Category Archives: history

history, links, medical, natural history, science, sexuality

Your Interesting Links

This month’s large collection of articles encountered which you maybe didn’t want to have missed.
Science & Natural World
First off we must pay our respects to this year’s IgNobel award winners amongst whose investigations were solid and liquid cats, didgeridoos and cheese disgust.
Budburst on many trees is temperature dependent and March temperatures seem to be the key for many. And they’re getting slowly warmer, so budburst is getting earlier.
[Disclosure: I’ve been submitting records to UK phenology research for many years; many more years that the 17 covered by this research. It takes little time and is valuable “citizen science”.]


Another curiosity of British wildlife is that some birds (notably Great Tits, above) are evolving longer beaks as this gives them an advantage at garden bird feeders. Here are two complementary reports, one from the Guardian, the other from the BBC.
Now to chemistry … A look at how poisoners could use clothing as a murder weapon.
The aliens are coming! Well maybe not quite, but there is a mysterious object speeding past the sun which could be visitor from another star system.
Health & Medicine
For those who want a little more of a challenge than normal (it contains some relatively simple maths), here’s a very good article on why vaccination is important in preventing epidemics.
Sepsis is a hidden killer, and one which most people know nothing about because it has so successfully continued flying under our radar.
There’s a small study which suggests that the psychoactive drugs in magic mushrooms “reset” the brains of depressed people. [Do NOT try this at home! The study used very controlled doses in a medical environment.]
And now to some curiosities … First off, and not for the squeamish, an historical report of a man with two penises and two bladders.
Synaesthesia is mind-boggling. The first of our two mentions this month is of a woman who lost her sight due to illness and in regaining it had some terrifying sounding synaesthetic effects.
And to boggle the mind even further, this young lady has a range of different types of synaesthesia (compared with the normal one). I just cannot imagine what this is like!
Sexuality
Two different aspects of a relationship without sex. First there are people who are genuinely asexual: they may have romantic partnerships but have no interest or desire to have sex.
At almost the other extreme there are couples who, while still happy together, just stop having sex.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
Forensic science is coming under increasing scrutiny. Not only has fingerprinting never been scientifically evaluated for its reliability, but DNA is accused of frequent flawed techniques, which can have devastating effects.
Language
Philip Pullman is under fire because his children’s book La Belle Sauvage is littered with swearwords. Emma Byrne in the Guardian suggests this is actually a good thing: most children already know the words and isn’t it better that they learn in a controlled way when they are and are not acceptable?
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Uncovering the menus for Neolithic man’s feasts: pork and cheese.
The Incas were far better astronomers than previously thought.
The shipwreck which produced the Antikythera mechanism is still turning up interesting artefacts like the bronze arm which suggests there may be a haul of statues waiting to be found – and what may be another piece of the Antikythera mechanism itself.
Why do a number of Scandinavian Viking graves contain burial clothing embroidered with the work “Allah”
But worse is yet to come, for the Vikings may have brought leprosy to this country via their trade in red squirrels.
Coming much more up to date, both sides are now telling the story of the capture and boarding of the German U-boat U-559, which changed WWII by giving the Allies the Germans’ Enigma codes.
So how about a list of the ten best railway stations in Britain, at least according to Simon Jenkins in the Guardian.
London
IanVisits is writing an occasional series on “Unbuilt London”. In an old post he looks at the 1960s plan to replace buses with monorail network. I have a vague memory of this hare-brained scheme.
And here is a really fascinating and detailed map of the London Underground, Overground, DLR, Tramlink & National Rail (small section below). But why does this have to be published by a French company?

Lifestyle & Personal Development
Our favourite Soto Zen master, Brad Warner, reflects on “The Center of All That” the implications of being you, here.
We’re losing our skills. The skills to do everyday chores our parents took for granted, like washing up by hand, changing a mains fuse or sewing on a button.
A brief look at some of what happens behind the doors of a London crematorium.
I wasn’t sure whether to put this next item here or under medicine. According to sleep scientists we are chronically underslept and sleepwalking our way through life. That is a real threat to our health, and it isn’t fixed by a couple of good lie-ins. So what to do about it?
Apparently our culture says that emotional friendships are a female thing and that boys cannot have emotional friendships with their own sex and are discouraged from doing so by the time they hit puberty. And this is forcing a large number of men into loneliness despite the outward appearances. [OK, it’s American, but is UK culture so different?]
People

Back in August Geoff Marshall (no relation)and Vicki Pipe completed their challenge to visit all 2,563 National Rail stations in Great Britain. Here they talk about the experience for the National Railway Museum’s blog.
That’s all folks! Another instalment next month.

history, links, science

Your Interesting Links

Here’s this month’s round-up of miscellaneous links to items of interest or amusement from the last few weeks.
Science & Natural World
Is it an asteroid? No. Is it a comet? No. It’s actually something new: a binary comet.


