Archive lectures and events

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Thank you very much. Fiona. Hello, everybody! I'm just gonna do a very brief introduction to explain what all this was about.

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This, this. This lecture came about as me, starting to think about a lot of the things that we have around the house that we use all the time, and it never occurs to us exactly that somebody must have come up with making them of inventing them, but where do they come from and so this was part

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of that process, and of course, fire is fundamental to our well-being.

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It's fundamental to us. The in actual fact.

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You know, as King Louis says in the Jungle Book, it's man's red flower that makes us different to all other animals, and it is that that made things different for us as we go through history.

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So, I'm going to touch on various things to do with ignition.

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But also to do with some aspects of social history that have been affected by an involvement in fire and fire lighting, and I hope that you find these little insights interesting, or at least as interesting as I do.

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I'm just gonna share my screen with you so that you can see what I'm talking about.

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There you go!

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Okay, so let's start, as they say at the very beginning.

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We've how we got to have fun archaeologists tend to think that if it's very possible that rather than it being a kind of discovery process, if somebody finds something and making it happen.

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But our first thing in interaction with fire was from a natural source.

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That lightning just struck a dry tree, or somebody was living near.

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Volcanic activity that they became aware that there was this other, this other element that they could use.

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But, generally speaking, from very, very, very, and over a 1 million years ago we start seeing the first evidence of the use of fire, and it changes everything.

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It changes us, from from a group of people who are eating rural food, and the moment we were able to cook our food that trance translated all of our capacity for consuming nutrients, and that then means that we have a slightly different approach to to how we develop

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and it's you know, it's a far faster and safer way of getting into the kind of levels of food and protein, and it made it possible for us to develop.

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And we think that probably the first thing that we tried was friction.

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And this is the kind of rubbing 2 Boy Scouts together.

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Kind of joke that we're talking about. And there are 2 specific ways that fire can be generated from from friction.

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One is the hand drill, which is where you have a groove in a piece of wooden, you push it backwards and forwards.

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Really, really quickly, and what you do. So the friction generates enough heat for you to to create a little tiny bit of smoke and a little bit of a spark, and then you work on that.

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The alternative, and the one preferred by Rainy is the bow drill, where you have a tool that looks like a bow, which is the illustration in the top right hand corner of the slide.

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The creates the same ripping effect on the wall, on the wood, but it actually does.

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Does it work a lot more easily than somebody shoving it backwards and forwards.

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But the other method, of course, which is the one that we we then take on, is with percussion, and what comes out of that is that the idea that you have a piece of iron that you strike against a hard stone.

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And that creates a spark which then you can use to light fire.

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These examples. Here. This is to give you some idea. These examples in the illustration are iron age ones.

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They are incredibly old, but the shape of them hasn't changed.

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You could walk into and I will ban shop and buy something that looks very similar to that one on the top right hand side right now, because that is the most convenient shape for the human hand.

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What develops is kind of like a little package. So over time, we figure that there are better stones for creating a spark.

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Than others. And one of those stones is flint, which, of course, is a very useful tool to to primitive man.

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To early man anyway. So there's obviously flint around.

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And so picks it up and has a go with the process.

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And the other thing you need is some kind of tinder.

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You need char cloth, you need something that is dry, and after a time this little package starts to appear.

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First of all in little patches, and then eventually over time, we get something which is the tinderbox and the tinderbox contains everything you need to light, to fire.

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So the and it has another advantage, one of the things that you need.

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This tinder, which can be natural cloth, which is actually better if it's been scorched a bit.

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You hear people referring to char cloth, and that's what they mean is they mean pieces of cloth.

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It doesn't have to be very big piece of cloth that have actually been slightly burned.

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So they are very, very dry, and they already kind of have a charcoal in them, so they like very quickly plant materials or mushrooms, drive machines are very effective but you want to keep them to rye.

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So having a tinderbox with your chart, your your char materials in, and your flint and your iron keeps everything very dry, and it's also good idea to keep it in another bag.

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So this package, this little box, becomes the main way of lighting a fire for something like then certainly from.

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At least a 1,000 years. So we spend a lot of time bashing a piece of iron against a piece of flint to create the fires that we need to make life pleasant and appropriate, and it kind of started to become a situation where once you got it lit he wanted to keep it for as

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long as possible. So this is a an eighteenth century tinderbox, and you can see there's a candle in the top, and these are quite common, because once you'd actually got things lit, what you really wanted to do was to keep the flame.

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Going so you would try and light something that would meant that you could then transfer it to other sources.

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Also, of course, a little bit of waxy is also quite good for helping you like the fire, but it became quite clear that one of the things that you want to do is once you've got to file it, you didn't really want to put it out which of course created a difficulty of

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itself at this time people are living in wooden houses, so keeping a fire going when nobody's going to observe it.

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During the course of the night became a real difficulty. So, to start with, there was a medieval regulation across Europe, and from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that there should be a bell that would be rung in small town that meant that everybody should extinguish their

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fires, and that was known as the few. And then somebody said, Well, what happens if we just protect our fires?

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If we find something that stops the the embers getting out, and what they came up with was was this terracotta object here?

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And it's called it just means cover fire. And what would happen is the housewife, before they knew that the time for the bell to be run for all the fires to be extinguished was to gather up all the all the embers in her fire put the on top, and then you would be able to have

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the fire ready to go the following day. So will you be doing then, instead of having to get your tinder box out and start lighting a fire from scratch, what you will be doing is blowing on the embers, getting a fire, going getting your day started so you get hot water, on the go so you get

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whatever food that you need to do, because if that was, you know, slow process, I would say, and I'm pretty good that it can take me around somewhere between 10 up to 10 min to light to fire with the flint, and if it's damp or if there's any windows, you're going

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to struggle so and sometimes you get lucky, but mostly it takes a while.

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So this whole idea of having the embers protected meant that you could.

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You could actually get your fire going that much quicker.

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But it's from where, from this that we get our word curfew. The idea of a time when everybody shuts down and goes to bed, and that is controlled is from this particular artifact.

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Because what we needed was something that was much easier to use than than a tinderbox.

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Everybody, who's very used to having using them, but they were there.

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They were very inefficient, and they weren't something that was particularly handy.

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So people started to look for alternatives, and this idea of having a match, a stick with something on it that was going to just be just light your fire was something that was very attractive.

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And the first match that we know of was creating 180.

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5 by, and he came up with this idea of of this mixture that included potassium, chlorate, and what you do is that you stick the match.

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There's quite a long match like a kitchen match into a little bottle filled with sulfuric acid.

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Well, you probably already noticed that there are a number of issues there.

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One of them is the bottle is asbestos.

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We know how well that works. So for your Cassidy is very dangerous.

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The combination would start the fire, but it would release really nasty fumes into the face of the Us. So they was.

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This was not a practical solution, but it was a step in the right direction.

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It kind of pointed people into the into the direction of what it was that we actually wanted. And what we wanted was this stick that we could light.

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So it wasn't until 1826 that the first friction match was created by John Walker, and what he did was that he coated cocoa strips with sulphur, and then he created a flammable paste.

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That would be could be dipped in at one end, and then they they they would be.

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There would be the possibility of actually kind of rubbing them against something, and that would then produce the flame that was required Walker didn't pain in his invention, so he he didn't earn very much money from it till you think about how you Bit which isn't that much is

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became that was, it was a mistake, and another man, Samuel Jones, in London, copied his idea, and rather than using what what he called them matches, he! He!

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He marketed them as Lucifer's, and he that the idea of matches being Lucifer is something that carries on for quite some time, because it's featured in the song.

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Tipperary, it's a long way to Tipperary whilst even Lucifer, to light your flag.

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Is referring to this particular branding of the match.

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There was a cost to these matches. They were immensely popular because they did do away with the tinder box. It was possible for you to carry something with you that could light a fire that could light a cigar that could light a pipe but it was the issue of the white phosphorus that

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was being used to to make the matches. That was really difficult, and prolonged exposure to it would give rise to, and a worker a workers ailment which was known as Foie Jewel.

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So the workers in the factories who were making this mostly children and women.

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Women were doing. The and the children were often boys.

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Small boys were gathering up their matches and putting them into into boxes, or tying them up with for string for dispersal.

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And they would be working for full long hours, 12 to 16 h a day, dipping work would into this phosphorus concoction, which gave them exposure to the phosphorous genes that developed the fossie jaw.  Fossie jaw was

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fatal in about 20% of the cases, people who caught it.

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And it was completely debilitating to these for those that were affected.

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Just to give you some idea, this this woman on the left here, this is a picture of a woman whose I've been identified as having the start of of the symptoms of fossie jaw, and you can see the swelling around her face the only way that she was

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able, able, able to say her from going all the way was to actually for head to working.

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And you can imagine there would be women for whom that was in absolutely impossible, and in extreme cases the illustration in the centre is what would happen if was eat away at the bone and the jewel to such a degree that it became impossible.

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For, for the women. We need to eat. There are very, very few examples of men getting frustrated, or some children, but not men, and it became such a problem that the various manufacturers started to divide ways of preventing.

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Do we mean from working so any woman that was complained to toothache, or looks like she had a swollen face.

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They have people who would inspect them and come in actually hold their faces when they came in into the factory to find out if there was any any evidence that they had any kind of ailments that was related to it, and if there was any indication they would be fired, on the spot.

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So it was, you know. People would try and hide it. They would try and disguise it in order to be able to keep working, because for some of them it was the only income that they had, so it was a a real difficulty, and it was only the discovery of

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red phosphorus which doesn't carry the same problems as white phosphorus where it both the issue to an end.

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It could still have been continuing on to this day for people who come into contact with the white phosphorus, if it were not for that change.

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Not she's became a super symbol of all kinds of issues to do with workers.

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This is Hands Christian Anderson, I'm sure some of you know that, and, like Charles Dickens, he was very interested in social reform, and he famously wrote it a short story called The Little Match Girl that was inspired by the fact that returning One Night from the Theatre.

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He discovered the body of a little girl somewhere around, about 12/13 years old.

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Who had died of exposure and she was a little match girl, and she was trying to sell her matches.

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And so he wrote this story to join to join your attention to these these young young women and men who were on the streets selling matches to try and keep themselves together, and the little match girl.

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Of course, in the story ends up with a little bunch of matches, and she makes the decision to light them for herself.

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But as a consequence she has nothing to eat. She has nothing to sell, so she dies, and lovely, cheerful Victorian story, as they so often were, but he was trying to draw attention into the plight of these these people who were living this hand to mouth existence and he was truly

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shocked by the death of this girl.

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And then we get to issues to do with the factories themselves.

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And one of the biggest employers in the area. In this particular field was Bryan Ryan. To May.

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Francis May and William Bryant set up their factory in 1840.

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3, so it's about 20 years after the invention of the match, and they again generally employed women and girls and some boys, and the rules that they had over the control that they they operated in within this the factory was enormous.

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They were to 14 h shift at their factory in Bo.

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They were it, they were only allowed to take 2 breaks, and they were.

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They had to stand all day. Any need to go to the toilet.

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That was not part of those 2 breaks would be deducted from wages.

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Some of the some of the girls couldn't afford to choose, but they would get signed if they had dirty feet, and added to that, they also had to supply their own bushes, their own materials, and they had to pay the boys who were boxing up the matches and

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who are handing them out. So you know the amount of money that was being earned by these women was very, very little comparison with the amount of hours that they hey?

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We're able to work and by Brian to May, we're one of the organizations that instituted this.

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This idea of checking the women when they entered the factory and to try and spot for fossie jaw, and if there was any hints that they might have it, one of the first things they did was that they would have their teeth removed forcibly, if that was necessary, so

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you know it was. It was an extraordinary situation, and it came to the attention of a woman called Annie Bessant.

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Now I'm sure that some of you have heard of Annie Besant, because she's a really significant figure in the history of Socialism, and she found out about what was going on at Bryant and May.

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And she wrote an article that was published on 20 third June eighteenth, 88, which was called White Slavery in London, and it got a lot of attention for a number of reasons.

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And one is the contents which outlined some of the issues that Bryant and May were presenting their workers with.

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But also there was a kind of Victorian attitude.

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Was the idea that there might be slavery going on because we Britain at time was a slavery free zone.

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We were very proud of the fact that we weren't using slaves, and you know they were there was a certain kind of slight strawberry about it.

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Perhaps so. The idea that we might have white slaves. You might have British women and boys working in these conditions.

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Really kind of struck a chord, and so.

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Mrs. Besant helps the the women organize themselves into a strike, and they went on strike to try and improve their wages.

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And the strike lasted for for 3 weeks, which, considering these women not work mostly, and skilled workers for in a lot of cases they were one of the main breadwinners in the house, this was a real hardship, and at first Bryant and may said they would not

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negotiate. They would not consider this. They maintain this idea, that the women were actually being paid properly.

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They mentioned this figure of between 5 and 18 shillings a week.

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But Annie Besson had done her research, and she put out that with all the docking of pay, and actually, what else was going on, it actually meant that the the women were paying significantly less than the being paid significantly less than the figure.

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But Mr. Bryant maintained that they did, and after 3 weeks on the 20 first of July they gave in, and they gave the women the pay rise.

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They looked into conditions and checked the situation that these workers were in.

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And it's really, it's a really significant moment in the history of Socialism, because this was the first time that unskilled workers had successfully struck for an improvement in pay.

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There would be strikes. The following year with gas workers and a certain factory workers in the north of England.

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But this, is this is really, really early, and the fact that it was women that did it, particularly at this time in London, which this is 1888 and 1888, is also the year of Jacques Ricker.

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So, yeah, the idea that these women could be brave enough under the circumstances that they were forced into was remarkable.

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Annie Bessant went on to have a very interesting political career.

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She was very, very concerned in her later life with the Irish Indian self rule, and in actual fact she lived to be 86, and she died in Chennai, in India.

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And this this image here is of her, and imparting her Indian robes.

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Look her up. She's a fascinating character.

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But we still haven't kind of achieved what we really really wanted from the match.

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So it wasn't until around about 1870 that a Swedish chemist and Gustav Eric Patch came up with the safety safety match.

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That we know, and he speaks. Revelation was to actually put a striking surface on the back on the box that contain the matches.

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So the bit of sandpaper that's all. That's along the top of the matching.

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Was was the kind of final element that brought them actually together as we knew them.

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And this this is a box of patch matches, and very, very rapidly.

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This kind of pattern spread all over the old over Europe, and thence into America and beyond, to be the kind of thing that happened.

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8 to and at this point, of course, you can see that these are starting to use the red phosphorus.

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I should mention, however, that it took a long time for the white Foster to go out to see the system.

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It wasn't until 1901 that Bryant and May stopped using White Foster for their matches, and we're still using the white phosphorus until that date.

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So it was. It was a long, slow process.

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At the same time. Of course, these people are also looking for other methods, and this is the first lighter.

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I want you to imagine that what you've got is something that's the size of a Belgian.

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This is a very large object. It's not, you know.

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I mean see, I can't get the whole picture on the screen, and it was a case of creating chemical reaction which LED to an hygiene gas. It wasn't something that you could carry round with you.

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It wasn't practical from that point of view it was enormous, and also that it was completely unstable.

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But you'll notice that this is also 3 years before Walker comes up with his design for the match.

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So people are playing around with this, they you know, the idea of having something else that's portable that you can carry around with you and to make like to make fire, to be able to light your fires.

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You can see cigarettes, you match it. Your, your cigars, your pipes, with something that was also that was still very attractive.

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And it wasn't until Carl Auer von Welsbach patented ferrocerium.

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And it's a synthetic alloy that produces really sharp spark that's what it's all about is creating this spark.

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And this little metal mixture that could be used in very small quantities in order to create the flame that was needed is what we think of when people talk about the flint in a lighter to not actually think it's not actually stone it is very Syrian.

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From this synthetic analogy.

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And it is this particular thing that makes it possible for lighters to be portable, because they were then able to be able to carry around and be much smaller.

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And they actually work in the first place, in that whole kind of significance, lighter started to develop kind of a massive cultural significance as well.

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They became the sort of thing that whereas the symbol of maybe Aesh class, maybe something like this.

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Yeah, you see them being used in Hollywood movies.

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The one of the most significant of the elements is the is the zippo, lighter, which has kind of a it's kind of a symbolic these days.

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So oh, Biker gangs of motorcycle groups!

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But during the Vietnam war they create.

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They had a particular significance, and they were. They were particularly designed to have winds proof flame.

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If you look at the image at the top right there, you'll see this little kind of in like a mesh around where the flame is, and it stops the the flame being blown out in high conditions.

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So they were issued to Solar in the Vietnam war to be able to ignite the flame flows that they used in order to clear villages and.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:48.000
In Washington there is some of you may know this. There is a momentorial to the Vietnam war.

00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:58.000
It's called the Wall, and all the names of the people who died Americans who died in that war are listed on the wall.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:28:59.000
And what happens is that people leave objects along the bottom of the wall.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:13.000
That are significant to the families and the kind of the people left behind, and one of the most common things is left to other zipo lighters.

00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:20.000
What happens to these is that they are gathered up every couple of months or so.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:35.000
Now everything that is there is gathered up. So yeah, things like flyers and stuff are cleared out of the way, but any objects are collected, and they are taken to a branch of the Smithsonian which is called the Museum of the Americas, which is on the

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:53.000
Mar in Washington, and they are put on display for a limited amount of time, and they change the display as often as they as they revisit the wall and clear this stuff up because of the significance of the Ziper. Lighter. It's these are very common things.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.000
And a lot of them have inscriptions on them.

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:09.000
And the inscriptions, I I think, are quite shocking, but it also tells you something about the experience of the soldiers that were invite right now is, you know, this.

00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:32.000
This is people actually altering something that was handy to them as a plain metal object for a particular purpose, and it probably started with them just putting their names on it like the sample you can see in the rather chilling message from a S Wilson in the top

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:43.000
right hand corner. Is probably just starting with him, is putting his name on it, and then, after a bit, the other bits get added, and there are hundreds of these.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:31:05.000
Of with. This is just a few examples. Just let you have a look at those for a second.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:15.000
The first automatic lighter. So the Zip code before is in automatic lighter, was created by Bronson.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:23.000
Of course you still make a great deal a lot of great many licenses now, including the zippo, and this is the very first one.

00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:36.000
This is 1926, and it was released with this this slogan push its lit, release its out, just indicating how sick it was to use if you can find one of these.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:39.000
So quite so. You got one lying around. You draw somewhere.

00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:52.000
Look after it. The zippo is 1932, so about 4 years after this, 5 years after this, and what makes the difference is butane.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.000
Previously these have been petrol lighters and petrol lighters.

00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:11.000
With a clean combination with the with the flint, with ferrocerium, created a flavour in tobacco it was a very unpopular, whereas butane doesn't do that, it doesn't have any flavour at all apparently i'm not a

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:32.000
smoker. I wouldn't know, and it was created in France in the 19 fifties to try and deal with this problem of scenting the tobacco, and eventually that patent was bought by Gillette in 1961, and from that you have all of the

00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:33.000
modern lighters that we have now. It wasn't long after that that.

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:39.000
Gillette got into the business of creating individual disposable lighters.

00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:50.000
The the big lighters that you can find in any corner shop that you wanna go to.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:33:04.000
Really, really cheaply, and it was that is kind of the butane was the thing that transformed it, that made that something that was possible to use.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:13.000
Because we're still going on. We are still looking for ways to create this precious flame that we, we treasure so much, and that we find so useful.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:21.000
And so we're now getting into the stages of a further development.

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:31.000
So the first development that some of you will be familiar with if you bought a bit lighter is is the flint wheel, is that rather than just having a piece of flint?

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:32.000
That is, it has one strike on it to make the job easier.

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:55.000
Big came up with this idea of putting the flint on a wheel, so you span it with your thumb, and the it was in the spark being closed and the idea was that it was a child safety feature, because they found that the other lighters were very easy

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:58.000
for anybody to use, and that was kind of one of their selling points.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:10.000
But, on the other hand, it was also something where if the child got hold of it, they could press the button and get a straightaway the shrink wheel meant that you actually had to physically move the wheel and hold down the button to let the gas come up.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:25.000
So it was a much safer method of creating the flying that was required, and we are moving on.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:33.000
This is the bottom image there. This is a Tesla lighter, and this is completely flame.

00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:40.000
3. The whole idea here is that we are going to do is create an electric arc, and it is named for Nikolai Tesla.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.000
The the lighting, electrical genius, I think, is really nice.

