Byrnes-Krickl

I really enjoy putting my feet up and watching some guys digging in a soggy trench and going ooh-aah when they find a bit of old pottery or lump of rust. Time Team has been a favourite for a long time. Baldrick from Blackadder (aka Tony Robinson) is the host but he has a bunch of side-kicks. These include a guy who looks and sounds like Catweazle, and another with a west country drawl and funny hat.

Not to be confused with Tony Robinson talking about the Worst Jobs in History.

More recently I’ve begun watching Two Men in a Trench. The two men, Neil Oliver and Tony Pollard, investigate battlefield archeology and like to dress up in period gear. They also have a team of diggers and experts. A notable expert is Andy Robertshaw who runs the Royal Logistic Corps Museum (standing behind the Red Coat).

Coda

10 December 2009: I’m also enjoying ‘A History of Scotland’ on SBS at the moment. So far the first episode of five has been screened. It covered the early history: the Roman invasion of northern Britain and their withdrawal as far south as Hadrian’s Wall, the conflict between Picts and Gaels and the establishment of the Kingdom of Alba.

16 December 2009: sometimes Neil Oliver overdoes his emphatic delivery. It leaves him with nowhere to go when he wants to reach a crescendo. I’m waiting for him to yell “and then we were overun by the FUCKING ENGLISH !! BASTARDS!!!”

21 December 2009: Robert the Bruce, King Robert I of the Scots (1274-1329), versus King Edward I (1239-1307) of England. What a bloody mess.

6 January 2010: I missed episode 4 (the rise of the Stewart royal family and the creation of the highland/lowland divide) but saw the finale, episode 5. Neil seemed to have calmed down. Maybe he knew that the series was coming to an end, as was Scotland as an autonomous kingdom.

“We are not endeavouring to chain the future but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of itself is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything and to have solved all difficulties but we do believe that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for ourselves than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day but we want to do what good we can and to render all the service possible in the cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural beings and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end – the real end being the happiness of man…

Byrnes and Krickl and Byrnes-Krickl

British archeological TV shows

Great words by Robert Ingersoll