#Digging for Britain

[bookymcbookface]

‘Ancestors: The Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials’, by Professor Alice Roberts

[sirgawin]

Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane // Coins for the Eyes

And dig for those whose stories lie With buried pasts and futures won And dig for us as we have done To lay the dead out in the sun To lay us dead out in the sun

Features in BBC 2's Digging for Britain with Dr Alice Roberts.

[imspardagus]

Digging for Alice

While Lucy stomps around in borrowed silks

And David views the past in black and white

Professor Alice shares with us the thrills

Of finds that shatter darkness with new light

While Lucy gurns and simpers in fake dresses

And David frowns and rails against past crime

Professor Alice, radiant in pink tresses,

Is on her knees and prising finds from grime

She could be Mary’s daughter in her zeal

Excitement unconcealed at every site

Rejoicing as each careful scrape reveals

A bone, a shard, a ring or widow’s mite

While Lucy struts and smirks “No, look at me!”

Professor Alice listens avidly

Makes space so all her guests can feel at ease

To share their finds and thoughts impressively

Professor Alice striding ancient paths

Unafraid of medieval poo

Professor Alice digging up our past

And I, Professor Alice, I dig you

[ummick]

"Okay Mick, you can do the donuts now. 🔥" - july 16, 2023 📷 @.mercedesamgf1 / twitter

[infiniteglitterfall]

jewish shower thoughts

A Reddit comment I can't stop thinking about: "If you think whiteness is bad, Jews are white to you. If you think whiteness is good, Jews aren't white to you."

[kaleschmidt]

actually yeah i can release this 4 his bday

[pynkhues]

I’m the anon who asked you for your take on Jeremy Strong’s awards no-show. I straight up LOVED that answer! And your point re. Kieran and Jeremy probably annoying each other, I hear that and understand it and agree! But in all seriousness, I think this is one of the things that kind of narcs me about the discourse around Jeremy’s ‘process’ and how disruptive it is, and how Kieran has to make allowances for him. It’s a two-way street! Jeremy would have been making allowances for and adjusting to his colleagues, too. I’m not sure why one style of disruption is more acceptable than the other tbh. Anyway ty for your reply, love your blog and your Succession thoughts and your industry insights!

(x)

You're very welcome, anon! And yeah, I think people just have a kneejerk reaction to method acting tbh, which I do kind of get? A lot of actors I think do use it in a way that lets them get away with bad behaviour, after all, and it's certainly an approach that's had a body count, but I think at its core, method acting is an immersive technique that, when done well, can be immensely useful for actors feeling their way into worlds that are really foreign to their own.

Benedict Cumberbatch actually talked about it in a pretty interesting way during The Power of the Dog's press tour. Jane Campion had actually encouraged him to do it, and for him it really became about using his hands in a way that he'd never really had to before, in particular in cigarette rolling, banjo playing and taxidermy, all of which are crucial to the character he plays.

But yes, that's a whole other thing, haha. I do think some of the criticism of method acting is about it's room for bad behaviour, but I also do think a bit of it can sometimes be a deliberate diminishment of the craft of acting. There does seem to be a popular sentiment that acting is just people who just get to play make believe all day, but good acting is an art form in and of itself, and of course there'd be different techniques and methods to excel at that.

I don't know! Day jobbing at a theatre company means I'm around actors a lot these days, and I kinda love just going to watch them workshop. There are so many different ways into roles, and I think the only thing to really remember is that when it comes to actors, they're all insane, haha.

[ssaalexblake]

it's funny bc, i was thinking about that letter baby peter capaldi wrote about wanting to be an actor to help the doctor when he got older, and how when he was the doctor they dug it up again.

Then I thought how, it's unlikely anybody born somewhere between like 85-95 would ever have that happen to them bc said sentiments would probably have been posted online when tweens or teens, and people born between said years were taught the dangers of the internet and would have been conscious of anonymity.

