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

I just finished reading about the clock in Dover castle. Interesting stuff. I can't seem to locate any other pictures of Dover castle anywhere on the web. Which is odd.

I can't tell from the distance (in the pictures) how it compares in size to Warwick. We don't have anything old like that here in Canada.

Other than myself.

I think Warwick and Dover are comparable, although as I say I have never been to Warwick. Dover is exceptional though because of its history as a fortification. It has been a 'working castle' all the way up to a few decades ago, rather than being prettified or gentrified and made into a private house. And also it has fantastic tunnels.

So what is Canadian native culture? What sort of archaeology do you have?

Oh, well, there are a few French and British fort remains back east. Everything else is native, like totem poles, for example. But totem poles, being wood, don't last very long. We have nothing so grand as a castle like Warwick or Dover. Certainly nothing that's 900 year old. Our historic sites are all less than 200 years old, and anything that old here is either a ruin or a tourist attraction (both in some cases).

This island is jammed packed with old stuff either rotting into the ground or wrapped up as tourist attractions. And there is an enormous popular interest in history as leisure - hey, that's where I work. Museums are all part of that heritage industry (as well as being academic and research institutions and cultural repositories - 5they are wonderfully schizophrenic places)

I like museums. The British Museum was by far the most impressive I've seen. The most fun museum I've ever seen is the Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg, Manitoba. That's still my favourite museum, although I haven't been there in years.

Museum culture - Vancouver style : been nosing around museum websites in your vicinity
- this one sound quite amusing - Grossology at Science World (not on yet - http://www.scienceworld.bc.ca/Exhibits/Temporary/gross.html )

or a little more surreal - an exhibition on the colour blue (at Vancouver Museum) then catch a Laser Kid Power show at the planetarium (with the music of the Spice Girls and Backstret Boys) - classy