00:34:42.000 --> 00:35:12.000
Starting to be recognized to search. You know he's lived under Edison Shadow for quite a while now, but the idea here is that you've got any internal magnet that creates a little electric arc and you get this flame and this particular one this illustrates here was a design from

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:21.000
2019 within, now, actually trying to get them so that you can charge the electric arc by plugging into your USB port.

00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:28.000
As so many things in our lives now are, with the idea that you've then got this construction.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:36.000
This is flying through it free that you control on familiar sources of power, and that is moving forward.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:44.000
So, even though we've come a long way, Chrome, interrupting 2 sticks together in an attempt to make flame.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:47.000
We're still wanting to do it. We're still trying to find easy ways to make it happen.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:36:01.000
And I think that that desire to create something that is, that is going to be an easy way of accessing flame and fire is really important to us, because it represents so much in our lives.

00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:13.000
It represents light. It represents heat. It represents cooking, and I find it really interesting.

00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:34.000
For example, that if any of you are quote makers, that the basic quilt that a lot of people start with is what they call the cabin quilt and the cabin quilt which is made to fabric always starts with a red square at the center and that red square centre represents

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:44.000
home in half, and they idea that that little fire at the centre of the quilt he's also at the centre of our lives.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000
He's something, I think he's still relevant and still very important.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Now and you've heard me talk quite a lot now.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Sir, thank you.

00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:00.000
Thank you.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:05.000
Thank you very much. Awesome and fascinating stuff.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:06.000
Okay.

00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:18.000
Let's go to some questions. We've got a few for you, and the first one.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Yeah.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:33.000
No, no, it was just breathing in the fumes when it when it was when it was being created.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:38.000
So what you're talking about is you've got white phosphorus in a liquid form.

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:47.000
So it's something we are dipping something in, and is this, it is the wetness of it which is causing that problem.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:38:01.000
There's no evidence to suggest that anybody who bought White phosphorous matches was ever affected by it it has a lot to do with exposure, you know, we're talking about people who were working for you know, 1415 16 h.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:10.000
Just breathing in all of the time, and that it was that impact.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:16.000
It was causing whereas, of course, if you're you know, you're gonna light your cigarette then it's an instance thing.

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:17.000
It's not the prolonged exposure which was what was causing the problem.

00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:18.000
And we obviously talked quite a lot and about, and the impacts that that had on on the workers and the match factories did the users of these early matches get hmm, okay, interesting.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:36.000
That was from Madeline. So I hope that answers your question, Madeline, now we've had a number of questions about the Quakers, Brian and me as employers from a number of people.

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:37.000
Okay. Good. Luck.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:39.000
So I'm going to try and rule this together. And so it's all kind of cool from Bridget and Karen. Andrew.

00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:48.000
Always thought the Quakers were the more sympathetic employers of the day.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.000
And from today, you know, Bryant and me were Quakers.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:57.000
Their behaviour seems to go against quaker doctrine.

00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:03.000
And from Madeline did other quicker notables try to intervene.

00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:05.000
In that situation.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.000
Okay. I can ask the last question. I can ask the last question first, because I don't know the answer.

00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.000
Right.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.000
Yeah, I.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:23.000
I don't know enough you say I shall write it down as one of my things to investigate.

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:24.000
Hmm!

00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:29.000
I don't know enough about the history of Quakerism and Quakers in industry, because, you know, there were there were good Quake.

00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:32.000
Is that anybody so thanks, Caroline. Caroline.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Anybody involved in chocolate. Both the round trees and the and the Cadbury's, because it was capabaries, built this model village at Bonville, and for their workers.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:52.000
And we're kind of known to be in the forefront of radical change in terms of the way that you treating workers.

00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:07.000
But they were just as many Quakers who were in business, who seemed to be quite happy to exploit workers manufacturers were.

00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:12.000
We're also officially Quakers, but they were.

00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:26.000
They were not kind to their workers either, and there were situations there where I certainly after this date, but I know that there was industrial unrest, because the factories were based in.

00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:30.000
I want to say slow, but I think that's wrong doing this memory now.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:32.000
So be nice to me so how they were reconciled.

00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:43.000
Their treatment of people and their involvement in the faith which is essentially humanist.

00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:44.000
I'm not entirely sure you'd need to find somebody who knows a lot more about history.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:49.000
A quicker than than I do.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:56.000
Hmm. Okay, okay. Well, I hope that helps to answer some of that.

00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:57.000
Anybody, for anybody can tell me where to look. It'd be great.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:05.000
And for everybody that that recommended. Okay. Another question here, when we were talking about Mr.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Bryant and Mrs Bessant the strikes, and you mentioned that Mr.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:15.000
Bryant's obviously had a lot of money and bought a park.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Do we know where that was? Of which one?

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:22.000
Let me have a look and see if I got in my notes.

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:27.000
That's from Miranda.

00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:29.000
I don't have it in my notes, Miranda.

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:30.000
Hmm!

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:38.000
I'll check check my big pack of notes, and if you want I'll get back to you on that one.

00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:41.000
I don't want to give you deaf information, but it was.

00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:44.000
It was certainly a when I say it said it was a park.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:50.000
It was park and house, you know. Basically he was buying himself landed gentry status.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:42:00.000
On the backs of these workers. So you know, that was the kind of very, very kind of established way of going on for Victorians.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:06.000
But I I will make a note to just double check that.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:11.000
Alright. Okay. A question from Chris Watson.

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:17.000
Again, talking about Bryant, and May. Obviously it's a brand we all know.

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:21.000
Do we know why they continued until 1901?

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:27.000
Expense. Hey? It was cheaper. The red phosphorus to start with was much more expensive, because there wasn't as much of it being being created being mined.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:38.000
So it was it, you know they had stocks of white.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.000
Phosphorus. So they basically use them up until they had to.

00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:45.000
It was an economic decision.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Yeah, okay. Hope that answers your question, Chris. An access kind of, I guess, more of a comment than anything else from she says her kitchen matches, long kitchen matches are brown and may might need to think about changing brands now, a little bit about their history I have to say

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.000
I've got box of them in my cupboard.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:05.000
I think you're perfectly so I think you're perfectly safe now.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:07.000
Yeah.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:08.000
The that they've been taken over by a manufacturers, and they are.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:20.000
They are much, much better employers now, and of course they are the we are now talking about matches they created with Register.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:27.000
So they workers are are much, much safer, so I think you can carry on using your kitchen matches without fear of fear of them worrying about the workers that are using them.

00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:47.000
I would. However, I mentioned big. I would, however, consider if you are somebody who does need a lighter on a regular basis, not buying big ones because they are produced.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:50.000
I'm doing other unpleasant conditions in the Far East.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Hmm, and okay, and okay. So here's a question from Liz.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.000
Now, I'm not sure if this is one you will be able to answer, and cause it's slightly off topic.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:03.000
But I'll ask it anyway, and you can see what we think.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:11.000
She's asking, how does the automatic ignition on gas hubs work?

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:12.000
Yeah.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:33.000
Oh, I I don't know.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:34.000
Hmm, hmm!

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:37.000
I mean I'm sure that they are connected. There is a connection between the way that a lighter works with the Pharisee and Ferresinium, and the way that your Hub works, but it's not, it's not my area of Expertise does anybody out there again.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Okay.

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.000
that knows. Then you know. Then do tell me cause it's a good question. Yeah.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:56.000
So one of those things. It's like I said when at the beginning, when I started off this whole process of trying to figure trying to learn about things that were that you know we use every day these things don't occur to us.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:57.000
So you know those of you who got assholes.

00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:58.000
Yeah, absolutely. And just with a comment.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:02.000
They probably just turned it on without thinking about it.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:06.000
Yeah, it's just. And that's just backed up by a comment from one of our listeners today.

00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.000
But Ian most interesting something I'd previously taken for granted.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Absolutely. We don't think about it, do we? Can I just say I can see that somebody's got their electronic hand raised.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:23.000
If you're wanting to ask a question. If you could pop it into the chat, and and I'll get to it.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:29.000
That would be fantastic, and I think it's is May Wilson.

00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Okay, no. You touched on this thing slightly. Just a second ago.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:40.000
This is from Kate are the people who are assembled later, especially the disposable ones.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:47.000
And you just talked about big a minute ago, as badly treated and recompense as the match girls were.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Unfortunately they are the if you if you buy, and you know an expensive license, you buy Zip, Ps.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Or something like that. You are probably okay, but the ones that are disposable very problematic in terms of your.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:26.000
In terms of yes. I'll essentially there is switch up usage for them there for them, actually creating big lighters.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:30.000
That's why they're so cheap. That's why they're so mass-produced.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:37.000
And it is an unfortunate one of those things. So if you've got them, get ridges in and don't buy anymore.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:51.000
You know it. It is. I'm afraid to say that as with drawing to May, and with a great deal of other things, that she sees economics that will make people change their behaviours any.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:02.00u0
Nobody buys them, nobody will. Nobody will continue to manufacture them under the circumstances that they're in it's it's it's a tricky area right now.

00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:05.000
But.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:07.000
Yeah, okay, Kate, there you go. Another little comment. Here.

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:17.000
From. Carolyn. I really want to hear that Cadbury Quakers were good, so I can keep scoffing chocolate.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:18.000
I think I think we could all say the same thing.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:20.000
Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:25.000
With, you're right with. So you can carry on eating emails both.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:38.000
Any? Sweetie? Okay? Good. So another comment from Paul, actually, fire had a huge impact on the diet of man whereby many foods which were indigestible became valuable nutrition ones cooked.

00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:42.000
I guess you touched on that right at the start, didn't you?

00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly the importance of of the idea as being of of being able to have fire.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:55.000
You know, it's that thing that it has 2 effects.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:06.000
One is the whole idea of nutrition, and that it transforms role, food, meat, and grain into something that is easily digestible.

00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:12.000
And therefore creates a higher level of of energy in the body.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:19.000
But also there, you know, there is some discussion about whether or not.

00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:39.000
You know the idea that you had a fire. You had a that people gathered around also created elements of civilization, that we perhaps, you know, take granted there's no doubt that cave paintings were a consequence of having fire not so much the paint itself, but the ability to create

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:45.000
shadows that produce the effects. If you know, if you go to, and you see the case there, it's very, very much you're aware.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:53.000
These are things that have been created in firelight, you know, beginnings of music.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:06.000
They can use a storytelling. The fact that we are gathering together as humans is something that is kind of very important to our development as a species.

00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Hmm, interesting. Okay. So another comment here from Bridget may be quicker.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:17.000
History would make a good subject for Thursday talk. I'll take that one on board, Bridget.

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:25.000
He might be right there. Let's have another look here, let's see what else we've got.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:50.000
Oh, here's here's a question. And from Madeline about the attitude to workers in terms of the facts, do we think that maybe that attitude was to do with the idea of the undeserving poor?

00:49:50.000 --> 00:50:06.000
And well, not exactly because the phrase, the undeserving pool is more to do with work houses and supporting poverty it's more to do with.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:15.000
If you are poor and you are not earning something, as in your too old to work, we are too disabled to work, or there is something that you know.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:27.000
Then that is what makes you, and deserving. If you're not doing anything to earn it, I think what drives treatment to work is like this is because they can.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:30.000
You know that is that they they can reduce.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:37.000
They can reduce the costs and increase their profits by treating their workers poorly.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:38.000
Hmm!

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:39.000
By not paying it very much, and because there is no mechanism, you know it's it's a shut up.

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:45.000
It's a put up a shuttle thing.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:58.000
You are the got to put up with it and take the pay or leave, and if you've got no other source of income and a great many of these people didn't, then that's where they were.

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:05.000
That's what results in the kind of abuses that Bryant and they were practicing.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:13.000
They were not alone in this, and of course he's, you know, when I refer to you know the this issues in in the Far East.

00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:14.000
It's exactly the same thing. You've got a lot of people who want to learn money.

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:31.000
So the lowest, the lowest amount of money that can be afforded create type profits. And it's, you know, it's a very scenario. It's a very simple economic device.

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:40.000
Hmm, okay, and another sort of comment from Paul. I guess one thing, I guess what we haven't covered today is the impact of fire on war and firearms.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:48.000
But I guess that could be almost a whole other talk, couldn't it?

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:49.000
Hmm!

00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:53.000
Yeah, I mean, if we could get into I talk, yeah, I can talk about cannons until the cows come home and musketry and stuff like that.

00:51:53.000 --> 00:52:01.000
But that's that's a completely different line of history.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Because then we're talking about the history of gunpowder and my starting point for this was very much the domestic and there's not that many uses for gunpowder in a domestic setting.

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:24.000
In your home. So, and it's somewhat less significant for what I was thinking about.

00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:27.000
And so that's another token itself.

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:36.000
Hmm, okay. And I stood from today. We have 3 boxes of color headed matches dating Pre.

00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:48.000
1914 war. Would these be the offending matches that we've been talking about?

00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:53.000
The issue is how hi, how far? Before the 1914?

00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:54.000
Hmm!

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:59.000
What, as I said, Bryant may stop using white force in 19.

00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:00.000
Hmm!

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:09.000
O, one! But of course they were. They were at the time something like 30 other match manufacturers in London, but they weren't as big, you know.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:16.000
Bryant and me with the kind of market leaders.

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.000
The question would be, What has colored the match?

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:28.000
And I wouldn't try lighting any. I think that's that would be my recommendation.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:41.000
Right.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:42.000
Hmm!

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:45.000
I mean to be honest, they're probably an amazing artefact of their own, but it would be interesting to know exactly when in that, you know, in the early twentieth century period that they were made. I'd need to see them. I guess.

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:50.000
Okay. Let's have a look here, we've got few minutes.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:54:02.000
And from Paul. And would you be able to say a bit more about the operation of the red tipped match available in the 19 fifties?

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:05.000
In the 1950s specifically.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:06.000
Hmm!

00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:19.000
I'm not quite sure if I'm if I'm the only difference is that the red tip matches the one that has the the East, where you buy the box with the striker on it.

00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:26.000
You you get some lovely match holders at the time, and such things I had to cut out of the talk.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:30.000
Through that period they they're quite collectable.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:38.000
If you, that's something that you are interested in and.

00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:42.000
It's all sorts of arrangements. Lovely, lovely ladies and crinolines on that.

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:47.000
When you flick the crinolines up they've got a striker underneath it, but it's again.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:55.000
It's a friction thing. It's a striking something, and I imagine that's what the red tip ones are.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Okay.

00:54:56.000 --> 00:54:58.000
In exactly the same way. I'm not quite sure of the distinction that's been made there.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:03.000
Okay, right? And let's move on. We've got a minute or 2.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:09.000
I think this is one final question. I think this is from.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:22.000
Was there a Factory Act in the late eighteenth century that limited hours for children in terms of work.

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:29.000
Not in late eighteenth. No, I'm trying to think.

00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:33.000
First Factory Act.

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Is, that would be Shaftesbury, wouldn't it?

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:48.000
Yeah. The first one. There it has. It is to do with children, or sort of is 18.

00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:56.000
O. 2, is the very first Factory Act, and it's called.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:00.000
It's something to do with apprentices.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:01.000
Right.

00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:09.000
So that is very early. And it's.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:13.000
Not the not the Robert Peel.

00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:18.000
His father. I think.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:22.000
So I'm reaching. Some of the savings.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:39.000
They're coming in, and that and it was to do with looking after looking after apprentices that it was to try and codify the idea that people who took on apprentices we're kind of in.

00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:48.000
It's one of the reasons why Jimmy sweeps who was sent up Jimmy's weren't signed up as apprentices. They didn't have.

00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:55.000
They didn't have the the big contracts because they were that that was the contract that we controlled by the act.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:03.000
So if you know some people, I, some of you, may own one, these big apprentices documents, and you have to see them in pubs.

00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:10.000
Yeah. Okay, hope that go some way to answering your questions soon.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:16.000
And we have, I think, one more question, and then we'll need to wrap up.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:17.000
Oh, she couldn't tell!

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:19.000
I think folks, because we're almost out. And this is the model.

00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:25.000
And this is an interesting question. And again, I'm not sure whether this has been part of your research.

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:33.000
Possibly not, but Marilyn is saying, some animals and birds have been shown to use tools.

00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:40.000
Is there ever any evidence of them using fire?

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:41.000
That we know.

00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:46.000
There are allegedly, and this is the problem that are allegedly stum examples.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:59.000
Of some animals using naturally created fire to defend themselves.

00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:10.000
So we the you know there are stories that the there's have been seen to grab brown shoes and wave them around, but they are stories.

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:11.000
They've not been accredited with anything. They're a bit sort of.

00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:28.000
Let me see. Legends. The you know, it's a nice idea, but of course the truth is that most animals are more afraid of fire than they are drawn to it.

00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:31.000
Where is, I think, humans are drawn to it?

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:47.000
I mean I was a party on Saturday night, and somebody had a fire page, and that's where everybody ended up sitting around the.

00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:48.000
Hmm!

00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:56.000
And you know if if if you want to, hire a cottage, you can't hire a cottage now without having an open fire because it's what people want, they want to be able to sit there and engage into the frames, and you know all that kind of idea it's

00:58:56.000 --> 00:59:01.000
something that I think humanity is drawn to so that I think that's that.

00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:06.000
I think it's a very different thing for animals and birds.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:09.000
Yeah, somebody's just written a real fire. So relaxing.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:10.000
Yeah.

00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:18.000
Yeah, it is well until you have to try and light it with a flint, and try and try and clean it in the morning.

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:23.000
Yeah, okay. Well, I think that's a sports. I hope you all enjoyed that.

00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:34.000
It's really interesting to hear how the developments and how we've generated fire over time impacted on our lives and culture, and also interesting that connection with Nikola Tesla in the latest lighters.

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:42.000
Some of you out there might remember, if you've been a member for a little while.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:45.000
We had one of these lectures on Nikola Tesla a couple of years ago.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:57.000
I think it was so. A very, very interesting man, and not a genius really and so interesting to make that connection.

00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:25.000
Okay, so thank you very much for the invitation to sort of come back and speak to you about the spring night sky.

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:26.000
Well, Fiona said, it's a nice sunny afternoon in Edinburgh.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:34.000
Well, here in you know the Midlands, there's cloud, and there's bits of blue, but I do believe that the forecast for tonight is frosty.

00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:43.000
Which means there are clear skies. So hopefully, as some of what I'm telling you about.

00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:58.000
You might be able to go and put into practice a bit later on, when it's a bit darker, because, although at this time of year we do get reduced hours of darkness compared with the winter, it's often a bit warmer, and I think sometimes that does encourage people to go out and have a look at

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:03.000
the sky, and what we're going to do today is just look at the main constellations on view.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:09.000
Learn some techniques called star hopping as well as a bit of mythology.

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:16.000
Behind the style patterns and at the end of the talk we'll see what the planets are up to.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:29.000
Some of you may have noticed a few weeks ago that Venus and Jupiter were very close to together in the sky, you know, producing, you know, some quite spectacular sights.

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:44.000
That's still this, but Jupiter is not so say at least, we've got other planets to look at, and I will say that everything I'm going to talk to you about tonight can be seen with the unaided eye you don't need binoculars or a

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:53.000
telescope, now, that's a view of the ninth sky that is tonight at, I think, 9 or 10 Pm.

00:01:53.000 --> 00:02:08.000
So you know, it's given the sky good chance to get dark, and you'll notice that over in the west here we've still got some of the winter constellations and these type of star maps.

00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:15.000
You can easily download these off the Internet from all sorts of sites.

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:22.000
Something called time and date.com. This comes off a very good site called Heavens hyphen above Com.

00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:31.000
But I suspect a lot of people got apps for their phone and always very useful when bye, hmm!

00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:38.000
Identify a particular star or planet. So it is over. The next sort of week or 2.

00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:42.000
It is really your last chance to see the winter constellations, because over in the West Orion and his retinue are sinking.

00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:51.000
But they'll be back later in the year, and Orion is a very useful signpost for some of the winter stars.

00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.000
But also some of the stars that are still around in spring.

00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.000
I think that probably most people will know or run because of his belt.

00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:16.000
There, but still on view, if you can use the belt, if you go from the right down to the lower left, you come to the bright star, Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky, if you go up the belt in the other direction, so from the lower left, to the upper right and

00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:38.000
extend that upwards you come to another sort of bright star, a ready orangey star, called Aldebran, which is in Taurus, and you can also still find the 2 bright styles of Gemini Castor and Pollock's there again, using Orion from the Belt

00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:39.000
up through this bright red star called Battle goes up there and then across to this other star.