At the other end of the spectrum, fishermen in New England have caught an unusual lobster: not a blue one but an even rarer translucent lobster.
On land, you wouldn’t think a 1kg rat could evade attention for long, would you? But a totally new species of giant, tree-dwelling, coconut-eating rat has been discovered on the Solomon Islands.
Health & Medicine
Just as our grannies always told us: worrying about our health makes us ill.
Most obesity is, in one way or another, caused by over-eating. But why do we over-eat? Until we actually understand that we’re unlikely to be able to crack the obesity problem.
According to the current fashionable theory, biological sex is a spectrum from 100% female to 100% male. Which makes sense when you consider the variety of ways in which genetics can muddy the waters. Scientific American explains.
Sexuality
Does sex (and orgasm) always have to be “red hot”? Many think it does, but reality is that there will be huge variations – and that’s good.
Environment
Concreted over front gardens should be banned. Concrete causes flooding! [Actually in many instances planning permission is already required for concreting over/paving front gardens.]
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
The Romans had a herb which we seem to know almost nothing about, and it was so valuable Julius Caesar kept a cache in the government treasury. [LONG READ]
The Abbots Bromley horn dance is thought to be the oldest folk dance in Britain. It is performed annually on Wakes Monday (the first Monday after 4 September). Some pictures from this year’s celebration.
Sheela-na-Gigs are female genital sculptures often dating from medieval times, or earlier. There’s now a project to catalogue all those in Ireland.
Like black cats, crows and ravens are variously viewed as lucky or malevolent. Either way they have a lot of associated folklore.
London
IanVisits discovers a hidden industrial marvel at Canary Wharf.
And here’s another, more up-to-date technological marvel from IanVisits … 3D-printing is being used to make large pieces of Crossrail stations.
Food & Drink

And finally … We shouldn’t be worrying about Brexit and food shortages, after all there’s always spam and tinned peaches. [LONG READ]

history, topographical

Greenstead-juxta-Ongar

A few days ago I promised a post about the second church we visited on our very brief perambulation of Essex, the first being Stondon Massey, so here it is …
A handful of miles from Stondon Massey, the other side of the lovely small town of Chipping Ongar, is the hamlet of Greensted, or more correctly Greensted-juxta-Ongar. Although I’ve been there before (like 50+ years ago!) Noreen hadn’t, and that was an omission to be corrected.
The church of St Andrew is, according to the church website, the oldest wooden church in the world, and the oldest “stave built” timber building in Europe. The walls of the nave, which date from around 1060, are built from a series of upright tree trunks. Needless to say the church has been restored several times over the centuries; as an example in the the south wall of the chancel you’ll see Norman flint-work below Tudor brickwork; and the tree trucks have had to be underpinned with brick to ensure their stability.

Greensted-juxta-Ongar

The photo above shows this tiny church and something of the well-kept and very pretty churchyard, complete with glorious yellow roses lining the path to the south door. Behind the roses, against the church wall to the right of the porch is the 12th century grave of a Crusader, probably a bowman.
Below are two views of the north wall, which better show the detail of the stave construction.
Greensted-juxta-Ongar North

Greensted-juxta-Ongar North

Delightfully the church was open, despite there having been a number of thefts – so more power to the rector and churchwardens for maintaining access for the not inconsiderable trickle of visitors. (In the 45 or so minutes we were there at least three other small groups of visitors arrived.)
As you might imagine, with light only from half a dozen dormer windows and a panelled interior, it is is fairly dark inside the church, so I didn’t attempt taking photographs but just took in the intense calm. That’s a calm which, in my experience, comes most in a really old church (there is evidence of a church at Greensted at least as early as the 6th century) which is used and cherished. Greensted is one of those delightful places.
Adding to the delight were this (unintentionally) amusing sign and those gorgeous yellow roses.
Greensted Church Sign Greensted Yellow Rose

I somehow doubt this will be the last time we visit.
PS. If anyone can identify the variety of those yellow roses I would love to know.

history, links, medical, science

Monthly Interesting Links

There seems to be quite a lot in thus month’s round-up of links to items of interest which you may have missed the first time round. So let’s get straight in …
Science & Medicine
A lump of rock the size of a house is apparently going to whiz past Earth on 12 October at a distance of 44,000 km – that’s like an eighth of the way to the moon. And yes, astronomers are confident in the predicted distance so DON’T PANIC, but do take a towel!


