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

On Monday evening we were just leaving to go out at about 6 pm. It was already dark, and as I went to get in the car, my husband was staring at something in the drive: a hedgehog was edging its way along the edge of the house. It has been fairly mild, if wet and windy, lately, but surely that shouldn't be enough to wake a hedgehog from its hibernation at the beginning of January?

We haven't seen it since. I do hope it's all right.

We have been out quite a lot these last few days, due to cultural pursuits. At the weekend we went to see the exhibition about Richard the Lionheart in the Museum in Speyer. They have a claim to him because he was actually tried in Speyer on his way back from the 3rd Crusade, having annoyed the Holy Roman Emperor and his erstwhile buddy, Philipp II of France. The locals claim that he was then imprisoned - albeit for a very few days - in the local Trifels castle. I refuse to believe this, and there is no mention of Trifels in any of the historical writings emanating from the UK. It is only ever mentioned in German articles on the subject.

(It's in the Wiki entry, but I suspect some German put it there)

Anyway, fascinating stuff, even if you had to concentrate on several different threads whilst sorting things out in your mind. Like walking the 101 dalmations on individual leads.

Next up in the way of exhibitions is one about the Etruscans in Karlsruhe - having read about it, it is like a breath of fresh air after the convoluted history of the 12th century. Etruscans lived in Southern Italy, were eventually overtaken by the Romans, end of. However, no doubt the exhibition will prove that they were more complicated than that.

We also went to see a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio (not all six parts, but a good selection). I would have been singing in that, except the rehearsals were between Christmas and New Year and I couldn't get those days off work. Because I knew all the singers and because Bach is, well Bach, I was welling up for most of the time, and was pleased to see what a brilliant choir I sing in. I was also reminded what the audiences go through in our concerts, sitting on those hard pews. I had thought of taking a cushion, but then I thought that, because it was a very modern church, the seating would be more bum-friendly.

Nope, it wasn't.


Finally, on Monday, the day of the hedgehog incident, we went to see "Loving Vincent". We had won tickets - to be redeemed at any cinema - to see the film, so . The only problem was finding a cinema which was screening it! I shall comment in the "What films have you seen recently" thread.

I saw a very bad musical by Tim Rice called "Blondel" many years ago. I think that it featured Richard the L being imprisoned on his way home from the Crusades. And that was written before Wikipedia.

I've checked a summary of "Blondel". In it, Richard is held prisoner in "Austria".

High-ranking prisoners could be held in very comfortable imprisonment, which they could then pass off as hospitality on returning home. Just a thought. Like Bertrand Russell under a hundred years ago, gaoled for his passive resistance to the Great War, but in a private apartment with servants and a library, because he was a lord's son.

The words "guest" and "hostage" derive from the same root.

We learned at school,too, that Richard was imprisoned in Austria. When some other expats went to visit the Trifels castle - they told me this story long before I had children, so it must be over 35 years ago - they were most amazed to hear that he was imprisoned there. When they were next in the UK they phoned the History Faculty at Oxford University for confirmation. Those erudite historians had never heard of the place!

There was a whole article once in the local newspaper, listing several arguments against this claim that he had been there, which I unfortunately forgot to cut out and have never managed to trace again. It obviously never deterred the locals from believing the story.

Richard himself was more French than English - a much larger proportion of his realm was in France than in England, although he still had to kowtow to Philipp II, who only actually ruled over a small area surrounding Paris. This was due to the land that the Plantaganet family had gained through the marriage of Richard's mother, Eleanor, to Henry II, his father. Eleanor had taken Richard to France and kept him there until he grew up. His writings are all in French and it is difficult to say exactly how much English he spoke at all.

His imprisonment was very cushy - his letters home are preserved, and he asked for a fur coat and various items to make life more pleasant and was granted them all. There was a whole room in the exhibition showing the tax tally sheets of the age, scrolls presumably from the archives of the Exchequer in Westminster, which showed how the horrendous sum of 150000 marks was raised for his ransom, taxing everyone, including the church and monasteries, who were usually exempt.

In fact, one aim of the exhibition was to disprove the heroic and saintly qualities bestowed on him by films and literature over the last three or four centuries. Despite the reputation he gathers from the numerous Robin Hood films and Walter Scott's works, he was probably a worse king and a nastier person than his brother John. In fact, he wasn't even much of a military genius either, and he left his army to fend for themselves in Palestina in the end, many of whom are thought to have died of disease, or in attempts to get home under their own steam.

At the exhibition, I also learned that that very brother, John, who was the youngest of the brothers and took over the throne when Richard didn't come back from the Crusade and was presumed dead, was the "Jean-Sans-Terre" of the "Dominique" song by the Singing Nun. He was known on the continent as Jeans-Sans-Terre or Ohneland, because, as he was the very last and the runt of the litter, Henry II didn't have any lands left to allocate to him. In England however, where he spent his life, he was always only known as "King John".

Although Robin Hood wasn't brought into the story until the 17th century, and, if he ever existed at all, certainly never had any dealings with Richard, there is a parallel "Robin Hood" exhibition on in the museum for children as well, but we didn't go and see that.

It is very interesting about hedgehogs - my mum got an infrared camera last Christmas so she could video the wildlife at night, and the hedgehogs were out and about in December and January then, too. She saw a good healthy one last night, and it ate some leftover catfood

Very interesting about Richard I too - it does seem that he has been granted a literary image of being tall, strong and handsome therefore obviously a good man, but through modern eyes his ideology was dubious, to say the least...

"Like walking the 101 dalmations on individual leads" - superb simile!

Bum-friendly seats are hard to find - I'm lucky that I have a good pressure-relieving cushion for my wheelchair so I can sit comfortably for concerts etc. The pews in my local church are scattered with a range of cushions, so that helps people, but in the modern community centre people bring their own cushions because the chairs in there aren't comfortable for very long...

This is a case where Trifels can be in-Speyering.