00:03:39.000 --> 00:04:02.000
Here! Called because, as I said, I'm afraid that they are sinking in the West, and you'd have to get out pretty much as soon as it gets dark to get a good view of those, but they will be back later in the year.

00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:14.000
Now I must admit that once, or Ryan and his friends are set when you go out and look at the sky, I always feel there's something a bit missing, because you know, this collection of stars.

00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:22.000
Here is actually, you know, very bright they are, you know, some of the brightest stars in the sky, and I'm afraid the spring stars don't really match up to that.

00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.000
But nevertheless there are still objects of interest and star patterns that we can learn.

00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:34.000
Okay, anyway, that was the slide I had just a minute ago. There!

00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:40.000
No, I will also just very quickly mention the moon, because the moon is a fascinating object to look view through binoculars or telescope or a small telescope.

00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:53.000
Okay, I know. I said I wasn't going to mention object.

00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:58.000
You know, small pair of binoculars. Go out and look at the moon through it, because it's you know.

00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:01.000
You see, creators, you know things that you can't spot with an Achi!

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:05.000
However, with your unaided eye you can still learn how to identify some of the so-called C's, and these are, of course, these dark areas on the moon.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:29.000
They were called seas by, you know, astronomers centuries ago, because, as they were darker than the rest of the moon, they assumed that maybe there was water there, and you know it forms a distinctive pattern, but you can clearly see those with your unaided eye, and you might

00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:49.000
like to learn them. This is a picture of a full moon, of course, and one of the, you know, over here you've got the sea of tranquility which was famous as the landing site for the first manned moon mission back in 1969.

00:05:49.000 --> 00:06:01.000
But what these features actually are is that they were giant impact creators, so enormous, you know, bits of space, rock asteroids impacted the moon in the past, and then these were subsequently filled with lava.

00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:02.000
So that's why they've got that dark colour.

00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:14.000
They're basaltic rocks. You might also again, with your binoculars round about full moon time.

00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:25.000
If you look down the lower, the southern part of the moon there, there's an object there that's labeled Tyco, and that's a crater not so the sort of bright white spot on the moon again.

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:39.000
It's a giant impact crater but it's also what we call a raid crater, because with your binoculars, and certainly in photos, you can see these rays of material coming from it.

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And you know these raise. It can be hundreds of miles long, and they represent material that was ejected when the crater formed.

00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:56.000
So when the small asteroids collided with the moon, material was ejected and sprayed out like that.

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Now, when you are looking at the stars, a lot of astronomers, unless they're particularly interested in the moon.

00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:13.000
Tend to avoid the time around full moon, because a full moon is very bright, and it hides you know, a lot of the faint of stars.

00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:14.000
So when you are out there looking, it's best to avoid the time around Full Moon.

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And oh, dear! Tonight, isn't it? Full moon? But definitely, it's gonna be very nice when you see it against them, you know.

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Just see the moon in the sky. April sixth and May the fifth and June fourth.

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They are the dates of the next full moons, and of course, April the sixth.

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There, we think that if you remember the date of Easter is determined by being the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

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So first of all, moon after the spring equinox. This year is April sixth. Today.

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So that's why Easter is this coming summer?

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Now, when you look north, I'm assuming that a lot of people know how to find the plow.

00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:08.000
The plough is what we call an asterism, a pattern in the stars.

00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:13.000
It's not a full constellation, but you know it's this very useful pattern of 7 stars.

00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:20.000
And it's actually part of a larger constellation of the Great Bear or Ursa major.

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And you can see the yellow lines marking out the pattern of the plough, and then the faint up white lines.

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There more out the rest of us. A major, the Great Bear, at this time of year, you know.

00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:42.000
You'd look, you know, towards the east northeast, and you could see the plough, and you can use these 2 stars here in one.

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We call the bowl of the plough if you draw an imaginary line between those, then you come to Polaris, the pollster, or the North Star, it's not one of the brightest stars in the sky, and the significance of it is that it's the points in the

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:17.000
sky with the polar access points. So that's a Polaris, and you know that if you're facing Polaris, then you're facing due north.

00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:23.000
But also you can use the plough and Polaris to help you find another famous constellation, the W.

00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:42.000
Of cassia pear, and to find that you take the one to the third star in what we call the handle of the plough, and you join an imaginary line between that and post, and extend that line over, and you come to I'm not gonna say much else about these constellations.

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There, because they're what we call certain polar constellations from the Uk.

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They're visible on any clear night. Where's the other styles I'm going to talk about?

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Our seasonal ones, you know it does depend upon the time of year that so you're looking as to what you see.

00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:16.000
So this the the plough up there. If you go out about sort of 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock tonight, when you start, look over to the east.

00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:17.000
Then the plough is really on its handle like that.

00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:28.000
Okay, so that would be, you know, that would be you'd be standing there looking that way.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.000
And you see the plough up right like that.

00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:51.000
Well, I'll get to concentrate now on, you know some of the stars that are these seasonal ones, like Leo, constellation of Leo the Lion, and we're going to talk about how you can find a go and how you can find Boa tease the

00:10:51.000 --> 00:11:11.000
herdsman. Now when we put up charts like this, few things to remember is that the bigger the dot, the brighter the star, and this line across here, like this is purple line. Ask.

00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:17.000
That is, that's a really good question. That marks what we call the ecliptic.

00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:21.000
And there's 2 ways of thinking about this. But they're both essentially the same thing.

00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:40.000
And one way is to think of it as the earth moves around the sun, and if you could, if we look at the plane of the earth's orbit, if we were to extend that out so that touched the sky the so-called celestial sphere then that line there marks

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:49.000
that extension of the plane of the earth's orbit on the sky, and it also marks the path of the sun against the background.

00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:02.000
Stars over the course of a year. Now, obviously, you know, daylight, you can't see the stars, but nevertheless, the strongness, you know, can work out where the sun would be, and so that's why this line here.

00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:11.000
Process, the constellations of the zodiac, because oh, we've got tourists there.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.000
We've got gemini there. Got cancer there.

00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.000
We've got Leo there, and Virga there.

00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:35.000
So so this ecliptic marks the the constellations of the zodiac, because, as you know, the the significance or the astronomical significance of the zodiacal constellations, is that it does mark the path of the sun, and because all

00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:44.000
of the planets in the solar system, and and the moon as well, essentially their orbits are pretty much in the same plane as the earth.

00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000
I mean, it's a bit of a sleeping statement, but they're not far off.

00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:59.000
It. If you want to look for a planet or the moon, you look towards the constellation of the zodiac, so you can see Venus up here is close to Taurus.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:07.000
Mars is close to Gemini and the moon tonight is in Virgo.

00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.000
So you know, want to look for a planet or the moon.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:17.000
Then constellation of the.

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:22.000
Just skip over that. Okay, so that's the same thing again.

00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:30.000
Now, once you found the plow, it's very useful as a sign post in much the same way as we can use, Orion as a signpost.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:45.000
When are you using the plough, though you've got to be careful that what you're looking for is actually above the horizon at the time of year that you're looking for it, and I'm just going to concentrate on stars that are visible in the spring sky so

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:59.000
we're going to see how we can use the handle of the plan to find this star called Arcturus in the constellation of Bowa Tease, and we can use the bowl of the plough to find the constellation of Leo.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:05.000
You can find out constellations as well. Gemini. I think we.

00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:13.000
Still we can find that from all, Ryan, so that big a good double check that you've actually got Germany and I'll leave Capella.

00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:22.000
That's best seen during the winter months, although it is still around at the moment, and vaguea in Lyra that's best seen during the summer months.

00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:30.000
So we're going to see how we can use the plow to find Optus and Leo.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:36.000
No! At this time of year, as I mentioned a few minutes ago.

00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:44.000
If you look out basically as soon as it gets dark, then you're looking out, you know, towards the northeast.

00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:50.000
Then the plow appears to be balancing on its handle like that.

00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:53.000
Okay.

00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:56.000
And.

00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:59.000
To take the bowl of the plow. Here.

00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:05.000
These 2 stars here. So the 2 stars in the bowl nearest the handle.

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:25.000
If you draw an imaginary line down between those, and extend that on you come to a star in called Regulus, in the constellation of Leo and someone's came up this with this rhyme hole in the bowl will leak on leo so there we are and the natural

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:41.000
arc of the handle of the plow. If you follow that down you'll come to a bright orange star, called Arcturus, and again the little rhyme is, Follow the arc to arc terrors so that we'll look at that so again, just to see how that works on

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:53.000
the map. Let me up. There's the arc to Octous, and there's the leaking on Leo like that.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:15.000
So let's just have a look at that so some of these constellations well, Leo, the lion, Leo, has been known as a sort of constellation for millennia, and there are lots of mythological tales about these constellations, and lots of civilizations so lots of cultures

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:20.000
have got their own tales about the constellation. So I've just picked on one.

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.000
If you start with soing these, you'll find lots of stories.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.000
But with Leo it's arguably the the lion in the features.

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:44.000
In one of the 12 labours of Hercules, the Nemean lion, and this line apparently was feared because it got clause that was sharper than any weapon.

00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:58.000
That's been made by mankind, and Hercules was able to defeat the lion because Athena instructed him to use the lion's own claw claw as a weapon against it.

00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:09.000
So that's one story. I say you will find many, and that's what Leo looks like in the sky like that.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:14.000
Ignore that bright point there, because I think that was when the planet Jupiter was near it some years ago.

00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:20.000
Of course it's not now. Now. Sometimes, when you're looking into these constellations, you know, we do have this tendency.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:40.000
We like to draw these patterns between them. The lines, just I think it helps us remember the positions of the stars, but sometimes from these constellations you wonder how on Earth people made you know a particular object or person out of the pattern of the stars.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.000
But actually I can see Leo there. I can see a line there.

00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:50.000
This is head he's sitting on his sort of front pause, and there's his back pause and his tail.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.000
So I'll go along with that for Leo.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:03.000
And here is a more detailed map of Leo now let's just say something about this.

00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:15.000
The constellation names are in Latin, and some styles do have real, you know proper names, and the you know these well, they can be lots of origins.

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:23.000
A lot of them are Arabic, actually, but his regulars there they all seem to have faded a bit there, but never mind.

00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:39.000
So there's regulars, and the start of the back of the line is a Dennebula, and you'll notice that the other stars are designated by Greek letters well, that's Cisco's been in use for over 400 years.

00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:59.000
Now, there was a German astronomer at the beginning of the seventeenth century, called Bayer, who thought a good way of, if you're not cataloging the stars, was to give each start a Greek letter, and generally although not always the brightest star in a constellation is the

00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:06.000
alpha star. So in this case, that is, reguls and second, brightest star is the Beta star, and that's the nebula.

00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:07.000
There and then you've got Gamma and Delta, etc.

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:16.000
Working your way through the Greek letters, and again on these maps, the bigger the dots, the brighter the star.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:27.000
So. Yes, regulars is the brightest. The this area here, with is like this back to front question.

00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:35.000
Mark regulars. And remember, we can find that from the regulars is the sort of.at the bottom of the back to front question.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:41.000
Mark, but you might also see this region sometimes referred to as the sickle of Leo.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:43.000
Yes, I can see a cycle there and then.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.000
So you've got the rest of the line going back like that.

00:19:48.000 --> 00:20:04.000
Now we'll say that Reguls is fairly easy to find, and you'd look across and find a and yeah, really, just depending on the conditions under which you're viewing, you should be able to make out these styles that make up the body of the lion.

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:05.000
But these ones up here can be a bit faint in the sickle or the backfront question.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:16.000
Mark, so I think you would need somewhere reasonably dark, and of course, remember when you do go out and start looking at the stars.

00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Do give your eyes time to adapt to the lower levels of light.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:22.000
Don't expect to walk out from a bright room and see lots of stars when you walk outside, you have to allow your eyes to adjust.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:36.000
Okay, so there's the sickle. There. Now, what else have we got on this map where we got this red dotted line here?

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.000
Well, that's the ecliptic that I told you about a few minutes ago.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:21:01.000
And we've got these dotted yellow lines here all dashed yellow lines that represents the boundaries of the constellations, because constellations like countries and counties, do have boundaries, and these have been drawn up by the international astronomical Union, which is the governing body in this

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:07.000
area a bit like Fifa is to football, I suppose, and so they're boundaries.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:22.000
There, and you can see that on this map here. There's sort of quite a few fainter styles here which haven't got any sort of designation, but nevertheless, they are still included in Leo but it's these broad styles here, that as you know just going out to look at

00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:29.000
the sky we can recognize as the the pattern what are these end things down here?

00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:37.000
Well, this is very interesting region to look at, but you won't actually see any of these with your unaided eye.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:41.000
You do need, you know, telescopes, to see these, because these M.

00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:47.000
Objects are Messier objects. They're named after a French.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:53.000
Excuse me, eighteenth century, a comic hunter called Charles Messier.

00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:01.000
Messier was interested in looking at comets and comets are, but they move against the background.

00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:10.000
Stars from day to day a messier was going out. It was getting fed up, of going out, finding a fuzzy object on one night that didn't move from night tonight.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000
So, therefore wasn't a comet. So he compiled C.

00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:15.000
Catalog of them, and that's what these are.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:31.000
So if you see M. Something on any star map, if's one of Messier's objects, he had just over a 100 of them there, but, as I said, you won't see those, but that is sometimes called the Realm of the Galaxies, because we know that there are sort of galaxies tend to cluster

00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:36.000
together there, and this star here, wolf, 3, 5, 9.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:48.000
That's a star. Again there was a German astronomer at the beginning of the twentieth century, who, in a compiled a list, and this is one of our nearest neighbors in space.

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000
It's about 8 light years away. So the light takes 8 years to get here.

00:22:52.000 --> 00:23:05.000
But you can't sit with the naked eye because it belongs to a class of star that we call a red dwarf, and red dwarfs are the most common styles in the galaxy.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:07.000
Probably about 80% of styles are red dwarfs.

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:10.000
And these are the very small styles.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:19.000
They've got a very small surface area over which the radiation emanates, and say, consequently we can't see them.

00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:25.000
If that the nearest star to us is a red dwarf, we cannot see it with the, with our naked eye.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.000
Anyway, that's Leo. Okay. Now, here's a representation of Leo.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:48.000
From what's called Urania's mirror, and again, you might like to look this up because erroneous mirror was a set of thirty- constellation cards from the 18 twenties, and only yeah, again, there are dots holes. Actually, in this case.

00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:57.000
And the bigger the whole, the brighter the star. So I think we've got regulars there, and the idea was that you'd use the cards indoors.

00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:13.000
You'd hold them up against a candle so that you could see the pattern of the stars, so that when you went outside you'd be able to recognize that pattern in the sky, and all sounds a bit dangerous holding these cards up near candles and I think it's fair to say the very few of the

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:17.000
original sex have survived, although you can buy modern day.

00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:21.000
In facsimiles, but they are lovely.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:27.000
So there's a photograph of Leo there.

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:31.000
Okay. Not quite sure what that is. There is a probably taking.

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:35.000
Some years ago, when there was a planet nearby. But there are.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.000
There's regulars, there's the back to front question.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:43.000
Mark the sickle, and you can clearly see that that's Star up there. You know.

00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:49.000
It's quite a bit fainter than some of the others, and then you've got to nebula over there.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:52.000
So the cycle and the body of the lion.

00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:01.000
So see if you can spot Leo. But just say a quick word about the main stars, about regulars.

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Regulars is the Alpha star, and it's actually a blue white starch tells us its its outer layers are very hot, and its magnitude 1.3. I'll say a couple of words about magnitude in a minute.

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:23.000
But regulars is very good value for money. With your naked eye you just see one star, but in fact, it consists of 2 pairs of stars.

00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:28.000
So there's 4 stars in there. It's a multiple style system, a multiple style.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:43.000
Systems are actually very common. But the components of that system so close that you know you do need specialized equipment to be able to resolve it into the 4 components.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:51.000
Regulars is 77 light years away, which means that the light you go out and look at it to light tonight.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:55.000
The light left there in 1946 to reach your eyes tonight.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:13.000
So, you know, just after the Second World War had ended, it's a young, so many, few 100 million years old, it's a much bigger than sun, about 3 and a half times the sun's mass, and it's spinning very rapidly about once every 16 h stars tend to do that when

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:14.000
they're younger. And, in fact, some people have referred to this as a spinning bullet.

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:22.000
So that's reguls just this quick word about magnitude.

00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:34.000
It's just a numerical system for measuring the brightness of the an astronomical object, and the rule is the smaller the number, the brighter the object, and some objects are so bright they have a negative magnitude so if you just have a very quick, look at this scale, here.

00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:44.000
There's 0 on the magnitude scale. The pulse star is there.

00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:53.000
That's probably about 2 something like that naked eye limit is magnitude 6, you know, under good conditions.

00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Venus at its brightest witch you'll get the choice to see it's about minus 4.

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:06.000
Full moon is about minus 11, and the sun is about minus 27.

00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:08.000
But going in the other direction. The faintest objects are visible, to say Hubble, Space Telescope.

00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:20.000
You're looking at getting on for plus 30 there. So it is a big big variation in scale where so magnitude 1.3.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:25.000
For regular.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:26.000
Just a bit about some Denneba there, that's 36 light years away.

00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:35.000
So that means that the light left there in 1987.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:43.000
To get to your eyes tonight. Magnitude to just slightly fainter than magnitude, to third brightest star in Leo.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:54.000
Second brightest one is actually this one over here but again, it's a very luminous start, much bigger than the sun, and it's young and surface temperature is about 8,500.

00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.000
Kelvin, you're not familiar with the Kelvin temperature scale, and at those sort of numbers.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Just think, Celsius you're not going to be far wrong at all, and what's of interest about is that astronomers have found that there is a cool dust of so cool disc in orbit around that star about 39 astronomical units from

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:27.000
the star, the astronomical unit is the distance or the average distance between the earth and the sun.

00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:35.000
So you can imagine that about 39 times the earth, some distance from there's this disc of dust.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:44.000
So, maybe you know some sort of planets forming in that with, we don't know, though, but we certainly have been able to detect planets around quite a few other stars, anyway.

00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:52.000
So just a bit of information about regulates. And and when you're looking at them, you've got a bit of background information.

00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Now we're going to come onto now. The herdsman. No very important.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:00.000
This the second o in Botees has got 2 dots over it, and that apparently I'm sure that people find more knowledgeable about these things at the me tonight.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:10.000
But that's called a diary, Sis, and that's a mark that's placed over a vowel to indicate that it's sounded separately.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:17.000
So like Nae and Bronte. Okay? So boa teams.

00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Okay. It's not boot, it's. And if you remember, what we said is, you take the handle of the plow, and that takes us down to which is the brightest star in Bowethie's.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.000
So those 2 there represent the end of the hand of the plough.

00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Come down to Octous, buttice itself is a sort of kite shaped constellation.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:54.000
An octus is, you know, definitely the brightest star in that constellation it's easy to find art tourists, and, you know, tracing out the other stars again, you would need to be somewhere.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:11.000
That was fairly dark, to to find that so again, just looking on the map, there, coming down, there's Arcturus, and there's Verity's there, a little shaped a bit like a kite.

00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:12.000
At that. And this is the uranium's mirror.

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Representation of, so that he is there. He's got his hunting dogs there, and we'll mention them again at the end of the talk.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:30.000
You're wondering what this is here. It looks a bit like a jellyfish, doesn't it?

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:32.000
But, in fact, that's a constellation called Coma.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:36.000
Berry sees where he sees hair, but again that's faint stars, and I'm not going to mention that again.

00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:43.000
But yeah, I do like these constellation cards.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:51.000
So, looking east, there's an actual start image that someone's joined the dots on there's opt tourists.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:58.000
That's the aspect that you'd get, you know, sort of round about, you know, tonight.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:02.000
And then so it, you know, that shows it's very much the brightest style there.

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:18.000
The Alt terrace itself. In fact, it's the fourth, brightest star in the night sky after Sirius, which we can see from the Uk and 2 other styles Canopus and Alpha Centauri, which are not seen from here.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:35.000
You have to go to more southerly latitudes to spot those and it's an orange color, and you know that color is discernible with the naked eye but if we can't see it because of the location, you know too much light pollution, the news binoculars and you

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:41.000
will see that orange color and art tourist is 37 like years away.