And now to the more mundane … New Scientist has a rather spectacular feature on the variety of jellyfish in the oceans. You never knew they were so beautiful!
Octopus and squid have the unhelpful habit of producing ink to cover their escape. But why? And what is the ink?
Don’t breathalyse a goldfish. At least not in the winter. For you see they avoid being frozen to death by turning turning the lactic acid in their body into alcohol.
Now you don’t expect a new species to be discovered in the UK, and certainly not right under our noses. But it seems that our (not so common) grass snake is actualy two different species.
Most of us don’t like ants in our kitchens, however the humble ant is a rather amazing creature, as researchers are beginning to understand. And there are lots of them too!
Wasps! Yes they’re intensely irritating at this time of year. But that’s only the handful of social wasps we have; there are many thousands more species of solitary wasps. Without them we would be knee deep in creepy-crawlies as they are excellent predators of other insects (as well as your BBQ burger). They are also important pollinators. But surprisingly little is known about the UK’s wasps, which a citizen science project is now trying to delve into.
Incidentally ants, wasps and bees are all quite closely related and are all members of the order Hymenoptera.
Now to our pets! Very few animals can be said to know themselves, at least according to the standard test using a mirror. And on that scale dogs are not included. However it seems that they probably do know who they are using smell.
We all know that in emergency we can give CPR to our fellow humans. But did you know it works on cats and dogs too? Here and here are a couple of items on the subject.
And finally in this section … Medics are now coming to realise that some common surgical procedures are no better than a placebo, just as some drugs aren’t.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
Constant worry, anxiety and panic about the future now seems to be a part of everyday life. But it is counter-productive and leads to burn-out rather than action.
Art & Literature
Here’s one for your diary … Next Spring the National Portrait Gallery will be showing Lewis Carroll’s photographs of the real Alice among an exhibition of early Victorian portraits.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology

I wasn’t sure whether to put this under “science” or “history” … It appears that trigonometry wasn’t discovered by the Greeks, but around a millennium earlier by the Babylonians. As one might expect it was all recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets. And they used a totally different system from that used today. However, Evelyn Lamb in Scientific American has pointed out that in fact little of this is actually new knowledge.
You wouldn’t really expect biologists to be doing research on ancient manuscripts, but they are … and they’re discovering all sorts of odd things about the parchment, the book covers and even the monks who did the calligraphy.
While on the medieval, and in other research, historians are coming to realsie that many of the supposedly iconic medieval images of the plague are nothing of the sort.
London
Did you know that for just £10 you can visit the Royal Mews and see all the Queen’s horses and carriages?
Lifestyle & Personal Development
Author Kasey Edwards discovers that so many people would like not to be married and just stay together for all sorts of reasons – but she isn’t one of them.
Berlin is designing new unisex urinals for its unisex public toilets.
Food & Drink
And finally … another that could have gone under “science” … geneticists have been hard at work on the apple and have traced its roots back along the Silk Road to Kazakhstan and China. The Romans may have brought the desert apple to England, but it had a long journey before that.

As usual more next month!

history, music, personal, photography, topographical

Stondon Massey

1 Comment

A week or so ago we had a little jaunt through SW Essex; I needed to go there on business and it seemed an opportunity not to be missed. Regrettably we didn’t do as much as we would have liked as I wasn’t feeling very brilliant – but we did visit a couple of churches.
The first church was at Stondon Massey, north of Brentwood. The church is a mile or so north of the current village, the suggestion being that the village centre moved due to the various plagues, especially the Black Death of 1349-50. The church dates back to around 1100, with several periods of extension and rebuild. The west window, shown below, appears to date from the early 15th century, and possibly earlier. The wall is of flint, which is the only local “stone” as Stondon Massey is on the southern edge of the ice from the last great glaciation. This flintwork is delightful and “rustic” – much more in keeping with the place than the dull, dark, finely worked, obviously Victorian flintwork on the north-east corner of the church. Note too the decorative use made of the lovely red (probably Roman) tiles.

