Pleasurable Distractions

Jun 11, 2005 Alun Life, The Past No Comments Archaeology, History of Astronomy

I sit down to do some work and then some­thing dis­tract­ing comes through the post. A couple of weeks ago it was the Anti­quar­ian Astro­nomer, the journal of the Soci­ety for the His­tory of Astro­nomy. I was a mem­ber of this, but not cur­rently as you have to renew mem­ber­ship with a cheque and I own neither a cheque­book nor a quill. With art­icles like “W. Henry Robin­son: Pop­ular­ising astro­nomy in Vic­torian Walsall and Birm­ing­ham” by Stu­art Wil­li­ams you’d expect it to be an abso­lute snooze­fest. In fact it’s not too bad. For instance that art­icle is actu­ally an inter­est­ing bio­graphy of an admir­able guy and looks a little at the con­text of his life.

The cover is inter­est­ing. It’s L’Atmosphere: Météor­lo­gie Pop­u­laire, as dis­cussed in Laputan Logic.

A wood­cut thought to be a lot older than it prob­ably is. It’s first known from L’Atmosphere: Météor­lo­gie Pop­u­laire by Cam­ille Flam­marion in 1888.

Yes­ter­day I got the latest Brit­ish Archae­ology through. It’s has an awful lot to do with Stone­henge. There’s 100 years of the Druids, the Battle of the Bean­field, Eng­lish Heritage’s new plans, an art­icle on Pre­seli and also a look at Alan Sorrell’s work. If you’re not famil­iar with his art, there’s an example at Salis­bury and South Wilt­shire Museum. The only prob­lem is the book review sec­tion which tells me Steve Mithen has another new book out which I’m told is “his best yet”. Oh dear.More pain for my credit card.