00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:47.000
So it means that the light left in 1986 to get to your eyes tonight.

00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:51.000
And it's a big star that there are bigger stars, as we will see.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:58.000
So if you've got the sun there. Okay, the sun has a radius of about point 7 million kilometres.

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:01.000
I was prefer working in diameter, but nevertheless, okay.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:10.000
But Alturus has got a radius of about 10 million kilometres, and so that's an orangey star.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:18.000
But you know some of the biggest stars are the red giants it's a style called Antaris which will be visible during the summer months.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:33.000
That's got a range of about 300 million kilometres, and if you were to place that in the middle of the solar system well, it wouldn't be good news for the Us. We'd be swallowed up and antaris would probably stretch out to well beyond the

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:47.000
orbit of Mars. So, but again, just looking at the relative sizes of Oh, there's our old friend Wolf 3 fine again!

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.000
But there's the sun, and there's serious.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:51.000
And then in the next slide. Serious is now the smallest.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:33:01.000
There, so there's serious, and there's Arcturus, and there's various other stars.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:09.000
I mentioned earlier on, you can see that is an enormous star as well, and various others that are there.

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:18.000
So you know the some. It's certainly bigger than about 80% of the stars in the galaxies, which are red dwarfs.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000
But compared with some of the others that we see in the sky, it is very small, but what about the mythology of Arcturus?

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Well, this mythology centres around. Who was about to shoot and kill his own mother.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:40.000
Callisto. Who had been transformed into a bear. Now this use was a real, you know, troublemaker.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:43.000
With all of these, I think. He'd turn Callisto to a bear.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:44.000
In the first place, but he averted the tragedy by Trump's forming the boy into the constellation.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:52.000
Bella Tease and his mother into Ursa.

00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:58.000
Major, so Ursa major was actually Callisto, and this is a painting, I think it's about seventeenth or eighteenth century. Something like that.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Sebastiano, riches, Arcus and Callisto.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:07.000
So there's Arcus there, and there's a Callisto there.

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:15.000
But obviously it's Zeus is about to step in and then stop anything tragic happening.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Oh, right! Sorry I didn't need that one. So this is an American slide.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:23.000
The Big Dipper, all the plough come down. I'll choose.

00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:37.000
If you extend that line, that up downwards, then you come to another star called, Okay, and Spika is the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo.

00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:44.000
And Virgo is, in fact, the second largest constellation in the sky, and in various mythologies.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:47.000
It's associated with fertility and crops.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:52.000
And another identifies Virgo as a Regane.

00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:09.000
It was the daughter of Icarius of Athens, apparently carries, was killed by shepherds when they were drunk, and after that Eagghani hanged herself in grief, and so the gods step in and father and daughter were placed in the stars as bowie's and

00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:12.000
Burger, so you can see for both these. That's a different.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:19.000
Story, isn't it different, mythology? But, as I said, there are lots and lots of stories that you can look up.

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:24.000
But anyway, that's go there. One of the constellations of the Zodiac.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:32.000
So!

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:40.000
Spikeer in Virgo, the rest of the styles of Burgo, you know quite a bit fainter than Spiker. So again, if you're somewhere really dark, you'd be able to spot those.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:41.000
But I wouldn't bother looking tonight because the full names there.

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:50.000
So I'm gonna save it for a few days time and you won't have the full moon blotting everything out.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:56.000
And there's the uranium mirror representation of Virgo.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:04.000
Huh! And spika, as I said, brightest starring burga!

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:14.000
It's 250 light years away. So it means that the light left there in 1773 to get to your eyes tonight.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:23.000
So that really was before the American Declaration of Independence.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Wasn't it? In 1776? Again, it's not a single star.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:30.000
It's a close binary star, and the components are so close that they can't be resolved using a telescope.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:40.000
But a very careful analysis of the light by technique called spectroscopy provides evidence for the binary nature, and spika means the Virgin's ear of wheat.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:56.000
Okay, so there's a spike there, Ken and the old ecliptic there, and the rest of the stars and Spike is actually on the flag of Brazil.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:04.000
Now, that's the flag of Brazil. Oh, there's quite a few styles there, Spiker is number 4. Okay.

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:05.000
Is that okay? And I can't remember the exact date.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:12.000
But that's the view of the heavens that the gods would have had.

00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:18.000
Looking down upon Rio de Janeiro on a particular date in Brazilian history.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:22.000
Sorry to look up again before I did the talk. What exact date was?

00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Yeah, okay, so that's spiker. Okay? And there are other styles on there as well on the flag of Brazil.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:35.000
Number one is pro sign, which we can see from here. 2 represents Canis major. The large dog.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:44.000
So the bright one there is serious, this spike. Are there?

00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:54.000
Number 5. I'm gonna talk about that in a minute, and the rest of these essentially can't be seen apart from Anthony.

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:04.000
Sarah K. But something cross-starty from here.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:08.000
Oh, Scorpio! Sorry Scorpius is number 9, wasn't it? Okay?

00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.000
But it's interesting. And, in fact, you know, there are stars on quite a few flags in the sky.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:19.000
So that's something you might like to research astronomers love to make patterns in the sky.

00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:26.000
As I said, so, art tourists, Regulus and Spiker make up something called the spring triangle.

00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.000
She might like to try and identify, and again ignore references to Jupiter.

00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:40.000
There! Cause it's not there now, now. Another constellation we have to talk about consists of faint stars.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000
But you're it's very compact constellation.

00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:51.000
Your eye is very good at joining stars together to make a pattern, and this is Corona borealis, the northern crown.

00:38:51.000 --> 00:39:10.000
And again. This represents the crown that was given by Dinysius to the cretin Princess Ariadne, and then it was put in the heavens and Coronavirus is at the top of Boa Teens, the Non Arcturus end of verity's it forms a little

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:24.000
semicircle like that again. Faint stars, all part from the alpha style there, which is called Alpha, but, you know, get a dark site, and you will be able to see that, because you know your eye is good at joining up stars to make a pattern.

00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:29.000
So there's Corona at there.

00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:47.000
And there's as I said, there's so it's said at the other end of a bowtie's from Arcturus, and another little interesting star is called Cork Koroly, which means Charles's heart.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:52.000
And Corona is in the constellation of Cannes Benedicti.

00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:06.000
The hunting dogs, and an easy way to find this particular star here we're just looking at is if you get the handle of the plough again, what would we do with that handle of the plough?

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:17.000
That little ark there, if you just look, if you can imagine a sort of circle, if you like, of that arc.

00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:20.000
But in the center of that circle there is a star.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:28.000
Cool. Okay? And sorry. I'm just looking at what the rightness of this is that should have done that should not.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:34.000
Where are we? Sorry?

00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:38.000
Can't find it now, but anyway, it's quite this. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:49.000
It's about magnitude 3. So it's it's not as bright as the stars in the play, but nevertheless, it's it occupies that particular area of the sky on its own.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:59.000
Okay. So you will be able to find it this other one here is not as prominent, and through a telescope it's actually a double star.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:00.000
And so there's the telescopic view of it.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:09.000
There, but you'll be able to pick that up with your naked eye as a single star and it's called Charles's heart.

00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:16.000
Why is that? Well, no one's quite sure whether it's named after Charles the First or Charles the Second.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:28.000
Because I say there's some uncertainty whether it's named in honor of Charles the First, who was executed in 1649, at the you know, during the Civil War, or if his son Charles Ii.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Who was restored to the throne in 1660.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:49.000
And apparently Charles the Second's physician, said that the stars seem to shine particularly brightly on the night of Charles Ii's return to England, and so that's why he reckons it's called after Charles the Second.

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:53.000
Well, you never know. In about a month's time another Charles.

00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:00.000
It'll be his coronation. Charles the Third, perhaps Corker Rowley will shine exceptionally brightly then, for that you never know.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:05.000
Do you? And yeah, then there's the hunting dogs there.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:17.000
Okay? And there's Corona borealis as well on the erraneous mirror.

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:30.000
I'll just say that lovely work again. Another pattern, cork, Roly, Benevola, Spiker, and Arcturus make up the great diamond in the sky.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:37.000
It's almost you can go out there and choose your own, you know, sort of geometrical figure, and make styles out of it.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Just going to mention one more stop before we have a quick look at the planets.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:46.000
Now at this time of year, as I said, in about 10 ish at night.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:43:04.000
Leo is pretty much, you know. Due south, or parts of it are but beneath Leo there's a lot of much fainter stars here, but one does shine and that's this one here, which is called Alpha and that is in the constellation of Hydra and most

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:12.000
of the stars of Hydra are very faint indeed. So this star here is sitting on its own in splendid isolation.

00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:18.000
So see if you can find that. So Hydra is the largest of the constellations.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:22.000
The water snake and hide outside means the solitary one.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:25.000
It's a 177 light years away.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Sorry, just trying to, which means that the light left there in 1846 to get your eyes tonight.

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:37.000
So a few years into the reign of Queen Victoria, and again Alphonse on the flag of Brazil.

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:45.000
All these stars on the flag of Brussels, as well.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Hmm little flag again in a minute. Okay, but there's hydra on uranium as mirror. Oh, sorry.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:58.000
It's just it's that's Star.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:07.000
There on the phone that represents Alpha I say, it's a pretty sort of unremarkable style, really, but nevertheless, it's there on its own.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000
You can't mistake it. Okay? So I said, all these other styles are much fainter, and these constellations here cause the coefficient of the top.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:26.000
They're very faint, styles. We don't get a good view of them from here, and mythology well, Hercules is in here again.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:31.000
Hercules is the monster with many heads that was sorry.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Hydra is the monster with many heads that was killed by Hercules.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:40.000
You know, if one of Hydra's heads was cut off, 2 more would grow in its place.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:45.000
Hercules is nephew, currently said the next, with a torch to prevent and growing back.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:48.000
And that's enabled Hercules to overcome the hydra.

00:44:48.000 --> 00:45:00.000
And what it's only fair Hercules task, constellation of his own in the spring. But it's much better seen in the summer, and it is fairly faint as well.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:03.000
But I've thought for all the heroic deeds he did.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:09.000
I think Hercules actually deserves something a bit brighter, but some, you know, that's best seen in the summer.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:13.000
What about the planets, then? Well, Venus is.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:22.000
Go out as soon as it gets dark. Look over, you know, towards the the west and high there you will see Venus, and it is the brightest object apart from the moon in the sky.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:32.000
At the moment, and tomorrow night, and you get the opportunity to try and spot it with mercury.

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:34.000
Mercury. Can all, you know sometimes be a bit elusive.

00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:37.000
Okay, so tomorrow night, if clear after sunset, look west.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:42.000
Venus is magnitude minus 4. Remember, we've got a minus number.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:48.000
It's very bright, and mercury is also a minus number.

00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:54.000
So it's bright. But the trouble is that you're often looking at Mercury against you know, sky still quite bright.

00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:02.000
There, and if you're gonna get some good Mercury is gonna be rising just a bit.

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:06.000
Excuse me, bit higher in the sky over the next few days, so do have a look for that.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Okay. So Venus and Mercury on the thirteenth of April, Venus is going to be between 2 prominent star clusters in tourists, the Hyades and the Cliades.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:39.000
They are what we call open clusters. Grown galaxy, the Milky Way, and this Venus there, there's the the 7 Sisters.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:43.000
I'm sure some of you know that. And here's the higher Ds here.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:44.000
It's a fee shape of start. This is obviously taken with them.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:45.000
You know a telescope. So there's more start.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Lot of stars there, and you see, with the make it up that star there is our Debraham, and if you remember, we can find that from Orion's belt, go upwards with the Ryan's vote.

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:08.000
Come to Al Deborahan, so that'll be quite a spectacular site.

00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:09.000
April the 20 third with Venus, and a thin crescent moon.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:20.000
So just after you know about 3 or 4 days after new moon, we've got a thin crescent moon in the sky, and Venus will be to the lower right of it.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:29.000
I say this because I know some people like taking pictures of the of events in the sky, and a planet and a moon is always a good one to go for April.

00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:41.000
The 20 fifth Mars and the moon. So there's Mars now that's magnitude 1.3, so nowhere near as bright as as Venus.

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:46.000
But again you can still see that distinctive reddy colour a couple of nights ago, without looking at it, and the red colour is still there.

00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:53.000
And then there will be the moon over here. So the bigger you know present Moon.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:59.000
So if you haven't spotted Mars yet, that would be a good time to do so.

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Now, yeah. Big question, strong is ask, will it be clear when you go out and look at the sky?

00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:15.000
Well, once your way to know if it's clear is to stick head out the door but there is quite a good website called Clear outside.com.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:30.000
If you go onto that, and you put in your location, then it does give you some recent accurate forecasts for whether it's going to be clear from your observing site, and the nearer the time that you want to the time you want to get out of

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:31.000
surfing, and I find the more accurate the forecast.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:37.000
So you can look at that. Well, what else can I promise you?

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:45.000
Well, I can't promise you anything, really, but maybe fingers crossed, because you may be aware, and some of you may have been lucky to have seen this over the last month or so.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:54.000
There've been a couple of occasions when the Aurora has been visible from many parts of the Uk.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:56.000
It's a good site. Aurora. Watch.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Uk, that's run by the University of Lancaster.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:10.000
If you click on there, that will tell you if it's likely to be you know there's a possibility that might be a good or rural display.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:15.000
But you know you know nothing, none of this can be predicted. Any certainty.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:16.000
Of course, and if you want to look at some some fabulous pictures of well, all sky events, not just.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:24.000
The Aurora. There's a website called Space weather.com.

00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:30.000
And people from all over the world submit images of that, whether it's a planetary alignment, or the moon, or an aurora, and often go on that.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:35.000
And just sit there, you know, looking at the Aurora and wanting to see a good display.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.000
I think this was taken from the Brecon beacons.

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:43.000
I think early in in March, when there was a good display.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:47.000
So. Do you know, look at that! You just don't know.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:50:03.000
But if you look on Aurora watch, and I think you know, on the weather forecast now they're pretty good at telling you when you might see the Aurora but, as I said, there's no guarantees with this, anyway, so i've gone through that rather quickly but hope i've given

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:16.000
you some idea of what you can see if you go out and look in the sky, and I must admit, since I've started talking to you, there's a lot more blue in the sky as I look out of my window here in Leicester.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:20.000
So I'm hopeful that might be able to go out and see a few things tonight.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:26.000
Despite that full moon. So thank you very much for your attention.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:35.000
Thanks very much, and that was really fascinating, and it isn't absolutely staggering to think of the size of some of these stars.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:36.000
Okay.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:44.000
I think that's the thing that surprised me the most actually.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:45.000
Oh, my, okay.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:48.000
Now let's go to some questions. I think yeah, I have some people into silence a little bit, but I've got one question here that I'm gonna skip.

00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:54.000
And this is zoom. Is it possible to see the space station at the moment?

00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:58.000
I don't think so at the moment from the Uk.

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Because I know last week and the week before there was some really good passes of the space station over the Uk.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:07.000
I'd look out again in about 2 or 3 weeks time.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:13.000
They were evening passes that we had a week or so ago.

00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:18.000
I think we went see it in the morning, Scott. But again there's lots of you know.

00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.000
Webinars and apps. You can get for your phone.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:26.000
That give you predictions for these. So I would say, Look, look out for those okay.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:27.000
Okay, brilliant. Thank you. And hope that answers your question.

00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:32.000
Jane, let's have a look and thank everybody very much.

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:39.000
Enjoyed the talk today, which is, which is fantastic. Thank you very much for all the nice comments.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:40.000
Thank you.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Well make sure you get those. And okay, we don't have anything just yet.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:50.000
What I'll do. Everybody is, I'll just tell you about next week's lecture, and, in fact, what I'll do is I'll pop the poll up on the screen as well.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:57.000
There we go, and you can fill that in for me while I'm telling you a bit next week.

00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:02.000
So we've got quite a different topic for you next week.

00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:20.000
About the relationship of with humans and fire. So amongst all the animals on Earth, humans have set themselves apart, and by discovering how to light and harness the power of fire.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:25.000
Nice something with it very much. Take for granted, and we have an ancient relationship with fire for cooking.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:28.000
Warmth lights. But there's also connection to fire that has a deeper meaning.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:37.000
So next week we're going to be exploring the sort of increasingly efficient and creative ways the human race is found to generate fire through time.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:40.000
And the one wider impact of some of these developments on our lives and our culture.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:45.000
So and I think that will be a really interesting one next week, a little bit different as well.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:52.000
So let's see if we have any more questions.

00:52:52.000 --> 00:53:01.000
No hold on a second. Let's just.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:06.000
No, this is a question from Valerie her so yet signed as Bargo.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:09.000
She noticed the shape was different on V. Various charts.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:14.000
One was quite simple, and the other had more stars, and 5.

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:16.000
Why would that be?

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:24.000
Yes. Well, when you look on, you know stars are there, and to help people understand the patterns.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:29.000
Then people have, if you like, joined the dots in a different ways.

00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:33.000
I'm not sure if there's a sort of standardized way of doing this, I don't know.

00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:36.000
But yes, you do see the the styles joined differently, and the fact that, you know get styles of different brightness.

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:57.000
Well again, you know, when people are drawing these style maps, they'll just choose sort of cut off magnitude and you know, maybe they only want to put the brider styles on, and some people might want to put the faintest stars on so I don't think there's any

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:03.000
you know. Official reason, you know, for doing this.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:04.000
Yeah.

00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:09.000
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now, another question here, from actual Maureen, you were talking about various.

00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:14.000
You know the sort of number of different phone apps that you can get to help you in with some of this.

00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:17.000
Is there any particular ones that you would recommend particularly?

00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:24.000
Right. I know this one called Star Walk, that I know a lot of people use.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Hmm!

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:51.000
There's a very good. What's called planetarium software, one called Stellarium, which I mean all these you can get for your, you know, desktop or laptop as well, but you know I would have thought yes, solarium, or

00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Okay.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:56.000
heavens above which I mentioned, or star book. They will all help you find your way around the sky, and I I think they are free as well which we like free, although still area.

00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:03.000
I don't know if it charges for the phone, but certainly it's free to download onto your laptop.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:08.000
Great. So I hope that helps you right. Morning. No, let's have another look.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:10.000
Oh, here's a question from Fiona, not me!

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:17.000
Another. How much impact have the recent satellite constellations had?

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:33.000
Oh, yes, it's been quite a bit of an uproar about some this these if those of you that aren't familiar, the satellites that have been launched by Elon Musk because he wants to improve, if you like, Internet you know, coverage over the the

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:34.000
globe. Now I have seen these sort of constellations that you know.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Go across, and I think at first, when you hear about this you think, oh, yes, I go out and have a look for that.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:59.000
But I think that you know they can cause, you know, problems, for you know strongness to do a lot of imaging, or even the professional astronomers, because you are getting these very faint trails across your images.

00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:00.000
I think that Musk is trying to do something about that.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:14.000
He's going to, you know, have some sort of special, you know. It's gonna be some sort of special coating or or paint which makes them less reflective.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:23.000
Okay, interesting. Thank you. Right? This is a question from Tomiko.

00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:30.000
Would you be able to tell us about the contributions to the stars from Arabic cultures?

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:31.000
Tell us a little bit about that.

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:32.000
Oh, what? Yes. Well, obviously, you know, lots of cultures have had that sort of a, you know, contributions.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:45.000
But particularly the Arabic of the Arab astronomers.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:59.000
As I mentioned before, a lot of the names came from them, and a lot of the constellations that we recognized today really come down from, you know, middle and Far Eastern.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:05.000
And so Arabic tradition, because, you know, these people were out there.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:09.000
They were looking at the stars they were able to work out about.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:26.000
You know, calendars and motion, and the Arabs use these stars for navigation, and that's why a lot of the stars names are Arabic, because you know, if you're in a boat and your your friend is in another boat, and you're navigating by the styles you need

00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:29.000
to make sure that you're referring to the same ones.

00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:34.000
And certainly I think I'm just thinking off the top of my head.

00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:39.000
I know that round about, you know, about 1,000 in the year.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Thousands of the common era. There were big schools of not only just in astronomy, but other sciences in, you know, places like Baghdad and we've got a lot of the manuscripts that have come down and it appears that I think some of the Arab

00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:07.000
astronomers did a lot of early experiments on optics, and again they drew up some quite detailed star maps.