Stondon_Massey_west end

Unfortunately the church was locked (fie to parishes who lock their churches!) so we could only appreciate it’s age and beauty from the outside. Not that we minded too much as the churchyard (below) was one of the most delightful I’ve seen, embroidered as it is by a multiplicity of oaks and yews with lots of dappled shade and well kept grass all paying homage to the carefully tended graves.
Stondon Massey, Essex, churchyard

Those of you who know your English music will recall that the Tudor composer William Byrd (c.1540-1623) retired from the Chapel Royal in his early 50s and lived his last 30 or so years at Stondon Massey. Byrd was a recusant Catholic who was regularly heavily fined for failure to attend Anglican Sunday worship and it’s possible he chose Stondon Massey due to its proximity to his patron, Lord Petre, who lived at Ingatestone. Byrd died at Stondon Massey and may be buried there, although there is no documentary evidence for his burial.
Byrd is one of my “heroes” hence snapping up the opportunity to visit on a lovely sunny August day. I think we shall be revisiting.
I’ll keep you in suspense about church number two; watch this space for a post in (I hope) a few days time.
Click on the images for larger views on Flickr.

history, links, medical, science

Your Monthly Links

So here’s our round-up of links to items which have caught our attention in the last month. There’s a lot in this month, so here goes …
Science & Medicine
Suspicious that expiry dates on products are a nonsense? Well that might be justified for some drugs.
The expected continual rise in life expectancy is slowing down. A leading medic suggests austerity is to blame.
It seems like what you always suspected may be true: a broken heart may damage your health.
We all know that cats purr. But do they purr only for our benefit?
An American veterinary service is working on making vet visits stress and fear free for nervous pets.
You thought plague was a thing of the past? Wrong. It is still alive and well in the American Southwest. Here’s the story of how one biologist tracks and identifies plague outbreaks before there’s harm to humans. [Long read]
Flying ants all seem to emerge on the same day. But do they?
Sexuality
Good news, lads! Science says you should masturbate 21 times a month – not that you needed an excuse! (Well actually they mean you should ejaculate that often; not necessarily the same thing.)
Environment
Jason Hickel in the Guardian posits that even if we all adhere to the Paris climate deal that isn’t going to be enough to save us – our future depends on de-growth
There’s a plan to reintroduce Eurasian lynx to the Kielder Forest.
Art & Literature
Worried about your books? Why not protect your library the medieval way with horrifying book curses?
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Archaeologists are suggesting that a find of buried tools and pigments means humans reached Australia 65,000 years ago – that’s 18,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Yes, we knew the Romans had concrete. And now we know why it was so good that it still stands today when our modern concrete decays.
Infertility isn’t just a modern phenomenon. The mediaevals recognised it and realised that it could be the man at fault rather then the women – not really surprising as many in medieval times believed the embryo originated solely from the man. Oh and in true medieval style they concocted some horrid cures.


The Russian Hermitage Museum employs 74 cats just to keep its basements mice-free.
London
IanVisits investigates a south London experiment in tube tunnelling.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
What brings you happiness? Money? Stuff? Time? Surprisingly research is suggesting that you can gain the most happiness from freeing up time, even if that is paying someone to do things for you so you have the time to devote elsewhere.
So how often should you wash your bed sheets? A microbiologist looks at the problem.
On a similar note, here are a few suggestions for getting rid of pests and bugs the Buddhist way. While I can see some of this would work, a lot does seem rather unlikely.
To me this seems like a non-question: should teachers be allowed to have tattoos? Well why shouldn’t they; isn’t it all part of the life we’re supposedly educating our kids to navigate?
From which it is but a short step to asking whether witches are the ultimate feminists.
Shock, Horror, Humour
Two amusements to conclude this month …
An American researcher has used a neural network to generate a whole host of quaint, and sometimes rude, British place names.
And finally this summer’s latest fashion trend: Glitter Boobs …

books, history

Book Review: The Watchers

Stephen Alford
The Watchers: A secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I
(Penguin; 2012)
I mentioned this book some while ago, and promised a review of it when I finished it. At that time I was about four chapters from the end, but have only just got round to reading them – life has intervened in too many ways! Anyway, here at last is a review.
The book is a tour de force of forensic historical document research. There is little remaining evidence to go on, as Alford himself explains in his “Introduction”:

