadium, Olympics, war on terror, Blair’s new shoes, Ken Livingstone, badgers and Poirot.

    Some of which may or may not have been pertinent.

  3. *shakes head*
    Nope, we need manned space flight. Can’t quite articulate my argument right now, but I’m firmly on the side of it being a good thing.

  4. My answer was more to do with the fact we’ve always been a race of explorers, and it’s not time to curl up and die yet, but “because it is cool” works too.

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