00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:13.000
The very good observers. So. Yes, it's something that's, you know.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:30.000
People are well aware of, and I think that you know people are now beginning to realize that our, you know Western, you know, tradition of astronomy has been fed in by all these various cultures, and people are exploring.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:31.000
You know the manuscripts from places like the Far East, in a particular Chinese and Japanese Korean.

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:43.000
Their observations. We've been able to trace Hallie's comic back many hundreds of years.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:56.000
Excuse me, and, as I said in you know the contribution that Arab astronomers made to many sciences is now being recognized.

00:58:56.000 --> 00:58:57.000
Hmm!

00:58:57.000 --> 00:59:01.000
Yeah, okay, interesting and just quickly, we've got one more question.

00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:06.000
But just quickly. Marjorie, you're asking about in classes that the Ann runs.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:15.000
What we'll do is beside the recording. We'll post up some information about, any forthcoming courses that ans got coming up, and we can talk about that.

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.000
And later, okay, so one final question, then we'll call it a day.

00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:26.000
I think, folks. This is from Alan and galaxy is 80% red dwarfs.

00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:32.000
Does this mean that most stars are in the last stages of evolution?

00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:41.000
Oh, right well, that's an interesting question. Actually, because stars that are red dwarfs, if you like, actually born that way.

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:47.000
And you know red dwarfs will be the longest living stars in our galaxy.

00:59:47.000 --> 01:00:00.000
A star like the sun is still, although it's about 4 and a half 1 billion years ago, it's still in its sort of main stage of evolution, which we call it, being a main sequence star.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:14.000
But eventually it will go on to become a red giant, and then what we call a white dwarf, so that's the sort of evolutionary path for star, like the sun, but Red Dwarf says I said.

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:21.000
They're essentially they're born like that. And they stay like that for very long periods of time.

01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:29.000
And again. You know the life cycle of the star is determined by its its mass.

01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:32.000
So you know, the greater the mass, the more quickly the star burns up.

01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:40.000
It's a nuclear fuel. A star like our sun is fairly sedate.

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:47.000
So it lasts a long time, but red dwarfs, as I said, they, they've been around.

01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:55.000
They have extremely long lifetimes, because they've got such a small mass compared with the others.

01:00:55.000 --> 01:01:08.000
Okay. Fascinating stuff. Well, I hope you all enjoyed that, and that's given you a new insight into the skies above us at this time of year, and I think it's really interesting to hear the mythology behind some of the the constellations as well.

00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:43.000
So the origins, domestication, and the changing fortunes of I've put that because it's hard to imagine.

00:00:43.000 --> 00:01:00.000
An animal that has had more ups and downs in our favours than the cats really, and you see from these images we often think of cats as solitary creatures, but domestic cats are not really solitary creatures.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:06.000
You can see from this photograph, which is taken from a shelter.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.000
These are a group of shelter cats.

00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:17.000
They may not choose to gather in huge groups necessarily, but they will, and they do sometimes, and they're happy to mix with people.

00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:20.000
So they're not truly solitary. That's that's the first myth.

00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:27.000
But people people often have with cats.

00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:33.000
So domestication.

00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.000
It can be a very, very lengthy process. Evolution moves very slowly.

00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:47.000
Animals change very slowly and evolutionary time but the logical estimate for the cat is about 12,000 years.

00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.000
Maximum. Okay? And some some sources will say 8,000 years.

00:01:52.000 --> 00:02:01.000
It's much more difficult to PIN down than you might think, because you need to get into genomes and genetic records.

00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:05.000
And evidence, and so on, which can be quite difficult to come by.

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:26.000
But if we go with somewhere between 8 and 12,000 years ago, this coincides with the first agricultural societies in the fertile presence of the Middle East, so so here's the Mediterranean Sea and this land curving around is what we call the fertile

00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:35.000
Crescent and people started to turn to agriculture as a much more reliable source of food.

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:58.000
They could grow their own food and not have to move around and not have to go out and find it and travel very long distances, and so on to get it before that before agriculture humans are a hunting species and when you're hunting game or even large animal larger animals the most effective animal

00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:04.000
that you can have working with you is a dog. Because of their size and their strength.

00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.000
And most of all because of the fact that they were domesticated.

00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:32.000
Is it minimum? 15 to 40,000 years ago? And again, some sources will tell you that the first evidence in a fossil effort of wolves being little bit changed by human interference, if you like, is up to 150,000 years ago so it's a very very long time compared

00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:36.000
to cats, which might only be 8. So we've changed dogs.

00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.000
An awful lot in that time, because it's a very, very long time.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:49.000
8,000 years is a very short blip in evolutionary time.

00:03:49.000 --> 00:04:02.000
So cats weren't very useful. Us hunting animals, because the human species, various human species have not been.

00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:07.000
You have not consumed small rodents and things as a sort of main source of protein that they haven't done that because rodents are actually quite hard to catch.

00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:31.000
Really, so, cats weren't very useful for hunting, but as soon as you start, settle down and grow cereals and brains and fruits, and you know you need to store your surplus to get you through the winter, then obviously you get rodents, you

00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:37.000
get rats and mice coming in to eat those they stalks, and it would be disastrous if they ate them.

00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:41.000
All the humans, those little settlements. They just wouldn't survive.

00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:52.000
But because the perfect killers of rodents are perfectly adapted to do that task, they became incredibly useful.

00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.000
So they originate from the eastern wild kind of near Eastern wildcats, not far Eastern ones.

00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:14.000
Fellas Silvestrus, Libica, which is one of these very recognizable as a cat to us note the stripy legs, but not body.

00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:21.000
Okay, so you get stripes on the legs of a wildcat, but invariably not on the body.

00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:29.000
And you have these little 4 head stripes. Okay, it's quite significant that we shall see in another few slides.

00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:38.000
So the the fellow Sylvester slide because started following people's settlements, if you like, because there was so much food.

00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:39.000
They're growing and being stored, they will loads and loads of rodents as well.

00:05:39.000 --> 00:06:02.000
And so they quickly moved around humans settlements to take advantage of the abundance of prey, and people were really grateful for them because they, you know, are consummate rattus or mouses that they really did help so people were incredibly grateful that's a false silvestris

00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:08.000
Liebeca moved in with them, if you like, and they don't pose a threat to humans.

00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:18.000
So you didn't have to, you know they didn't have to sort of fend them off or worry about the children getting killed by them, which is what what they would have had to do with all started moving in on human settlements.

00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:25.000
But cats don't kill people, so not usually so.

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:31.000
That made it a happy relationship, a good relationship.

00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:32.000
We also have another lineage, so that's a domestic.

00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:38.000
Cats aren't! Don't originate from one source.

00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:43.000
Most domesticated animals don't, in fact, in the cats no different.

00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:50.000
So we have a second lineage, which is the African type cats, and this is an African type cat. Again.

00:06:50.000 --> 00:07:01.000
You see, it's paler in colour, but it's still has the the striped legs and the striped forehead, but not so much on the back of the body.

00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000
You get a hint of the sort of stripes there on the chest, but largely on the legs.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:11.000
That's the distinction.

00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:17.000
So this cat was common in Egypt and the Mediterranean.

00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:18.000
And around 1,500 BC. You would have seen a lot of these cats in the wild.

00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:30.000
They are very successful species, they are very, very good hunters and very good parents, so that they're very good at raising kittens.

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:44.000
A very successful species in the world. The other thing about the Egyptian cats is that for whatever reason, I wish we can't really be show off, they will fairly friendly to humans.

00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:49.000
They were quite sociable. And quite a few of them.

00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.000
We're happy to become relatively tame, which means they could be touched by humans.

00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:58.000
And would, you know, take food from humans and so on without attacking them?

00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:05.000
But not too confused with domestication, because they're not the same thing.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:12.000
A tame wild animal remains a wild animal. It just has slightly.

00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:18.000
It's just lowered its guard somewhat to allow human contacts usually.

00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.000
So yeah, people often think about it's been domesticated.

00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:27.000
But it hasn't. It will revert to wildness at the drop of a hat.

00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:38.000
Another research papers. Even an awful lot of research into cats and prehistory actually Prehistorical Society.

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:51.000
We know that as human populations moved across trade routes and across the world, we know from their burials that they had cats with them.

00:08:51.000 --> 00:09:02.000
And we're beginning to see the slight change of this physical change that comes with domestication in in the wildcats.

00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:13.000
So domestication in variably in dogs and cats results in a reduction in the skeleton size.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:21.000
So the skeleton gets a bit lighter and bit smaller, and particularly the jaw gets shorter.

00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000
So it's one of the signs of domestication.

00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:30.000
And so we know from the burials that that we have, that those people were carrying cats with them.

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.000
So that's a slightly shorter draw than their wild equivalents.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:46.000
And also they are found along the route that humans took this. It's not a coincidence that you know Riverbeds and cave networks, and so on.

00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:50.000
Have the remains of.

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.000
Where they hadn't previously found them, and that's because they were.

00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:59.000
They were following humans. So they were carried along with you, mister, for controlling rodents.

00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:04.000
To protect their food.

00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:12.000
So the reason, the stripes are important is because here we have too lovely modern tabbies.

00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:19.000
Beautiful stripes that we all, if you like, cats, you know the stripiness is. It's one of the things we love.

00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:27.000
I think, but as they become domesticated, you see the stripes become more, much more apparent on the body, so you still have the lovely leg stripes.

00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:39.000
That's a wild leftover, if you like, and we have this very definitive neck rings, and and on the legs and body.

00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:44.000
So researchers, cat researchers tend to call this the tabby take over, because once tabbiness, you know, this.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:56.000
Oh, body striping came about in terms of even people were choosing the cats.

00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:01.000
They liked the look of the ones that were friendly, and what comes out if you breed those cuts together is a tabby.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:24.000
So we can look at the DNA of preserved cats and compare it with wildcats and more modern cats, to see how much DNA they share, and so on, and it gives us a little a map of the changing DNA profile of the domestic cat so they don't look

00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.000
terribly different. Physically, there may be a little smaller.

00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:34.000
Oh, I'm sorry, jumped to him. They may be a little smaller.

00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:41.000
A little lighter, and they have these stripes so they don't look terribly different.

00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:46.000
And the genes are only slightly different. And it's not a huge change.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:55.000
So if you saw what's Happy Cat few 1,000 years ago, you could be assured that it had some kind of human intervention, some kind of domestication was taking place.

00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:16.000
So humans are choosing which cats to keep, which ones to sort of try and breed and keep the kittens, perhaps for the colours they liked, or they were gentle or more sociable.

00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:18.000
So!

00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:25.000
Domestication, for cats as opposed to dogs didn't change them terribly much.

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:30.000
They remain. Cats, they they retain quite a lot of their wild nature.

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:41.000
They still look very like wildcats apart from that, you know, this tabby striping, we we would find it difficult to tell them apart.

00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:54.000
Even today, another major difference. Though, as I said at the start, is that if you have any domestication processes going on with cats, they lose their truly solitary habit.

00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.000
They may seem like they they're solitary animals, but they're not.

00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:05.000
You can see this if you keep more than one cat, and they are prepared to sit together and sleep together and eat together.

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:10.000
They are not exhibiting solitary behaviour, so they may choose to go off on their own.

00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:15.000
Quite a lot but that's a bit like saying humans. Some humans do that, too.

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.000
But we're not solitary species either, so cats will tolerate other cats.

00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:25.000
Other humans, even dogs, other animals. They lose their solitary.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:32.000
The truly solitary nature, because a wildcat is truly solitary.

00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:46.000
So when we had an interest in dogs and hunting course that the first problem to overcome is trying to domesticate a wolf is to try not to have it eat you first.

00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:54.000
So you clearly want to choose the gentlest animals you can find, the ones that are less likely to kill you.

00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:58.000
And then you choose the gentlest one.

00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000
You might choose a smaller one, because that's easier to handle.

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:06.000
You might choose one that's particularly good at tracking and sniffing and herding that kind of thing, and then from then on we had the various.

00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:14.000
Some dog breeds that we, we know say much about today.

00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:28.000
So we write, or pick and choose the traits and habits and colours, and fluff and fur and things that we liked in dogs in a way that we never did with cats originally, so they weren't so diverse.

00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:37.000
We didn't need them to be so diverse because they're they're unfailing requirement for humans.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:46.000
Is the hunting of rodents. That's the principle reason humans ever allowed cats to come close.

00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:52.000
So fairly early on in dog domestication, you'd see quite a lot of differences in dogs.

00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000
Curly tails, flippy ears, less teeth, that kind of thing, but not so.

00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:04.000
The cats like not nearly so easy to tell.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:17.000
And the reason being they were perfect already that we wanted them to to kill rodents, save our food so that we you know, could make it through the winters and so on.

00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:25.000
They were already perfect at that so we didn't need any behaviour change, which is exactly why you only see any really see.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:41.000
These rather subtle changes. So some stripes on the body slightly smaller, that kind of thing, but not very much, and in terms of evolutionary change very little at all.

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:49.000
So this is one of the reasons why I think we have a notion that cats remain more aloof and more wild.

00:15:49.000 --> 00:16:03.000
Because essentially they are the answer to that is that they are more wild because they just haven't evolved alongside humans for anything like as long.

00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.000
So they haven't come involved with humans in the same way at all.

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:22.000
And in many ways they can't be compared. It's very recently, in evolutionary terms and in historical terms, that we've actually started to have lots of different kinds of cats.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:35.000
You know fluffy Persians and hairless cats, and the ones with, you know, different cut, shaped eyes, different colours.

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:53.000
These are relatively recent changes in cats. Most of your cats, if if you know of any feral cats, for example, they all look very cat like they're probably a few tabbies and gingers in there, some black ones black and white but you don't see

00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:05.000
the variation, you don't sort of see many street cats that are fluffy Persians do, because it's a hopeless length of fur to try and survive in the wild with. I don't know if you've ever had a Persian cap.

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:12.000
But the claiming is the claiming requirement takes hours so only cats that cannot sort of survive.

00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:19.000
You see, as you know, street cats, or whatever that you don't get very many fancy caps on the street.

00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:32.000
The fancier sort of sensitive connection to be in people's homes, and there was about one in 3 homes with a cat these days, it's just lots lots lots.

00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:39.000
It's one of the most popular pets.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:49.000
So as humans prize their mouses, you know that they could help save the food they got them onto ships.

00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:55.000
They traveled the world, they went everywhere with humans because they were fairly easy to keep.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:00.000
They need a little bit of protein to eat. Every day they will eat greenery as well.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:05.000
That they're not carnivorous. Truly, they're omnivorous.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:15.000
In Egypt, cats became objects of worship to the point they were mummified, and sometimes they were covered in gold to indicate the status of their owners.

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:26.000
Because owning a cat was considered quite a mysterious thing to do.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:32.000
The Romans love their cats, becoming truly widespread.

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:40.000
In about the fourth century AD. And if you have a chance to look at any of the research on these, you there are lots and lots of cat skeletons.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:52.000
From this period, and they most definitively show a shortened Joel skull of a domesticated cat.

00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:56.000
So they're clearly becoming changed by domestication.

00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:06.000
At this point, and rather nicely in the Canterbury Tales in the 1380 s.

00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:07.000
So people people saw cats around, not they weren't really common.

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:17.000
As such, but people saw cats. They knew what they were, and they were a bit of a specialty.

00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:23.000
But people saw them relatively, often.

00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:29.000
But in the Middle Ages people really hated cats.

00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:39.000
I think in the Middle Ages people really hated quite a lot of things to be fair, but cats was a really easy scapegoat.

00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:45.000
I think, for a number of problems of the era, if you like.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:52.000
Authors tended to describe how cats deal with that prey.

00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:56.000
Akin to how the devil takes possession of the soul.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:02.000
And so cats became sort of, you know. Devilish.

00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:11.000
They became associated with evil and darkness, and Satanic ritual, and so on.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:35.000
Any other number of quotations from twelfth century writings during Satanic rituals, the Devil descends like a black cat before his devotees, and so we have the whole black cat focus as well coming along people started to believe in witches cats and you

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.000
know people being able to turn into cats. Cat woman, that kind of thing.

00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:45.000
Women and cats often associated together because we're because of the mystery thing.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:21:05.000
They both here to be surrounded in one, for people at this time so much so that in the fifteenth century the late fifteenth century, Pope Innocent to the eighth solemnly declared that cats were the devil's animal and the idol of which is

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:06.000
so what the Pope says tends to be believed.

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:15.000
He is, you know, supposed to be in touch with very closely in touch with Gordon.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:25.000
So if he said it, it would be believed, and this resulted in some really horrible cat torture and treatment.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:32.000
You see the images of the time. You have your dog.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:35.000
You know there's your part. There's the human.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:44.000
There's the faithful dog beside him, or her or 2 people here, and then you have your cat skulking around underneath after.

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:45.000
Rodents. So there's a whole depiction of cats being beneath dogs.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:54.000
They're quite literally in this picture.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:58.000
Dogs are faithful, you know. You could whip a dog, and it was still come back to you and love you, and so on.

00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:07.000
But if you harm a cat too much, it just tends to hit hit you back, really, doesn't it?

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:13.000
Run away, and people saw this as a not being faithful.

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:23.000
Yeah, this was far too free and wild, dissipedience, and so on.

00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:33.000
And again, lots of quotations from Wr. Wr. Writings of the time, you know. Cats jump here and there in their interpretation of religious beliefs, just like heretics, do so.

00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:41.000
There were likened to the worst kind of humans. Religion can't change them, and you can't tame the cats.

00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:46.000
That kind of belief. And so people started to fear cats and hate them.

00:22:46.000 --> 00:23:04.000
And they were killed in their thousands. For this reason, unless you were in the Islamic world, and then really loved that's really appreciated.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:17.000
The Middle East very, very early on, had the very first cap Protection Associations in the streets of cities so to look after cats that have no homes, and so on.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:24.000
A lot of ancient tales of Mohammed will describe his love of cats.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:30.000
Another Muslim prophets. How well they cared for cats, and how much they loved them!

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:38.000
Indeed, it was considered the greatest difference at 1 point between Muslims and Christians.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:39.000
Muslims like cats and Christians like dogs.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:47.000
It was considered, you know, a very notable difference.

00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:55.000
So you see this lovely, these lovely diagrams there's a catch rather delicately removing a rat.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.000
There!

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:05.000
And another one taking a bird from a cage so it's not as though there's any notion that their accounts didn't kill things.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:13.000
It was well known that they did, but they still Islamic view of cats was very, very positive.

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:18.000
They had a, you know, much better treatment. There!

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:29.000
But if you come back to religion, Christian religion, this kind of image is quite popular at the time of people killing cats.

00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:38.000
So here's a man with a crossbow and dogs chase to cut off a tree, and you know they would shoot them and hang them from the tree, or let dogs rip them to shreds.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:45.000
That kind of thing, and it was considered a service, you know, in society.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:52.000
Because Gregory the Ninth issued a papal ball, which is sort of public decree.

00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:55.000
The Vox in Rama. You can look this up.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:01.000
It's quite horrifying. Call for crusade against heretics.

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.000
So it condemns the devil worshipping Germans at the time.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:15.000
So it's not very. PC. Describing Satanic rituals in extraordinary sexual solutions.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.000
Detail invariably with the help of cats.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:26.000
It's quite an extraordinary document in if I can put it that way.

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:38.000
Cats played a vital part in demonic rituals, apparently, and many of the worst demons describe with cat like that.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:26:07.000
Yeah. Cat traits. And so the Vox in Rama is a very powerful document, a very powerful Papal bull just made the devil an evil association, incredibly strong in Christian culture at that time cats had a horrible time, because of that and in particular black ones.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:13.000
It's tricky to know why.

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:18.000
It's association with the defle darkness skulking about in the dark.

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:25.000
That kind of thing. Pagan rituals will often you know, speak of dark things, dark beasts, and so on.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:30.000
So perhaps it's that lots of goddesses.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:38.000
You know, being female, were considered cat light, or had cats, associations, or representations?

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:47.000
They play with their food, you know they catch a mouse and throw it round, and don't kill it straight away, and you know, let it suffer.