It would be wonderful to have the papers of [Elizabeth’s] secretary and his staff just as they were left at the end of Elizabeth’s reign. Instead we have to make do with tantalizing fragments, scattered pieces of a great documentary puzzle that keep historians on their toes. A stunning exception is the surviving archive of manuscripts belonging to Robert Beale, a clerk of Elizabeth’s Privy Council. Beale was a powerful character, a plainly spoken man of … high intelligence, an experienced bureaucrat and a master of government business. Over his long career, Beale collected the kinds of papers he and his colleagues needed to use every day, organized by themes and topics … Beale’s volumes in the British Library … allow us to understand an Elizabethan archive, to touch it and feel it: the stiff pale animal hide spines and covers, the leather ties to keep the books closed, the indexes for speedy reference, and Beale’s explanatory notes in what, after the frenetic scrawl of Sir Francis Walsingham [Elizabeth’s principal secretary] or the impossibly compressed minute writing of Walsingham’s most secret servant, Thomas Phelippes, is one of the vilest hands of sixteenth-century England … Unfortunately Beale’s papers are exceptional. Time, damp and hungry rodents quickly set to work on the piles of old government papers that lay in heaps in the Tower of London for centuries. Most of what survives today was preserved for us by the enterprising Victorians who … went through the chaos of papers they found in government and family archives and gave them order.

What emerges is a “who nearly done it” from the misty and murky world of Elizabethan espionage. Espionage that, in those dangerously unsettled times, was essential for the survival of Protestant England and Elizabeth. Espionage, which was perhaps the first really consolidated use by the state, and whose methods very much laid the foundations even for today’s shadowy world of subterfuge.
Alford uses the available papers to tell the story of the machinations underneath many of the plots against Elizabeth, and of the subtle, cunning and, yes, dishonest way in which Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord Burleigh, Robert Cecil (Burleigh’s son), and to a lesser extent the Earl of Essex, used spies, couriers and shadowy men to capture Catholic plotters, entrap Mary Queen of Scots and send many to the rack and the gallows.
We all knew that Mary Queen of Scots had been caught out colluding with the Catholic enemy. What we probably didn’t realise was just how many people were involved; many were just couriers of letters who knew not what was happening; but equally many knew parts of the plan and were paid handsome sums of money not to ask questions. We probably also didn’t know that the crucial evidence against Mary was in fact a forgery.
It is a fascinating story with web upon web upon web of interplay between agents, double agents and even triple agents. A web which ranges across much of mainland Europe as well as England. But this tangle of webs does make the book somewhat challenging, as you need a clear head to keep in mind who everyone is, and who is playing who off against who.
It is an engrossing read which is well written and keeps you turning the page – I had to restrict myself to a chapter or two a night just so as not to stay up round the clock to finish the book. This is a book which tells history in the raw, and in the way it happened on the ground at the time, rather than as the sanitised version we are all taught at school. It gives us an insight into what (at least for some elements of society) was a really frightening, unsafe and unstable age.
If you enjoy history, are interested in the Elizabethans, or just like some good intrigue and skulduggery, then this is a book you will want to read. It is perhaps the most fascinating book I’ve read in a long time.
Overall Rating: ★★★★★

history, links, science, sexuality, topographical

Your Interesting Links

There’s a lot in this month’s “links”, so let’s get right in …
Science & Medicine
For those of you with youngsters interested in science – or even just for yourself – don’t forget the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition in London which runs 4-9 July.


Earthquakes are well known for making big cracks in the ground, but could an earthquake ever crack a planet apart?
So what is the oldest living thing on the Earth? And no, the mother-in-law doesn’t count!
Now this is really odd. It seems that all Cook pine trees lean towards the equator – and dramatically so! Scientists have only just noticed and they don’t understand why.

