h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Forgot to mention earlier a couple of further entries.

http://www.h2g2.com/A250417

Adam Smith for Economic History

and for entertainment

http://www.h2g2.com/A250499 Rolf Harris
http://www.h2g2.com/A252668 Blue Peter(although this isn't quite the finished article it has the history)

Thanks DD, and I'll get that Alfred thing cleared up (probably with some ointment).

I saw something about Blue Peter earlier this month, former presenters unearthing a 20 yr old time capsule. 20 yrs can be a cruel period of time can't it?

It has just occurred to me that we don't yet appear to have anything on Vikings ... a dirty great hole in the early medeival milieu, I would say! I must get in to something. I already have a piece somewhere or other on why the did it. I might turn it into something worth reading. Stay tuned for more ....

Bran the Bloodthirsty but Bare-Headed Barbarian!

There is one Entry on Vikings that I've seen, but it had absolutely nothing in the way of factual information. (And the level of factual information required to get a link here isn't that high).

I would like to have a discussion on Vikings though. A year or two ago, I saw a doco series with revisionist angles on various periods of history. One of the episodes was on Vikings and suggested that they weren't the rampaging savages they are now regarded as, or at least that their savagery was greatly exaggerated by Christian chroniclers (who felt threatened by an influx of pagans).

Certainly the very word Viking is quite a deceptive term, a blanket term for a number of different peoples inc Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Russians, etc.

It sure can I saw that as well, I'll probably be doing a seperate entry on the whole history of Blue Peter's time capsuales, there are two unearthed and two in the ground, so that the next genaration of H2G2 researchers can have a chance of getting their BP badge for writting in to remind the presenters to dig them up.

Just tried to link to BP from the H2G2HS page it didn't work just check the link is right.

http://www.h2g2.com/A252668

DD

BTW - does the article on Yaverland at:
http://www.h2g2.com/A210169
count as being historical, if you ignore the photo?

Aah, I accidentally saw two 8s, instead of two 6s. I'm lucky I passed the eyetest for my new driver's licence!

Hmm, that Jimi Hendrix article was pretty good, I forget if you already have it. Anyways, seeing that you have no objections to eclectic histories, and since I am not yet qualified to write a Societyworthy article on a "serious" history, would you be interested in an article on the history of toilets? If you are, I'll write one. I think it's an interesting topic and it would be easy to add some humor to as well. What do you think?

And after that, maybe I will attempt something more traditional afterall. I see you are missing a biography on Brian Boru. I might be able to handle that.

I would love to have an Entry on the old Viking-slayer, but I'm afraid you've been beaten to the bowl on the toilet front. See Dunnies, soon to be added.

Re: the Vikings ... the revisionist view started in the 1960s by a guy called Peter Sawyer, and it was taken up rather enthusiastically by the current day Scandinavians. The sources for the time are of course subject to bias and exaggeration ... the postmodernists have had a field day with Vikings ... throwing in all the usual words like "discourse" and "paradigm", etc. I might put some thoughts on this into the coming article. There has more recently been a reaction against the revisionists, so that we have reached some semblance of balance - they were not as bad as originally thought, but no saints either.

More shortly.

Bran.

Sure, BB, I'll be happy to put up a link to that one. Liked the bit about 85 yr-old graffitti.

No saints definitely (apart St Canute & St Olaf of course) but a few candidates for Valhalla perhaps?

OK, I'll start on that tonight, but I might take a little longer than Bran's articles. Give it about a week.

Well ... I've done it. The first of the Viking article series, at:

http://www.h2g2.com/A254729

The topic is the origins of the Viking phenomenon: The Vikings: why did they do it!

I'm off on Monday to the Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference in Sydney (I'm givng a paper!). SO I'll be out of touch from then for nine days. I'll give a report on my return of the highlights.

Cheers
Bran.

It didn't take nearly as long as I expected. Resources were readily availible on the Internet, so I didn't have to go to the libarary for references. Here is the article:

http://www.h2g2.com/A254819

Tell me what you think. Is it good enough for the Society?

It's pretty good Zarq! There's a 'The' in the last sentence, that should be a 'the', and 'Vikings from Denmark' could probably be shortened to 'Danish Vikings' or simply 'Danes' but that's just the born sub-editor in me talking. It gets a link!

Thanks! I'll fix those mistakes.

Please, Zarquon, there's only one mistake, the rest is mere suggestion.


Mustapha the Easy-Going