00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:52.000
And it was considered. And you know this was a the proof of their evil.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:15.000
Really, in fact, the reason that they do that they do play with their prey sometimes and talk to them somewhat before finishing them off is because the practicing, the hunting skills, the honing their skills, and they're not particularly hungry when they caught that mouth so they have got you know they can afford to

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:20.000
let it escape, so it does seem crucial, but it's actually just how how cats become expert hunters.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:30.000
Really, it's how they practice. So they just considered anti Christian, particularly black ones.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Associated with which is and charities even today will tell you that it's much more difficult to hang a black cat than it is a ginger or a tabby or a white pat black cats still remain the hardest to home.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:54.000
So it's probably some kind of cultural left over there.

00:27:54.000 --> 00:28:04.000
Okay, so you have this juxtaposition of you know this in admiration of cats in Islamic societies.

00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:09.000
And they, you know, create beautiful works of art with cats, showing how useful the are.

00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:15.000
Delicately handing a brat over, and then how bad rats are!

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.000
Look! He's eating the cookies there. He's eating the biscuits.

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.000
So how valuable cats are! They're very clean.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Muslims admired the cats. How clean they are!

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:35.000
Mohammed, you know, had written, had writing, saying how wonderful cats were.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Unfortunately, this just kind of firmly rammed home the notion that they were non-christian because they were adored by Islamic society.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:51.000
You know Muslims love them. Christians hate them.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:59.000
And it became a way of sort of separating the religions almost in the late twelfth century.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:15.000
People thought if you could kill, or even, better still, torture a black cat, he would be gaining yourself some good luck, and it was a really good way to break a curse or a spell or you know, if you killed a black cat, you could reduce.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.000
The witches, powers, and so on. So lots of black cats would have suffered horribly at this time.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:29.000
Horrible lion!

00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:33.000
So the cat must haveres, and they work at maskers. That's no exaggeration.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:52.000
Following the Vox in Rama, were put forward at 1 point as an indirect cause of the Black Death because, obviously without all the cats to kill the rats, they were more rats to carry the fleas that you know ultimately gave Humans, the black death this is probably not fair to say

00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:04.000
however, because the Black Death could have been spread by the fleas on any animal, and in fact, most humans had fleas as well at that time, and they would have carried the fleas just as well.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:09.000
But it would be no exaggeration to say that the camp massacres.

00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:20.000
Let's you population explosion in rodents, in some, in certain areas, whether we're very few cats left to catch them.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:32.000
But as cats are cats, and you will well know if if you keep cats, they are quite hard to get rid of, and they tend to adopt, even if you don't want them. You know.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:38.000
Lots and lots of people acquire a cat that just decides it's going to live in their house rather than they have chosen.

00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:44.000
Excuse me because they have a way of surviving they're very good hunters.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:47.000
They're very good at looking after themselves.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:56.000
And so what we have today is they very hard to get rid of, hey?

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:07.000
We know in love as a complete freeloader, who probably eats lots and lots of food, it doesn't catch many rodents and it doesn't really do anything.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:15.000
But we like them nonetheless, and that's why so many people have them.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:21.000
Okay, that's my last slide. Fiona.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Hello, everybody! We're back. Thank you very much for that, Joanne, blue, black cats is all I've got to say.

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Oh, gosh! Yes!

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:34.000
I think I used to have one myself who is lovely, lovely boy!

00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:39.000
Let's go straight to some questions. We've got quite a few, actually, no.

00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:58.000
Firstly, what we say. There's a couple of questions that I was going to roll together, and it was about the signs of domestication you know, there was 2 things that you mentioned which was about the theabby stripes and the shortens jaw the change in the

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:05.000
job. Why did both of those things happen? What is it about the domestication that caused those things?

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:18.000
That's a really good question. Domestication usually results in the first instance in lowered nutrition for the animal.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:33.000
So, if you try to domesticate let's say a wolf puppy or a kitten of a wildcat, the chances are it's nutritionally depleted, so it has a less than adequate diet, and that makes it smaller and over generations

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:45.000
of a less than adequate diet. You have this skeletal shortening most sort of noticeably in the drawn head.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:52.000
It's basically a nutritional lacking over generations.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:55.000
Because obviously people had barely enough to feed themselves.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:06.000
And so the chances are they would have given quite small amounts of protein to, you know, puppies and kittens that they had as well.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.000
So it's just a side effect of domestication.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:13.000
It happens with most domestication, unless you force it to go the other way.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:25.000
So, for example, domestication of chickens, you've got the jungle foul, which is a fairly big bird. It doesn't lay very many eggs.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:28.000
We start to domesticate, keep the ones that lay the most eggs.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Eventually you get a much smaller bird that lays more eggs, but that's because it's that's what you're choosing for.

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:38.000
That's what you're selecting in a chicken in a cat.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:46.000
You'll selecting the best hunter. Best mouser, and later on, perhaps the nicest colou8r or the softest fur, or something.

00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:48.000
But it's just a side effect of domestication.

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:54.000
Usually in the beginning caused by lack of nutrition.

00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.000
Alright. Okay, thank you. And those questions were from Nordin and Joe. So I hope that helps to answer your questions, for you.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:07.000
And I've got another 2 questions. I'm actually gonna roll together as well, because they're quite similar.

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:18.000
And firstly, from Amal. No like. She's always been curious about Tabby and quite often get the tabby cap with socks.

00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Why they usually have one quite soap longer than the other.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:24.000
Gosh! That's a tricky one.

00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:25.000
Hmm!

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:26.000
3 polls. Is there a reason for that? And the only question was that there's another question from Cardiff, which is kind of similar.

00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:37.000
She's asking about Tabbis again, and whether that distinctive m-shape is that particular tabby's?

00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:40.000
Do they all have that on their foreheads?

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:45.000
I think invariably they have something like an M on the forehead.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Yes, it may. Maybe you know, to a a sharper or more sort of fuzzy degree, depending on the animal.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:56.000
But yes, that does seem to be a side effect. The stripes always seem to come in that format.

00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:03.000
As to the difference in socks, you know, on a cat that's sort of bicolored that's a really good question.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:09.000
Genetically, I'd have to say when things come in pairs.

00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:17.000
That they're not usually exactly the same. So even things like 2 years aren't exactly the same. 2 eyes.

00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:34.000
They aren't exactly the same size. So when you've got, you know, genetically inherited coloration, I'm guessing the same will apply if you've got 2 white paws, if you like, they won't be identical because pairs of things

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:41.000
it's particularly in mammal breeding, mammal genetics tend tend not to be exactly the same.

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:48.000
So I of us. You know we've got 2 hands 2 feet, but they're not identical so pairs of things are not identical.

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:57.000
On the whole, in mammals, but you know coloration is a tricky one, because you can get colors that that pop up.

00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:05.000
They skip generations, you know you can suddenly get the cat who's more fluffy than all the other kittens.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.000
So they, the genetics of cap coloration, is quite tricky to follow.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:15.000
Actually I certainly don't feel like an expert in a tech colour.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:16.000
Genetics.

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:23.000
Right? Okay. I hope that answers your questions. And Amal and Carl no.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Another question here from Ellen. Is it true that white cats are always deaf?

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:37.000
And there's also that thing about. And this is also from Olga, white cats with blue eyes does it tend to be those ones that are deaf?

00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.000
Or is it right cross?

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:44.000
It's it's true to say that most pure white cats are also deaf.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:53.000
That's true, but they do for that. To be true genetically speaking, they do need to be able absolutely pure white cats.

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:57.000
So when we say you know, we saw a white cat, you know.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:02.000
Usually there's a little bit of something else on them like a little a foot that's coloured, maybe, or a little bit of forehead.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:18.000
Color. That, then, isn't a purely white cat, but the pure white cats, the jeans for pure whiteness, cogenetic with with genetic deafness.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:27.000
So. Yes, that's true. Similarly, blue eyes will be blue. Eyes are actually colourless.

00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:32.000
Eyes, because the blue is the reflected colour back from the aqueous.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:43.000
Humour in the back of the eye. So what you're seeing is you're seeing straight through the eye when when you have bright blue eyes, you're looking straight through the eye at the fluid.

00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:52.000
And so that is a colourless eye. And again the colourless eye and whiteness and deafness will often be co-genetic.

00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.000
Yes, but there are always, always exceptions to these.

00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:02.000
There were no such things as genetic rules, in a way, because they have a way of you know each pair of genes has 2 alliels, you know their versions of genes.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:14.000
They can do marvellous things it's the same as to say most ginger tabbies are Tom's.

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:19.000
But you do get an occasional female ginger.

00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:24.000
Tapy as well, but invariably their tongues, but not always.

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:30.000
Hmm, thank you. And I hope that helps answer your question.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:37.000
And Ellen. No, what we've got next let's so let's look on to find out the chat.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:44.000
Hold on a second questions from Magdalene, did prehistoric people have pets as opposed to useful animals?

00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:52.000
Or did that just come with easier human lives? And what we time?

00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:53.000
Hmm!

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:02.000
I think that would be really hard to answer, because the fact that we have of limited obviously, but given the care with which cats were buried.

00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:08.000
So, you know, and you know, put into grapes with humans, and so on.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:21.000
You have to assume. They have great value, and that because they were hanging around with humans a lot and picking up tickets of food as well, that they would have been sociable and and probably friendly.

00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:40.000
Otherwise they wouldn't keep them, you know. They wouldn't keep an animal attacked them every 5 min, so the care with which they were buried in the care with which they were laid alongside humans, I would say I don't know if we can call them pets they probably were very useful

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.000
Rattus.

00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:54.000
Yeah, perhaps pets as well. I think it's very hard for us to answer that we don't have that kind of data, if you like, available on prehistory.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:08.000
Okay. Then there we go, and no next hold on second, yeah, you mentioned about 1, 3 homes having a PET cat.

00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:13.000
Was, is that global? Or is it the Uk that you were talking about? There?

00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:19.000
That's kind of the Western world. I think the Western world is about one in 3.

00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:33.000
It's difficult to calculate these kind of figures in other parts of the world, because there are a lot of feral cats, and people may may have lots of cats that they feed or look after, but they're not really theirs.

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:40.000
You sort of mean. So yeah, one in 3 is the kind of calculated for the Western world.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:42.000
I'd say yes.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Okay. And that was a question from list. So I hope that helps you with that question list.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:58.000
What else do we have here? Oh, no, this is an interesting one, and we were being just been talking about the colour of cats just a little while ago.

00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:13.000
This is a question from Denise. 2 cats tend to have certain character traits associated with their colour.

00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:14.000
Very interesting, isn't it?

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:16.000
That's a really good question. Yeah, really, good.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Until a few years ago I would probably have said no color and character can't really be linked together.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:37.000
I can't see how that would happen. But in recent years there's been a lot of research into how traits in lots of species of animals, including humans, do go together.

00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:47.000
And so I've changed my mind. Now I think it's quite possible that colour traits and character traits may be linked together.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:59.000
Yes, I do. I read a piece of research recently about horse temperament and the number of those little worlds of fur that they have.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:17.000
You have that little little partings on the forehead or on the body, and how the ones with the most worlds are, you know, more flighty and more tricky to train, and and I thought, Gosh, that's you know you'd think how can hair past idle, shape the end thing to do with how

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:33.000
the horse behaves, but apparently it is, and I so therefore I believe that the same is likely to be true of coloration and type, with temperament and character. Yeah, I do.

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:35.000
Be fabulous area to research, wouldn't it?

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Yeah. No. There was one question. I was gonna kind of more of a comment and a question. I suppose.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.000
But I'll see if I can get your thoughts on it.

00:42:43.000 --> 00:43:05.000
This is from Eamon, so if he's quite surprised about the sort of connection with cats and rituals, surprising that those 2 things would go together, because I suppose when we think of cats, we think of them as animals that don't really do what others want them to

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:07.000
do a lot of the time.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:11.000
That's very true. I think you have to remember.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:25.000
They if you know you can get some excerpts of the Vox in Rama, I would suggest you do so if you you know a gentle temperament should be safe.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:35.000
It's rather gruesome document. The part in rituals, I think, it's quite clearly made up.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:38.000
You know they quite clearly weren't capable of doing some of the things described.

00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:50.000
They were described as doing so. For example, that you know they'd be described as stirring a pot of poison, you know, with their, you know, holding a little spoon and stirring the pot clearly they weren't doing that.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:57.000
But if they were involved in in rituals, it would have been in sacrificial ways.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:00.000
I fear, and and probably tied and bound, or caged.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:07.000
They wouldn't have been sitting, you know, quietly, yeah, it's taking part type of thing like they would have been.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:08.000
How are horribly mistreated as part of this rituals?

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:13.000
If they were indeed part of them.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:26.000
Hmm, okay. And hope that answers your question even now.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:27.000
Hmm!

00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Here's a question here from Amanda, so we've just been talking about the plight of the poor black cats, and Amanda's asking what happened to the superstition that it was lucky if a black cat crossed your path, or to see a black cat forgotten about that.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Yeah, this is, this is one of the things about the change in fortunes of cats, isn't it?

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000
1 min, blackout. So the the pets of Satan, and the next minute people are carrying little black cats that they're down the aisle as a you know.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:56.000
Lucky charm for their wedding. All these remarkable change of events, isn't it?

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:03.000
I think that's.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:08.000
You know. That was, you know, a bit sort of created myth, if you like.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Suddenly black cats become lucky, and I'm not sure why, but it was certainly to do with the sort of surge in in the popularity of cats as pets.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:24.000
But why black cats suddenly become lucky? I'm not absolutely sure I'd have to say.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:29.000
But it's an extraordinary change of events, isn't it?

00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:35.000
For them. If you saw a black cat and you killed it, everyone would have thought Yeah, you've you've saved us all from famine.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:40.000
Awesome, and then suddenly they become it's really lucky if one crosses your path.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:47.000
It's it's a very old change, and I'm not absolutely sure about why that is, I have to say.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:55.000
Okay, right? What we got next. Now, question from Humphrey.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:05.000
When did the change in the religious history of cats happen?

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Well, I think by the sixteenth, seventeenth century people started to realize cats are really useful, you know, that is really good.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:22.000
To have a cat in a a farm, for example, when it and absolutely happened. I don't think we know the answer to that.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:35.000
I think there are. You know, there were ups and downs in really further, as well as there are in things like, you know, the belief in which craft and so on, had its ups and downs, you know.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:40.000
They were ears when it was fully believed, and then there were errors when it was people started going. Hang on a minute.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:51.000
But you know, is that really likely? And the same goes to cats, and I think they people started to see them as useful and pets, you know, PET animals started happening.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:03.000
People had time, as you say, for pets and leisure time, and so cats, just you know the favour, turned it positive again for them.

00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:05.000
Yeah, okay, thank you. Hope that answers your question, Humphrey.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:11.000
And I think that might partially answer a question from who was it?

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:15.000
It was another question. I think it's Karen and Andrew, I think, asked a very similar question.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:24.000
Okay, right, this has been in the news just recently.

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:25.000
Hmm!

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:26.000
The Scottish wildcats. Where does it fit?

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.000
Into this domestication scenario definitely back stripes, but certainly not team.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:33.000
We know that one?

00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:36.000
No, no! The Scottish world cats are tricky.

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:45.000
One, because they can quite clearly interbreed with domestic cats very, very easily.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:53.000
And that's one of the reasons why the Scottish wildcat is so rare because of it, so readily interprets with domestic cats.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.000
But, as you say, it's like a big tabby.

00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:08.000
It has, it has the characteristically wide skull of a wild cat, though, yeah, if if you see pictures of them, they have a much bigger head than a domestic cat.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:11.000
On the whole, and they're heavier.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:21.000
The skeletal form is heavier, and they are a genuine wild cat.

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Quite where they fit into domestication is really difficult because of the into breeding.

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:33.000
And how long, how long has that been going on? Is really really difficult to say.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:40.000
So finding a you know, DNA, evidence that you have pure Scottish wildcats is really difficult these days.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:41.000
And I think that's because, you know, we've only started doing DNA.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:49.000
Sampling. Relatively recently on animals, and so, yeah, it's really really tricky.

00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:59.000
And you know, people are doing entire research studies on the DNA profile of Scottish wild cats, and how much it relates to domestic cats.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:04.000
So, so, yeah, very difficult question for me to answer on the spot, so I can.

00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:05.000
Hmm!

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:12.000
I can do better if I get a chance to research that one a little bit.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:13.000
Absolutely.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:15.000
Yeah, it was just in the news recently, because I think they're either have or just about to release some.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:16.000
That have been bred at the Highland.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:29.000
Yeah, and I know you. Probably people will be aware that that some people have taken in a wildcat kitten thinking it'll or you know, maybe it'll become time, and they never do.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:33.000
They never become tame. They are genuinely wild animals.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:37.000
Yeah, I think we've got some screen sharing here.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:39.000
And Mike, do you want to stop sharing your screen?

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Thank you, and okay, what do we have next is good.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:47.000
A few minutes. This is a question from Stewart.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:59.000
His daughter was taking care of a blinds, cuts, and the cut gently held that his wrist between the teeth when he was stroking a bit didn't bite.

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:00.000
Hmm!

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.000
What does that behaviour mean? Do we know?

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.000
That's really good. I had a blind cat, too, and he used to do that too.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:07.000
Yeah.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:24.000
I think in the absence of site they, the animals that that lose their sights that are usually cited will turn to the other senses, and one way is that one of the ways that cats investigate their world is by taste and touch.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:30.000
So it was just a way of sampling what you're made of without meaning any harm, you know, without aggression.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:35.000
So it's just the same way that if you gave a cat a new toy he might have a little chew on it.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:45.000
See what it was, and so it's just I mean, it's almost as well. Cats will sometimes do this in affection.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:52.000
Have a little nibble on your hand or your arm, but you know there's no aggression intended.

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:58.000
But my little blind cat! He used to to nibble like that as well on your hand.

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:05.000
I think it was his way of just checking it was you, and showing some affection as well.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:15.000
Okay, just as a direct message from somebody that was wanting to meet me to ask a question, although I'm not sure who you are, and I don't think I've seen your question.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:21.000
I can only see the the the name is S.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:28.000
I don't know who that is, and if you want to try and private message me again, I'll see if I can answer your question.

00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:36.000
Any questions that we don't have time for. We're certainly gonna have a look at them afterwards, and we'll post them upside the recording of the No.

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:40.000
What else do we have? Actually, I've just found your question.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Don't worry. This is a question about cat behavior.

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:58.000
Between cats following a fight for one cap, which was previously very confident, seems to have lost the confidence in is very careful around certain cats is there anything you can do to try?

00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:03.000
And improve that situation.

00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:04.000
Hmm!

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:05.000
It depends a lot on the context of the fight, you know.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:16.000
Was it cats that live together, or is there any intruding cat or a cat on like the garden boundary, or something like that?

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:21.000
But what if you've got a cat? That sort of lacks confidence?

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:34.000
What you can do is prefer cover because they'd like to be able to not cross open ground, you know, but go through bushes or hide behind boxes or things like that.

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:51.000
So, for example, one really good way that you can make it easy for your cat to come and go from the cat flat is to put loads of potted plants around the cap flap so that they can sneak in and out without it being completely visual to all other cats that are

00:52:51.000 --> 00:53:01.000
nearby make it so that they can slip in and out another borders in the garden, you know little if it's inside the house you could.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:04.000
You could make little channel ways behind the furniture.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:14.000
Things like that. That's because that makes them feel that they can't be you know they're not out in the open, and they can't be pounced on by an intrusion.

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:19.000
It just makes them feel a bit more confident about the territory and where they are.

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:23.000
But it's really context dependent as to what the answer to that that is.

00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:27.000
Hmm, okay. It's a bit difficult one, isn't it?

00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Okay. Now, let me see. There was a question I was going to ask.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:36.000
For 1, s.

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:42.000
So many comments today that it's it's a wee bit difficult for me to go to.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:51.000
I found it. This is a question from Andrew. We're just notion of a cat having 9 lives come from.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:52.000
We all know that one, don't we?

00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:57.000
Oh, gosh! I how it's very well known! I'm not sure I know the origin of that saying.

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:05.000
It's almost certainly because have a 101 ways to die, don't they? They?

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:15.000
You know, if there's trouble to be got into, they will get into it, and I think, because because they survive so many near misses, I think you know it.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:20.000
That explains why we have to say, but the origin of that I'm not really sure.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:25.000
You see some of the crazy things cats do and survive, or you know the amazing physical feats that they're capable of as well.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:41.000
You know. You see films on Youtube, climbing up brick walls just by holding onto the cracks with their claws and getting into tiny windows and and you think, how can they manage that?