It seems that jumping spiders can see the moon, their vision is so good.
Well yes, butterflies have sex, but it is a lot more complicated than we imagine.
So just why are birds’ eggs egg-shaped? Researchers have finally worked out the real reason.
Want to smell like a dog? Well now you can. Psychologist Alexandra Horowitz is training herself to approach the world in the same olfactory way her dogs do.
From dogs to cats … there have been several articles recently on research which has worked out how cats conquered the world. Here are just two, from IFLscience! and the Smithsonian magazine.
And now to humans. Apparently foetuses turn to follow face-like shapes while still in the womb.
Be afraid, at least if you’re American. It seems the Lone Star Tick is causing people to become allergic to meat, and even causing death; scientists are still trying to work out why.
Finally in this section, one science journalist has weighed up the pros and cons of having a PSA test, and found it wanting.
Sexuality
Suzannah Weiss in Glamour wants to end the expectations of pubic hair grooming.
What happens when illness robs someone of their ability to orgasm.
We’ve known for some time, but now research has provided the evidence, that women are the stronger sex.
Men need to be talking about fertility – male fertility.
Apparently there’s an association between sex in old age and keeping your brain sharp.
Environment
Harry Mount laments the vanishing glory of the suburban front garden all in the worship of the automobile.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
Will Self looks at the need for a Britain to have a written constitution – and offers to write it!
Several years ago, lawyer David Allen Green looked at the effects of the political penchant for banning things.
Language
Here are 35 words which many people use wrongly. Yes, even I fall into one or two of the traps.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Apparently there was a huge wooden structure at Avebury. It pre-dated Stonehenge by hundreds of years and was (deliberately?) destroyed by fire.

Something many aren’t aware of is that medieval castles were very cleverly designed, even down to the spiral staircases.
So what really did happen at Roswell in 1947.
London
IanVisits goes in search of London’s lost Civil War fortifications.
Also from IanVisits are two items on the London Underground. First a look at possible plans to make gardens in unused ticket offices; and secondly at some of the engineering challenges in taking the heat out of the Underground system.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
Are 16 and 17-year-olds really too young to vote? Dean Burnett, in the Guardian, looks at the evidence.
There are some amazing photos showing the work of Sutherland Macdonald, Victorian Britain’s first professional tattoo artist.
Ada Calhoun, in the Guardian again, looks at how to stay married. Spoiler: don’t get divorced.
People
And finally, Geoff Marshall (who has twice held the record for travelling the whole London Underground in the shortest time) and Vicki Pipe (of the London Transport Museum) are on a record-breaking mission to visit all 2,563 railway stations in mainland Britain this summer – documenting the state of our railways as they go. They started in early May and are already over halfway there. Follow their progress on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and at All the Stations.

books, history, ramblings, topographical

Shoes and Ships, but no Sealing Wax

The last couple of evenings I’ve been reading a small volume produced in 1965 by the Sussex Record Society. It’s by Richard F Dell and titled Rye Port Books; it documents shipping in and out of Rye in East Sussex between 1566 and 1590, ie. a large part of the reign of Elizabeth I. Rye, at this date, had a large harbour which irrevocably silted up around 1600.
While this might sound somewhat dull, they were interesting times (to say the least) when there was essentially a “cold war” between Protestant England and Catholic Europe. Understandably no-one was permitted to leave (or enter) the country without government permission, although many did and not a few were either Catholics fleeing to France or Italy or they were spies for one side or the other (or indeed both).
Rye at that time was one of the major ports for both passengers and freight between England and France and the Low Countries. Regrettably there is little detail of people movements in these records, apart from the occasional note of a boat carrying “20 passengers”. This is a shame because even at this date there were immigration officers stationed at every port such as Rye. Their job, as today, was to interrogate and determine the bona fides of all travellers and naturally to detain any they thought might be Catholic insurgents or spies. From reading elsewhere about the spy rings of Elizabethan England (masterminded by Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham) it is clear there was also a large amount of mail travelling back and forth, mostly being hand-carried by couriers. [For more on this see Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I. Review when I’ve finished reading it.]


This book is more about the trade which was happening. Although there are several vessels logged which seem to do nothing but ply back and forth between Rye and Dieppe (the preferred route to France) carrying what today would be called “stuff”, there is also a large amount of goods travelling round the coast of the country, especially between Rye and London, but also as far afield as Newcastle, Spain and Portugal. Remember these are times when the roads were poor, if they existed at all, and a journey from Rye to London by cart carrying goods would take a week or more whereas in good weather a boat could sail between Rye and London in a couple of days. None of the ships involved are of any size; the largest I saw mentioned was 70 tons and they go down to tiny boats of 10 tons; the average is probably around 25-30 tons. These really are tiny boats; the Mary Rose by contrast was rated at 500 tons.

