Journal Entries
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Pitiful
Posted Aug 12, 2024
Considering the absurd inaccessibility status of the homepage, I've been doing a few checks to see if H2g2 entires can be viewed via a Google search.
Sadly I have to say that after trying to follow links from Google, all I am met with is the usual 'Gateway time-out Error code 504' notice from Cloudflare. This means that unless someone has a Brunel (or other skin) url, for the most part they are not going to be able to see H2G2 content, (or at least content created after H2G2 became independent from the BBC).
It has to be asked, why would a casual visitor following a Google search link be expected to know about the different H2G2 skins, and why should they have to jump through hoops just to visit pages here? Its just not the way websites are expected to work.
After quite a long absence I was hoping to resume writing entries again for H2G2 but unless I accept that content here is only going to be seen by established members rather than the wider internet community, then unfortunately there's little point.
I am not sure if this is the case, but to a casual observer all the signs indicate H2G2 is being badly neglected, and is presently going through a long, persistent and painful decline. It seems inevitable that this will continue until H2G2 becomes a hollow shell of a platform. Its truely pitiful and sad to see that process in action.
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Latest reply: Aug 12, 2024
Error Code 504
Posted Aug 12, 2024
I've come to the conclusion that if H2G2 changed its named to ' Gateway time-out Error code 504' it would have a working homepage.
As it is I am perplexed by how a website can exist with a homepage that is continually inaccessible. It gives the distinct impression to vistors that H2G2 is not being taken care of and is dying a slow, depressing and undeserved death.
The alternative is that HG2 is running like an 'old boys club', accessible only to those that know how, which is not the way to gain and maintain new vistors.
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Aug 12, 2024
H2G2 Homepage
Posted Aug 9, 2024
H2G2 has to be one of the few websites that all too often is impossible to visit via the homepage. 
It must really be damaging visitor count.
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Latest reply: Aug 9, 2024
Loan Sharks
Posted Jan 5, 2011
The two main news stories that caught my attention yesterday were, firstly the rise in VAT to help pay off the budget deficit, and the increase in the use of loan sharks. This started me wondering. If the country's debt isn't reduced quite rapidly, will someone be knocking at Number 10 to break the knee caps of David Cameron? Or perhaps George Osborne can expect a good chibbin. I can't help feeling that would be an especially satisfying day. 
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Latest reply: Jan 5, 2011
Are TV Historians Tramps?
Posted Dec 14, 2010
As someone with a casual interest in history I'll watch almost any history programme. I have to admit though the genre seems to have developed an increasingly bizarre edge. All that a historian really needs is a room and maybe an overhead projector to tell us what they know, but on TV they are more often than not seen wandering from place to place in the great outdoors. Its as if historians have been pushed out of their natural environment of lecture theatres and thrown onto the streets.
Because dragging historians outside has been done so many times before, witnessing certain figures trodding through fields that were once maybe battle sites, or meandering around a dilapidated castle looks increasingly odd, mainly because it has become easy to imagine them as tramps. Once this idea gets into your head it appears as if on screen historians do nothing but tramp-like activities, and all that is missing from the picture is their possessions wrapped in a hanky on the end of a stick.
There are for instance always shots of historians seated in the middle of nowhere, on a mound of rubble that form the remains of a once great building, as if resting after hours of aimless walking. They can also be seen taking shelter in a church, or any building open to the public, maybe a warm library or castle, and occasionally in a cafe holding onto a coffee as if to stave off returning to the elements.
The scene however that completes the impression is the almost unavoidable image of them walking along streets, oblivious to the throng of pedestrians around them, chattering away, as if lost to their own wandering thoughts, a consequence of their down at heel circumstances having got the better of them.
It seems as if anyone who presents a programme with a historical element is not immune from this process. Even Ian Hislop who fronted a show about Victorian 'do gooders' spent most of his time outdoors and walking the streets.
Some historians are luckier than others however. Richard Miles for instance was at least doomed to walk the streets and to muse amongst the historical rubble of other countries for his civilisation series. Even so, he followed the same predictable tramp-like habits of all history presenters.
The problem is, this well worn way of presenting history documentaries has been done so many times, it is very close to becoming a pastiche of itself. Perhaps its time television stopped reducing our best historians to tramps.....?
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 14, 2010
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Atticus
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