00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:47.000
And not fall. But they do. You know, they're very clever.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:54.000
The very physically able. They have great memory, and so they're really good at surviving.

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.000
They're really good survivors. So obviously, why, we have to say.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:02.000
But we're it comes from. I'm not absolutely sure.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.000
Thanks.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:04.000
Hmm, okay, yes. Maybe one for a little bit of Internet research. Yeah.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:09.000
Yeah, we could have a little bit of research on that one.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:19.000
Right. Okay, let me see if there is anything else. Cause I think we're just about out of time. Alright.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:24.000
Here's one final question, is there anything?

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:35.000
I don't know if you've been able to answer this one, but ask it anyway, and see what you think is there anything that can be done to protect juvenile cats from being killed by urban foxes?

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.000
Is she saying in East London that seems to be on the rise?

00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:56.000
Yeah, I can imagine I've seen it I've seen one or 2 cracked fox fights, and you know you have to bear in mind that the foxes, much better equipped weaponry wise than a cat.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:16.000
So. Yes, I can well believe that happens. Then you know the foxes are mostly likely to be out at dusk, and dawn so I guess if you can keep your cut in at those times, you know, perhaps before dusk, and no don't let them out until full sum

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:22.000
up that kind of thing protects them a bit. But a lot of urban foxes are not sticking to that notion.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:42.000
I know they'll come out in the daytime.

00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:43.000
I quite often see.

00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:45.000
I? Yeah, I don't really know. I think if you're in a place where there are a lot of urban foxes that are perhaps been doing that fit, it might be really difficult to to protect a young cat in that area because folks is again, yeah.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:52.000
Very clever, very wily, you know, very intelligent animal, very good memory.

00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:59.000
So it's you know, if if you've got an area with a lot of foxes doing that kind of behaving in that way, it's gonna be very difficult to break.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:05.000
Hmm interesting. I mean, I see a lot of folks here in Edinburgh fairly central Edinburgh.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:11.000
Broad daylight.

00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:12.000
Yeah.

00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Yeah, yeah. In towns, cities, n, nearly as much to see if in the cities. But.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:17.000
Yeah, okay. Well, I think we're out a time. Folks.

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Thank you very much, Fiona. Thank you. Let me just share my screen, and I will talk about the slides so welcome.

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Everybody really nice to be here. 

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How's that? Okay, fine. Let me just as Fiona said, we are at the in the week of International Poetry Day World Poetry Day.

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And so it's an appropriate week to look at poet, but perhaps particularly Byron, who can be called the world poet on a grand scale.

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He was well travelled in Europe. He made his travels the backdrop to some of the poems like child Harold's pilgrimage that made him famous, and his grand tour included Malta, Sardinia, Constantinople quite bold destinations for the Grand Tour of

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the time he lived half his adult life abroad in Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, and died, in fact, in Greece.

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He's well known these days, including in translation all over the world, for his poetry as well as his life.

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There are versions of his poems, for example, in Hindi, on Youtube and works by Byron have been speaking Americans like Edgar Allan, Poe, Goethe in Germany, Pushkin in Russia, Berlioz, in France, among many others, and as we can see not just poets, but musicians, too.

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So what this lecture will cover. Then I'm going to be talking about the romantic poets and their place in our lives.

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Who among the critics now includes Byron in their number, because not everybody does.

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What he, in fact, more anti romantic than a romantic poet.

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How true is it that he was mad, bad in, dangerous to know the tag that's usually given to him?

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Can he be called the first celebrity? And how did he create the Byronic hero?

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And finally, you know, can we answer that question? How is he better described as true, romantic or regency regency?

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Scoundrel! Quite hard to say so were the romantic part of your education.

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Did you read any of the following as I did at primary school tiger, burning bright?

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William Blake, wondering why Blake was allowed to spell Tiger so badly when we had to be so correct about our spelling at the time.

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Later on, perhaps the run of the Ancient Mariner water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink a ghostly adventure.

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The albatross. The moral of the story, which is quite modern.

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In fact, I remember reading that I remember Aussie Mandy Ozzy Mandy asked by Shelley another moral tale in which the great ozzy Mundy, as who says my name is Ozzy Mundy as King of Kings look on my work she mighty and despair.

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but now he is just a broken statue in the desert, alone and level sounds stretch far away, its lines, like that.

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I think that impress us as romantic with a capital R.

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Keeps the evil St. Agnes, who was wrong, that we started for O. Level. Don't remember understanding what it was all about, but it was certainly romantic in every sense, and finally, of course, everyone, I think, worldwide children are still reciting words the stapodils. I wandered lonely as a club the quintessential

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romantic lyric, perhaps short, personal, describing a moment in time.

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Byron himself. At school, was represented in a poet, a poetry book called Famous Poems.

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I remember the preface to famous poems, very disarmingly pointed out that they were not necessarily good poems.

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They were just very famous, and they were ideal for what was then called choral speaking, which our teachers were very keen on.

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We had to recite, for example, the destruction of Sinai, a rousing description of an Old Testament battle.

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The Syrian came down like a wolf on the fold.

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We had no idea what it was about, or when it was written, and all the while, of course, this was the sixties, Sylvia, plus Lockin, Ted Hughes.

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We're all getting going, but we didn't read those we read the Romantics and indeed they are still read, and we need to ask who counts now?

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As a romantic poet. Well, if you look online, you find 2 nicely symmetrical generations.

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Blake words with, and Coleridge, the older generation, Byron, Shelley, and Keith the younger, perhaps more glamorous.

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Generation. But it's possible to be less Anglo-centric and to include some of the above to include from France Victor Hugo Edgar Allan Poe, mentioned already from Scotland, Robert Burns, and Pushkin in Russia.

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In actual fact, the Scots claim Byron as one of their own.

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He was born in Aberdeen, and lived there until he was 10 years old, and succeeded to the type.

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There are also some romantics who have been demoted in their own day, they would have been counted as very much part of the movement.

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Lee Hunt, for example, now known for only homes like Adu, Bonardo Manjenny, kiss me.

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But a leading poet, a publisher of radical journals in prison, in fact, for liabelling the Prince Regent.

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I'm Robert Southey, who is remembered for an anti-war crime, put after Blenheim, but mostly notorious as the man who told Charlotte Bronte to give up writing as a profession.

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Writing. He said, literature never should be part of a woman's life.

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Others have been promoted to join the Big 6. John Claire, not right widely read until the mid nineteenth century.

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A self-taught Northamptonshire man, with brief fame as the peasant poet who then declined into mental illness.

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But Byron, of course, by then was so famous that part of that madness was his delusion, that he was Byron, and he wrote his own version of Don June it's nice to see a woman in this Pantheon Charlotte Smith, who wrote 10 Novels and 4 Children's books as well, as

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poems solely to support her 10 children, and she was credited with reviving the sonic form, was with, admired her, but she died destitute after selling her books to pay debts.

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I think you'll be seeing more of her as a century.

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So when was Byron living? What are the gaps in in our knowledge of the context?

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Perhaps just to make sure we have him in his rightful place.

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Well. He was born in 1788, age 10. He inherited his title from his uncle.

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He left for a two-year tour. The grand tour, is young, aristocrats did, and when he came back, age 24, we can see there that his first 2 famous publications, the first 2 cantos of child Harald's pilgrimage, this was when he famously said I woke

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up one day and found myself famous. But at this stage the older generation were in their thirties, or down to Coleridge, age 16.

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He was the eldest of the younger generation. It was at the time of the French Revolutionary, and Napoleonic wars.

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Jane Austen was writing the first to abolish slavery was going on all of this is in the background to Buyron's life and work.

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Second half of this. In 1815 he married Annabella Melbach largely for 6 and money, and to improve his own reputation, which was suffering perhaps from his personal life.

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Age 31. He had an affair, having moved to Europe permanently as an exile, he had an affair in Venice with Theresa Guccioli, and wrote famous works like John June.

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He fought with the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire at the age of 35, and that was where he died, which was, say, a little bit more.

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About later. This was a famous period. For example, you've got the bottle of Waterloo.

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He was a huge supporter of Napoleon, right until Napoleon accepted the title of emperor.

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We've got the year without a summer. When he was in on Lake Geneva with the Shelley's.

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Year of Frankenstein, and the social unrest of Peterloo.

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Just to give you some idea of the historical background which I think I think you need.

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However, we, need to just go back a bit. What do we mean now by romantic?

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How does Byron fit in this period of literary history?

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Well, most people trying to define the romantic movement now would talk, perhaps, about nature with a capital N.

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You think about Wordssworth, who said, Come forth into the light of things.

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Let nature be your teacher. Byron himself said something like, I love not nonetheless, but I love nature more.

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A sense of self and the right to self-expression was an important part of the romantic movement.

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The picture here by David Friedery from Wanderer above the sea of fog, pictures are portraits are part of the romantic movement.

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The individual, perhaps, rather than society, becomes important. Imagination replaces reason as the highest value.

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That's very much an enlightenment value. Now, the imagination, the importance of dreams, Gothic novels, become important.

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Gothic writing, Gothic poems, indeed, like Col.

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Er. Images Christobal. The importance of my mind altering substances we don't know that Byron did any more than drink a whole lot of alcohol, but certainly drugs are pretty much part of the romantic experience in the popular imagination the picture there of course is the nightmare and certainly as far as the

00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.000
public were concerned, the romantics were run for less than orthodox rich relationships.

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Worse worth having. Illegitimate child with a net. Val.

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On during the French Revolution, and was exceptionally close to his sister, though no one is suggesting that that was inestuous.

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Coleridge was married to Sheriff Pricker, but in love with another.

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Sarah Worse with sister-in-law. There are certainly a lot of sisters in this story, Blake suggested.

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The form of open marriage to his wife Catherine, but endearingly, when she didn't like the idea, he gave that one up.

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And Shelley. Well, what can we say about Shirley?

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He seems to have been addicted to a locum and rescuing underage girls. First Harriet Westbrook, then Mary Godwin as she was, who became Mary Shelley.

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And it's more orthodox, perhaps, but never got to marry the girl he loved.

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Funny brawn. The girl next door literally, and have to die before they could marry.

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But their personal lives are certainly colorful, and the subject of many a modern film and book.

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They have radical ideas about politics and society. I remember again in those sixties reading words with bliss.

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Was it in that dawn to be alive? But to be young for us to be very heaven?

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I'm thinking that it's applied to my generation, though he's writing, of course, about being young in the French Revolution.

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In fact, Jonathan Bates, who's Youtube lectures on the Romantics, are there on Youtube and he ends by comparison with the 19 sixties talking about their revolutionary ideals.

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The fact that they rejected conventional morality as the Romantics did the flamboyance in dress, the zeal for satire, the drug taking, yes, human rights, including advances in equality.

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For women and minorities, just as the Romantics tended to support the abolition of slavery.

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I'm not so sure that they are very liberated as far as women were concerned.

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Certainly not Byron, and he ends with a tape with a piece of a clip of Mick Jagger performing in Hyde Park in 1969, reading Shelley's Tribute to Keats, and he notes the what He calls a Bonic Shirt apparently it was actually a

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girl's stress.

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But Byron, how well does he fit the stereotype?

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Can we call him these days a romantic poet? Well, I don't know whether anyone has seen Simon Sharmas Series called The Romantics, and us.

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He includes Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, in the Romantic Movement, but in a series of 3 lectures which are wonderful, I'd highly recommend them. He doesn't mention Byron at all.

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John Carey's Little History of Poetry has a chapter in which he links Byron with Burns and blades, but he points out that they have very little in common, and goes on to a chapter that deals with what we might call the big 5 without Byron.

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Jonathan Bates himself calls him a great romantic, and a great anti romantic, which is really, I suppose, having it both ways.

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So I can't necessarily disagree with him. What problem is that Byron begins his entire career by maligning his fellow poets in something called English bards and Scotch Reviewers written because he had been attacked himself for his poetry and resented it he writes these are the themes

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that claim our plaudits. Now these are the parts to whom the muse must bow, while Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot resign their hallowed base.

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The Walter Scott again. Walter Scott is not usually included these days in those lists of romantic poets, but at the time he was selling a great many of his poetry anthologies, I'm Sadie, who was then poet laureate, he says oh, sadly Savi.

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ceased thy varied song abard may chart too often and too long, as thou art strong, inverse in mercy, spare a fourth! Alas!

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Were more than we could bear. Heard earlier this week that Google's new AI chat box is it called?

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It is going to be called barred, which makes you wonder how much poetry in future can be written by human beings.

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10 years later, in the dedication to Don June, when he was very famous, Byron was still scathing about the school of poetry.

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He called the Lakers. You gentlemen, he said. By dint of long seclusion from better company, have kept your own at Keswick, and through still continued fusion of one another's minds, at last have grown to deem as the most logical conclusion that poesy has reads

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.000
for you alone. There's a narrowness in such a notion which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for ocean.

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Think he thought himself as just more cosmopolitan.

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As just covering a wider field than those who made their.

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Location in the Lake District.

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Hit. Some. Byron disliked each other for all sorts of reasons.

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Keats have been derided as a cockney poet, which then meant sort of plebeian, common rather than born within the sound of bells, and Byron was now aristocrat, and perhaps a bit of a snob.

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Kate Stuff had expressed contempt for poet and the Augustine Zon Byron revered, and Kate who was poverty stricken, envied Byron's success, and indeed his closeness to shelly in fact, other poets, had reason for jealousy.

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A very highly recommended book is dangerous to show Byron and his portraits, which I will come back to the portraits that is later.

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But Jeffrey Bond and Christian Kenyon Jones say Byron was far underway the best-selling of the romantic poets has been calculated that he and Walter Scott sold more works in a normal afternoon than Shelley and Keats did during the whole of their lives so you

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couldn't really blame them if they were a little bit jealous.

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But Byron could write when we come to, when it comes to nature.

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Byron could write very like words with on nature if you didn't know otherwise.

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If I weren't telling you. I if you were a Wordsworth admirer, you might think this.

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What's worse, words were all heaven earth are still, though not in sleep, but breathless as we grow, and feeling most, and silent as we stand in thoughts too deep, all heaven and earth are still from the high host of stars, to the loved lake, and mountain coast, all is consented in a life intense when not at

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the beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, have a part of being, and a sense of that which is of all creator and defense.

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And that's from child Harold's pilgrimage, the one that made him famous.

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So he's definitely writing about nature and man in a way very similar to the other romantics.

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And of course he wrote love lyrics that are romantic in every sense, including our modern one, I'll just read the first verse.

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She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless times and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and light meet in her aspect, and her eyes, thus mellowed to that tender light which heaven, the gaudy day denies the probable subject of this is a remote

00:17:44.000 --> 00:18:00.000
cousin a distant cousin of Lord Byron and Wilmot, who was in mourning at the time, and therefore was wearing dark clothes, but he plays on this idea of dark and light, and it's interesting perhaps that this is not one of Byron's many lovers.

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But merely a lady who is able to admire from afar.

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So on to his reputation, to the fact that what Lady Caroline Lamb said about him apparently that he was mad, but and dangerous to know is the epitaph that stuck.

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You can buy this month for 13 pounds online, which houses its as its message.

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British Scoundrell, Greek hero. Perhaps that begins to sum up how he sometimes view many facts about Byron's fallen hero, Napoleon, are myths, you know.

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He was not actually much shorter. For example, than the Duke of Wellington.

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He merely surrounded himself with a tall entourage, which made him look shorter.

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He never said, not tonight, Josephine, and you could go on.

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But I'm unfortunately, perhaps all the lurid facts about Byron tend to be true, or at least well documented.

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We can't be sure, but if we have the testimony, for example, of his Mp.

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Friend Hobhouse. We tend to think that the sumptuous in them, at least it's true.

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For example, that he had a skull which he'd found in the grounds of Newstead Abbey.

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His ancestral home, fashioned into a drinking vessel.

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You can only see a replica of it these days at Newstead Abbey.

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The skull has been reverently buried, but he certainly drank from what he thought of as a monk's skull, and he even wrote a defence of that writing to the skull.

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That's better to hold the sparkling grape.

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But nurse the earthworms, slimy brood and circle in the goblet, shape the drink of gods from reptiles, food, so we think that he and his friends did drink red wine from these skulls in a very Gothic manner.

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It's true that he had a birth defect. This is, of course, does not make him mad, but dangerous to know.

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Possibly a club foot, or dysphasia, which left him crippled.

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We have his orthopedic boot in the Science Museum, supposedly Byron's.

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We're not quite sure, he said. He suffered very much as a child from the efforts of his mother and his his nurse and his tutor.

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I guess him to wear this desperately uncomfortable device which was meant to straighten out his foot, and the only portrait we have on him as a child shows the foot he may not be able to see it very well.

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The foot sort of shrouded in leaves, so that we can't see it.

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He was very self conscious about it. And that, you know, for example, would never was because he was afraid of people looking at his gate.

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He did walk with a lip, despite all of that, he was a keen boxer.

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At this screen you used to be at Newston. I don't think it's there at the moment, but he admired Christ.

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Fighters had them painted here and went to fights quite frequently as a young man, and learned to box himself.

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Perhaps this compensation, when he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, he was forbidden to keep a dog in his rooms.

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This great animal lover. So you know, saying there wasn't a rule against it.

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He brought a bear instead, and wrote to his friend one of his friends, I've got a new friend, the finest in the world.

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Attain there. When I brought him here? I asked, they asked me what to do with him, and my reply was, he should sit for a fellowship, so he was already cocking a snook at any rules, and he apparently the bear didn't actually stay in his rooms.

00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:37.000
But in the local news. But he did take it for walks through the streets of Cambridge.

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As far as his sex life was concerned. Yes, he did have affairs.

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He was bisexual, in fact, one of his biographers thinks that if anything, he was more for, inclined to be gay, that he valued his affairs with men.

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What do you have? A face? Certainly, with servants require? Boys may be Platonic, those actresses are AR aristocrats, actually his own half-sister that's generally accepted as true.

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They did meet until he was 15. And she was the product of his father's earlier marriage.

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He had an affair then with his half sister Augusta, or it's thought so, and possibly father to child by her.

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They the clip there, by the way, is from a biopic or television series about Byron, with Johnny, an email which I thought was pretty good.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:45.000
Actually, it's true that he had a weight problem. His weight varied, and we know his weights because he had himself weighed at his wine merchant in the Strand, as you do, he went on, periodic extreme diets, potatoes, biscuits and soda water

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:53.000
his weight varied. He was about 5 foot 8, and at his thinnest he was about 9 stone, and at his heaviest about 14.

00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:02.000
So he did have fluctuating weight. This picture, this this is still life is by a photographer called Dan Bonino.

00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:07.000
The creates historic diets, and then photographs, and they are really rather beautiful.

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:12.000
But he felt very strongly, or pretended to about what women hate.

00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000
He said, a woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne.

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:31.000
They only truth feminine are becoming the arms, which doesn't sound too bad, but it's typical, perhaps, that he's dictating what women should eat, and then trying to control his own weight.

00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:48.000
As for his wife, Annabella Millbank, who we called the Princess of Parallelograms, she was a mathematical genius, in fact, of course, between them they managed to Father Ada Lovelace one of the founders of the modern Computer she was so Cruelly.

00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:54.000
treated in the public imagination. He represented himself as unjustly banished from the family home, but she defended herself, and unusually she kept custody of their daughter Ada.

00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:04.000
In those days when a couple divorced, if they could.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:20.000
Of course it was usually the father who got custody propaganda war continued, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, the writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin vindicated Lady Byron in a long pamphlet, after both Byron and Lady Byron, were dead It's

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:27.000
true, his marriage lasted less than a year, and culminated in his exile to Europe.

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:37.000
It's also true that he was the origin Byron was the origin of the vampire, as we now know, the vampire and the aristocratic, seductive Prince of Darkness.

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:44.000
His image transformed the legend of the vampire, who was originally a Transylvanian present, and when they were on that famous Billa Diodati on Lake Geneva it was his personal position. Dr.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:53.000
Polydori, who wrote The Vampire, but he made law.

00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:03.000
Byron, certainly the hero of it of it, and based his characteristics pretty much on Byron.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:08.000
Vampirism comes into the first example we have of revenge.

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Literature, Lady Caroline Lamb, after he left her, made by an anti-hero.

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:19.000
Of her novel, Glenarvan, which was a briefly a great success.

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:24.000
She certainly said about him that beautiful pale face is my fate.