Then i thought how, people born after that in the years of facebook's normalisation campaign to have you put your whole name and face and personal details online means that we've probably sprung right back round to being able to dig up stuff said as children or teenagers and say it on tv.

I know i, on one of my 'you'd never know it was me bc i practiced internet safety' accounts, when i was 14, spoke about loving doctor who on the internet. Was probably obnoxiously 14 and sappy about it. Would bother me if it got out. Account still exists. I could become the next doctor and you'd never know, though.

[alanshemper]

“Nobody has forgiven Britain for that.”

—Abdel Razzag Takriti in “Thawra Ep. 4 From the Nakba to Nasser” on The Dig

[mr-ladystardust]

I was literally just falling asleep on the couch but now that I'm in bed sleep is a foreign concept??? wtf brain

[tenth-sentence]

Like Britain's Dig For Victory efforts, Detroit (and much of the United States) also did amazingly well to feed itself during the Second World War.

"Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy" - Matthew Evans

[thespamman24]

DOn't turn british people into cats unless you're sure their tea can be drunk by cats. Otherwise they will die, and there is no more land left in Britain to dig a grave.

[miss-guided-ghosts]

2/4 of archeology memes: “haha lol we do not dig dinosaurs”

1/4 of archeology memes: “pottery shard no. 5,019”

1/4 of archeology memes: “no one died in iron age britain.”

[thoodleoo]

going to inscribe a roman lead curse tablet and drop it down a well in Britain and when archaeologists dig it up and excitedly open it up they're going to see that i inscribed it with "kung pow penis" using greek letters

[ltwilliammowett]

Hello! I adore your page. Can I ask just where you've learned so much about the age of sail and in such fine detail? I dream of reaching a similar level of expertise, but have struggled to pin down a really good book/site/archive for such references. Thank you!

Hi, thanks for the compliment. There really isn't much of a secret, apart from reading and going to the relevant museums. Museums often have archives where you can get lots of books to read. But many people don't know exactly where to start. So I've put together a little list here to make it easier.

 B. Lavery, Nelson’s Navy. The Ships, Men and Organisation. 1793-1815 New Edition    (London 2012)    B. Ireland, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. War at Sea 1756-1815 ( London 2000)    N. Tracy, Nelson’s Battles. The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail (London 1996)    D.Davies, A brief history of Figthing Ships (London 1996)    A. Lambert, War at Sea in the Age of Sail 1650- 1850 (London 2000)    G. Wells, Naval Customs and traditions (London 1930)    P. Goodwin, HMS Victory, Pocket Manuel 1805 (London 2015)    J. Eastland a. I. Ballantyne, HMS Victory. First Rate 1765 (London 2011)    J. Bennett, Sailing into the Past. Learning from replica Ships (London 2009)    M. P. Smith, Terror at Sea. True Tales of shipwrecks, cannibalism, pirates, fire at sea & otherdire disasters in the 18th& 19th centuries (Maine, 1995)    J. Lowry, Fiddlers and whores. the candid memoirs of a surgeon in Nelson’s fleet, James Lowry, 1798 (London 2006)    B. Lavery, Royal Tars. The lower deck of the royal navy, 875-1850 (London 2010)    R. and L. Adkins, Jack Tar. Life in Nelson’s Navy (London 2008)   A. Bruce, Encyclopedia of Naval History (London 1998)   J. Black, Naval Power: A History of Warfare and the Sea from 1500 (London 2009)   N.A. M Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660-1649 (London 1997) C. L. Symonds, The U.S. Navy: A Concise History (New York 2015)

https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ C. G. Davis, American Sailing Ships: Their Plans and History (University of Michigan 1984) B. Greenhill, The Evolution of the Wooden Ship (1988) R. Woodman, The History of the Ship: The Comprehensive Story of Seafaring from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1998)

Admiral W. E. Smith, The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms (England 1867)

And believe me, the more you read, the more little things you notice and the deeper you dig and compile lists and other notes that will help you a lot later on.

[kaleschmidt]

i need to watch emesis blue