A large section of the book is a line by line summary of every ship which enters or departs Rye over this 35 year period (give or take a few gaps), all constructed from the surviving Elizabethan records in the Sussex County Archive, the National Archives and the Rye Town Records.
Most of the cargo was quite mundane, and perhaps what one might expect: grain of various sorts, wood (ship upon ship full of wood), coal, wool, cloth of various types, wine; and there were many loads which are just recorded as “mixed” so who knows what they contained. Iron appears fairly regularly, and in significant quantities too (the Sussex Downs were an iron smelting centre at this date) and there are several shipments of ordnance including the occasional iron cannon.
But there are some surprising (at least to me) things, such as: lupins, vinegar, apples (from France), oranges and lemons (yes even so; they come in from Spain and Portugal), hops (being traded in both directions), horses (strangely mostly out-bound), cony skins, wolf skins, bricks (being imported from the Low Countries; a single 40 ton ship can carry at least 10,000). And it goes on with nuts, spices, lead, paper, hosiery, cochineal, woad (presumably for use as a dyestuff), herrings (red and white), codfish, quails and scrap brass. Another ship brings in “6 asses”. All of this is, of course, taxed.
But there were several entries which really caught my eye. One cargo is documented as “Mixed inc. tennys bawles”; another contains “French playing cards”. Then there’s a mixed shipment which includes hawks (“6 Tassell hawks, 7 Falcon hawks, 3 Martin hawks, imported by Walter Libon, alien”). Lastlly, there are several shipments of old shoes to London! One can only guess that scrap leather had a value, but for what?
We think we live in interesting times, ship strange goods around in containers, using humongous amounts of oil. But all this was being done by the power of man, horse, tide and wind.
Who said history is dull!

history, links, science

Your Interesting Links

As usual our monthly list of links to interesting items you may have missed the first time around. There’s a lot in this month’s edition, so let’s get going …
Science & Medicine
Here are 101 ridiculous science “facts” which are mostly myth and need to die.
Researchers have worked out the genealogy of our dog breeds, and it isn’t as simple as you might think.
Meanwhile scientists have discovered the world’s largest canary on an isolated island of giants and dwarfs off west Africa.
Changing tack, it turns out the new £5 note isn’t so indestructible – if you’re a determined enough mad scientist.


Wow! A photographer has used black light (ie. UV) to photograph the luminescence emitted by plants. And it is amazing!
Another sort of discovery has led to the finding of lost research notes which undermine dietary advice we’ve been given for the last several decades.
Looking at even older “research” it seems that some of the medical recipes in medieval books may actually work and point the way to new antibiotics.
Sexuality
I wasn’t sure whether to put this here or under “science” but it turns out that unprotected sex may disrupt the microbiome of the vagina. Now there’s a surprise!

A Victorian ivory dildo, with an interesting story, has generated a lot of excitement at an auction in Ireland.
Environment
Max Hooper, the man who worked out how to date old hedgerows, has died at the age of 82.
History
Here’s another which could easily have gone in the science section … Scientists have now worked out how to extract the DNA of ancient hominids from the surrounding dirt.
Turns out we aren’t the first people to be scared of zombies; it seems the mediaevals were too and they did some barbaric things as a result.
It’s well known that the Tudors bathed only about once a year and were very smelly the rest of the time. Turns out that may be another myth as it is possible to go months without bathing and not be smelly. Yes, an intrepid researcher has tried it!
They’ve found, quite by chance, the remains of five lost Archbishops of Canterbury in a small London church. Harry Mount, new editor of The Oldie, was first on the scene.
Lifestyle
Are you a devotee of nail polish? If so here’s a piece on some of the chemistry which makes them work.
Food & Drink
Cheese. That microbial concoction of from milk. Well here’s a guide to the natural microbiology of cheese rind.
Why is ultra-heat-treated (UHT) milk so stable that it is a shelf staple, especially in tropical climes where milk easily spoils?
[Incidentally, UHT milk is always known in our house as “UFO milk” but I have no idea how you might milk a UFO!]
So what really does give beer its bitterness and flavour? While some of it is down to the malt, most seems to originate with the hops.

Why are we masochists? Why is it we love chilli so much when it burns like it does? And how does the burn work?
Shock, Horror, Humour
And finally … someone thought it was a good idea to teach a computer to write cookbooks and invent cocktails. Its recipe ideas are hilariously brilliant. Chocolate pickle sauce anyone?