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:28.000
You can see that she was quite striking herself, and had short hair, which for those times was almost as revolutionary as anything Byron did.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:42.000
She claim. She coined the Praise. Mad, but dangerous to know. But there's no contemporary evidence to prove that, she said it at the time.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:44.000
Choose to believe it, though.

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:49.000
He had another lovever, Clare Claremont, who was the half sister, Mary Shelley, I mean almost everybody in Byron's story is a name.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:56.000
They had an affair just before he went to Switzerland.

00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:04.000
In fact, she joined him there, or he joined her there in actual fact, because of the Shelley connection, she bore his child, Allegra.

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:20.000
He took off to Italy, brought up, or had some to do with bringing up, but neglected her, or, according to Claire, Martin neglected her, and that resulted in the death of Allegra at the age of 5, and she called Byron, a Monster, she called Byron, and

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:29.000
Shelley monsters, who, she said, in the name of Free Love, trampled all over the woman who women who loved them.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.000
It went so far that Byron was actually depicted as the devil.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:31.000
In this satirical pamphlet of 1819.

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:40.000
You can see him there. The club foot, or cleft boof!

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:45.000
That doesn't help. But his radical politics also have part to it, partly to do with it.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:51.000
This was very much a reactionary publication.

00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:59.000
However, yeah, he's negative traits were balanced by many, many positives, and he was a much loved man.

00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:05.000
He himself loved animals, the the monument to his dog Bosun was the only building work he ever undertook.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:18.000
It used to Derby. New stood Abbey was practically falling down when he inherited it, and he didn't live there much of the time, but he had a monument erected to the dog when the dog died, which you can still read there with some quite sentimental verses on which

00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:20.000
may or may not have been by Byron as a portrait of the dog at Newstead.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:31.000
Not a brilliant portrait, but certainly, perhaps your dog dog's portrait, painted was quite something.

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:52.000
Hey, is a little bit from the epitaph, he says, but the for the poor dog in life, the firmest friend, the first to welcome foremost to defend, whose honest heart is still his master's own, who labors, fights, leaves breathes for him alone, UN honored, falls unnoticed, all his work but he was

00:27:52.000 --> 00:28:03.000
determined to honor his own dog surely commented on Byron's lifestyle in in Ravenna, near the end of his life, when he didn't just have dogs, Lord bees!

00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:19.000
Establishment consists beside servants of 10 horses, 80 novice dogs, 3 monkeys, 5 cats, an eagle a crow, and a falcon, and all of these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their UN arbitrated

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.000
quarrels as if they were the masters of it.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:27.000
Ps. I find that my enumeration of the animals in the session Palace was defective.

00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.000
I have just met on the grand staircase 5 peacocks, 2 guinea hens.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:40.000
Of an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes, implying that Byron is Circe.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:46.000
Byron can change men into animals, and therefore find them more expensive. Hey!

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000
How's it? Of course, physical strength and courage far beyond his size and his disability?

00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:50.000
He spun the Hellespot famously, which is 5 kilometers.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:58.000
In 1810, and there is still a Byron swim every year.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:01.000
This was the one for the Bicentennial.

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:10.000
In 1,810 in sorry, 2010. He appears not to have been motivated by money and he had a reputation for generosity.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:15.000
You know. He supported. Hey? People like Theelle isn't the Lee hunts for much of his life. For many years he refused to take money from the publication of his poetry.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:25.000
He attempted to divert 600 pounds of royalties, to William Gobbwin.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:28.000
This is all good, because he built up enormous depths.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:45.000
For example, when he was exiled to Switzerland, he did so in a courage which were a replica of the Polians, and the poor coach maker was still waiting to be paid 2,000 pounds for this carriage, when Byron died, so you know he had that lordly contempt for

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:54.000
the middle classes, perhaps, but certainly he could be generous, and he did, inspire intense, loyalty, and his friends and his publisher, John Murray.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:03.000
After his death they got together. And British journals, you know, from what we know about him, the journalists must have been scandalous indeed.

00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:20.000
Whatever the truth about his relationship with Augusta, his poetry, after they parted, his tender and sorrowful, he says, he says, it has taught me that what I most cherished deserve to be dearest of all in the desert of fountain is springing in the wide waste

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:21.000
there still is a tree and a bird in the solitude.

00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:31.000
Singing which speaks to my spirit of me. Among the most sincere things you wrote, I think.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:48.000
Is political, radicalism extended to his maiden speech, in which he defended the framebreakers, Nottinghamshire weavers, who were determined to bring their own trade, but in order to do so, they destroyed the new industrial machinery called got called the

00:30:48.000 --> 00:31:02.000
Luddites, but he pointed out that an attempt, a bill which in which would have hand all laddites about about what she said will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hung up men like scarecrows?

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:13.000
Or will you proceed as you must, to bring this measure into effect by decimation, place the country under martial law, depopulate, and they waste all around.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:19.000
You and restore share with Forest as an acceptable gift to the crown in its former condition of a royal chase.

00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:33.000
Other sign of the outlaws. Are these the remedies for starving and desperate, populous will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonet be appalled by your jibbits when death is a relief and the only relief it appears that

00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:39.000
you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquility?

00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:44.000
In addition to this, this, radicalism on behalf of the working man, he was.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:57.000
I'm not of an abolitionist, for example, to praise William Wilberforce in Don June, and have, in fact, a short section in the honor of William Wilberforce.

00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:01.000
On his this picture of him on his deathbed in Greece.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:10.000
Glamorises, of course, how it actually happened he was induced to go to Greece to fight against the Ottoman Empire.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:17.000
He thought of himself as a warrior, and had a special helmet commission, but in that fact his main contribution was financial.

00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:21.000
It did make a difference to the Greek course, but he certainly remains a hero to Greeks, and they celebrate Byron.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:26.000
Day, every year, on April nineteenth he didn't die in battle.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:29.000
He died of a a fever, and the treatment seems to have made it worse.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:37.000
He was, there was a lot of blood letting, for example. We're never quite.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:43.000
We're never quite sure about this day, he said himself.

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:49.000
I am such a strange man lodge of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:51.000
I don't think I can save fairer than that, but we need to look, perhaps, at how Byron built a brand which you can call a very modern enterprise.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:33:07.000
You certainly controlled the way others saw him so early. Portraits of Byron were private, and they were commissioned, and they were given as gifts.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:26.000
But once he was famous. The engravers were given the originals, and each portrait became known to his adoring public through engravings his publisher, John Murray, had a signet ring and sealed his correspondence with an image of Byron and he realized that images of Byron.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:29.000
were as lucrative as his writing and illustrators of child.

00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Harold or Don June made their heroes look like Byron, but Byron and Mike carefully controlled, which portraits could be reproduced, and how and Byron had a veto if he didn't like a portrait you could say now i'm not having that as a frontispiece for the

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.000
latest bottom of poetry.

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:59.000
So this, for example, is illustration from child hairs, pilgrimage, which shows how old they are reclining and looking at division as a spitting image of Byron.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:08.000
So the public were inclined to worry, encouraged to see Byron and Byron's heroes as much the same.

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:22.000
This is one of the most famous portraits, portraits on. It's just called Portrait of a Normal man, who knew who it was, and it was created for the man who bought Newstead from Byron, which he had to sell it eventually for depths.

00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:30.000
I didn't keep it to the end of his life, and this is the portrait that set the pattern not just the Byron's own portraits, but for the Byronic or romantic poet.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:40.000
Look, you know, facing left imp input in profile with intent look, a floppy white collar, curly hair.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:48.000
You see this again and again, even when engravers couldn't actually get the permission to have a picture of Byron, they would deliberately change the image so that they could claim.

00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:58.000
Well, this isn't Myron, but the ironic props, the white collar, the curly hair, the profile, the strong nose, eyebrows, and chin which they were still able to include, in short, the sales.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:07.000
Anyway, so you know, he couldn't do much about that.

00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:24.000
This is one of the most famous 2 in the in the dress of an Albanian, 1814, when he was but from his grand tour, and just become famous, he brought these 2 costumes for 50 guinea's, a Lot of money a moustache was added by the artist, he never had a

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:32.000
moustache. This is one that was known or exhibited in in his lifetime, but after he died it was packed up into a wooden case.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:43.000
In fact, after his marriage, failed by his mother-in-law, and it wasn't known to the Pupp until it was sold to the national Portrait Gallery in 1,862, and Mid Victorian Times.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:44.000
He never wanted to be picture with a pen or a book.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:50.000
He liked to dress up whenever possible, so that he could be seen as a man of action.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:56.000
He didn't want a pen in his hand. He preferred to have a sword.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:57.000
This one by George Henry Harlow! Wasn't known until the 19 sixties.

00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:15.000
There were engravings in Byron's lifetime, but these sort of delicate coloring and the skill of this chalk sketch, his, a contemporary of his Marianne Hunt, who was Lee Hunt's wife said of the portrait, it looks like a great

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.000
schoolboy who has had a plain bun given him instead of a plum. One.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:24.000
I imagine that that was a certain mode of violence, too.

00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:31.000
Cartoonists to understandably am. This was the great age of Georgian and Regency caricature.

00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:40.000
This is Crookshank in 1816, and shows Byron heading for his ship in a small boat laden with wine, with several women of waiving goodbye to Ada.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Ada. Sorry, Raymond, goodbye to Annabella Melbourne.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:53.000
Lady Byron on the shore.

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Captions. Tell you a little bit more. Here it is, the sailors are saying.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:01.000
I hope she's got enough of mum board, and the other one replies, Yes, that may.

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:07.000
I never take another bit of shaggy if they ain't 5 vessels of a lot of Dublin Tantra going on there.

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Meanwhile Barra is quoting from his own poem to Annabella, address the Lady Byron very well bus disunited, torn from every nearer tie, seared in heart and lone and blighted more than this, I scarce can die and even at the time people thought this was

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:38.000
laying it on a little bit thick, so the cartoonist is contrasting this with the rather down to earth, comments of the sailors and Byron being there surrounded by women and booze.

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:55.000
This is another one by Robert Crookshank, in 1,816, called Fashionables of 1816, taking the air in Hyde Park, Byron again, with a woman on each elbow, is encounttering his very pregnant wife in the summer of another of 1815 it should have

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:15.000
been actually. But of course, what drove him from the country was also rumors about Augusta is a fair with Augusta, and, indeed, that he had had homosexual affairs, which was illegal indeed punishable by death, and the fact that Lady Byron was saying that

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:18.000
he had done what she called unnatural acts with her.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:29.000
The medium is different, but celebrities then and now, if a celebrity's private life becomes public, I suppose this was the form which now takes trolling as its name.

00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:40.000
The Victorians disapproved of much of Barbara's poetry and his lifestyle, but, interestingly, they liked the romantic idea of his image, and that was enough to make pottery like this a bestseller.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:48.000
You know, his image always became to this day, I suppose, a big selling point.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:54.000
There was also the fact that others took on this mantle to become Byronic heroes.

00:38:54.000 --> 00:39:02.000
Ironic is perhaps, after Shakespearean, the most common magic taken from the name of a poet.

00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:17.000
So Heathcliff, for example, is regarded as a classic baronic era, with its his distaste for social institutions, conflicting emotions, or moodiness, self-criticism, mysterious origins, a troubled past self-destructive tendencies alone are

00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:22.000
rejected from society. We're familiar with this kind of figure, Charlotte Bronte.

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:35.000
Was a Byron fan. I mean Patrick Bronte gets a bad press, or certainly did in the days of Elizabeth Gaskell, but nevertheless he was very enlightened, and allowed his daughters to read Byron.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:44.000
Not every father did. In the 18 thirties, and she painted this watercolour, which shows an unmistakably by Boron, by the Byronic character.

00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Looking at either a corpse or a woman to speak.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:54.000
We don't know, hey? Clifton? Mr. Rochester you know actors make the most of this look.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:59.000
Yeah. It carries through to how. It's just like Paul Dot.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:09.000
And even in Harry Potter several snake, I suppose, but comes from Byron's own time initially, but he certainly makes the most of that look.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:18.000
You know nothing to do with poetry. Lawrence Lewin and Bowen Russell Brown. The hair, the look, the intent look.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:20.000
I'm Byron depicted in many semi-fictional works.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:30.000
There he is on the right in Mary Shelley, and again he's got a he's got a mustache in Doctor, who?

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:40.000
The twelfth series there was a story which was set up the Villa Diodity, and had not to playing Byron with the same hair.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:46.000
Even in blackout as a third, where Byron, second from the left, with Keats and Charlie, you know, are with Dr.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:50.000
Johnson, who, of course, live so several decades before them.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:41:01.000
But never mind, it was Blackadder, but he was depicted there, and I believe that Lord Byron was here, appears on the wall in one of Hancock's half hours.

00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:02.000
These days, then we might say that Bob could be cancel is the term, I think, for various things.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:16.000
The misogyny for bullying behavior, for what we might call eurocentric racism.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:22.000
In the longer works in Donjuan, in child Harris, Pilgrimage.

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:28.000
They are characters from other races, but they are certainly not on a part with the Europeans.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Possibly for section abuse, for cultural misappropriation.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:43.000
Just that Albanian costume would probably get us there. But it raises this huge question, should we separate the art from the artist or from his own popular image?

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:54.000
Well, poetry day, Tuesday, as Fiona mentioned featured these quotations among others, and they seem to me to sum up Byron as poet. What's with?

00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:59.000
Said, poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:05.000
It takes its origin from emotion. Recollected in tranquility the perhaps capital R.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:10.000
Side of Byron, who was much read for the way he expressed feelings.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:23.000
But summer Rushdie said, a poet's work is to name the unable, but unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it, going to sleep.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:28.000
Somewhere between these 2 definitions. Frame, of course, 200 years apart.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:31.000
I replace the Byron, and that's before we start.

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000
Considering. So to go back to the question before it's over to you.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:48.000
True, romantic or regency scoundrel. Of course he is too complex to be pinned down by labels, and the fact he's remembered as much for his image as face poetry is perhaps compounding.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:53.000
This and should we impose our own society's values on a man who lived in such different times?

00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:59.000
Among the other things, she may well be asking, we could consider those questions.

00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Thank you very much. I will come out now.

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.000
Thank you very much for that, Judith. A fascinating and complex character.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:13.000
Let's face it. And interestingly, his. You mentioned his daughter Ada. Lovely!

00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:19.000
She came up, and I'll let her a few weeks ago, and about women in STEM.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:21.000
So it's quite interesting. So let's go to some questions.

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:26.000
I know we have one start popping your questions in folks.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Now there's a question that was asked quite early on actually quite a complex character.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:41.000
And this is from Jackie do you wonder if this characteristics these days might be associated with the autistic spectrum?

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:44.000
Perhaps Asperger, or something like that, and what you think.

00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:47.000
That's fine. That's quite possible. We will never know.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:51.000
I mean he did have a difficult childhood he didn't get on with his mother.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.000
He claimed that he'd been abused by his nursemaid.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:11.000
This doesn't answer the Asperger's autistic spectrum question, but it's the sort of thing that these days we would want to know about in assessing why he became as he did he had a enormous human sympathy not always with people you would expect and it seemed

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:17.000
to be oddly selective, but that has as much to do, perhaps, with the class system it's an interesting question.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:22.000
We will obviously never know. I would have said not.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:27.000
Okay. Okay. Let's have a look here. I am just more of a comment than anything else from.

00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:32.000
And Stella. Could be both romantic and scoundrel.

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:35.000
But better to have no label.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Yes, absolutely absolutely. I mean, I was thinking about this. I was thinking about this question that we come up again again and again.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:51.000
What do we do about great artists whose lives these days would be censured, when possibly would even be criminal?

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:52.000
I don't think we can judge people necessarily by that.

00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:01.000
It's perfectly possible to be both, and if we are going to have, I keep coming back to this because I was so struck by it.

00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:17.000
If we are going to have church bots capable of creating poetry, we have to say that the personality is part of the poet, otherwise we can have poems written by something with no personality, as as I understand it.

00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:22.000
Okay. Thank you. Right, we've got another couple of quick questions in here.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:28.000
This one from Sarah, and she's read that he's separate from an eating disorder.

00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:29.000
Possibly the woman.

00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:36.000
Yes, yes, I think that's probably true. I I think it may well have been anorexic polemic.

00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:44.000
Yes, I think that probably is the case, and you know, for most men of that time they happily grew fat.

00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:50.000
You've only got to look at the cartoon, but he was so concerned about his public image.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:52.000
Yeah, okay, here's a question here from Karen.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:04.000
And Andrew, do you think his reputation explains why he hasn't studied so much?

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:05.000
Hmm!

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:06.000
And see in schools, cause, you know we all do. Shakespeare.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:07.000
Let's face it, don't we? At school?

00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.000
Do you think that would explain?

00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Yes, I I don't think it wholly explains it.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:17.000
It may explain why he didn't, wasn't so much on the curriculum at some stage.

00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.000
I think the length of his best pose is a problem.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:27.000
The length and complexity and complexity. We we don't rate long rhyming poems.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:31.000
The way that we used to. We because we have so much else.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:36.000
We have more novels. We have television, television, and so on. So I think that's more likely to be it.

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:37.000
And other than that, the short lyrics are not particularly complex.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:39.000
They don't sort of educate children, perhaps in the way that the war poets do.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:57.000
For example, they continue to be popular. His reputation I've not heard that specified, but I've not been in mainstream education for some time, certainly isn't any problem with the Wa.

00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:08.000
And another one here from a Stevens. I guess it's kind of so reinforcing what Stella said earlier.

00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000
Isn't it best to judge a person by what he she says?

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:13.000
Yeah.

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:15.000
Rather than seen, and assumed.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:22.000
Yes, I think I think it is, but you can't get away from the fact that Byron comes with this glamorous stroke.

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Scandalous baggage, that tends to color what he says, and also by the fact that the things like Don Juan are deeply personal, very offense, very entertainingly and offensive to people. He was living with.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:52.000
I don't think you can quite divorce it, though I would want to, in the case of most poets I mean another not contemporary, but a more recent example of this is Philip Larkin, whose letters are really shocking sharing what he was like as a man but I wouldn't

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:57.000
want to not study the poems. For that reason, and there I can forget about him when I'm reading the poems. Byron.

00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:09.000
I think it's harder. I just think he has that image that colors what what he wrote.

00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:10.000
Yeah.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Hmm, okay. We've got a question here from Norman and a Scottish question and Norman's read that. He regarded himself the Scotsman, and spoke with a slight Scottish accent, and then we've got another comment.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:24.000
Let me just find another comment from Deborah, who said his mother was not accepted in society for a Scottish accent.

00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:25.000
I don't know if you can talk maybe a little bit more about his.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.000
His early routes.

00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:33.000
Yes, I don't know. I haven't heard that his mother wasn't accepted in society.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:35.000
She wasn't heiress. She had the money, but she certainly doesn't seem to have moved much in society.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:42.000
I mean. Once they were at new step. She moved to Subtle, which is just that just down the road.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:57.000
And never seems to have mixed in in high society as a Scottish heiress, she perhaps would have been, and Byron certainly valued his Scottish roots.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:00.000
He counted himself as Scotsman when it suited him.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:01.000
I mean, it wasn't a sort of huge part of his.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:16.000
His image or his personality, but he devised a sort of uniform for himself in Greece, which was part Greek and partly tartan, so he certainly wanted to project that there.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:22.000
Okay. Now, let's see another. Look here, and.

00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:27.000
Here's a question here from of pronounced your name.

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:36.000
Connect me and increase. We've been told they sent his body to England, but kept his heart and built in a small shrine. And Olympia, is that true?

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000
That is recorded, I'm not sure whether it's true.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:54.000
They certainly wanted to keep part of them in Greece, and his body certainly came back to England, and was given a sort of a triumphal through the streets, you know I progressed through the streets.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:55.000
He wasn't allowed into Poets Corner until the twentieth century.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:05.000
He didn't get to Westminster Abbey because of his reputation until the twentieth century, but he was much mourned Tennyson, for example.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:11.000
It was just a young lad at the time, threw himself on a bank in Lincolnshire, crying, Lord Byron is dead!

00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:12.000
So he was. He was much valued in Greece.

00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:18.000
And in this country. At the time of his death. I'm not sure.

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:24.000
Certainly, if the Greeks have receptacle that they say entertains Lord Byron's heart, I wouldn't want to contradict that.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Okay. Alright. This is a question from Marina.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:37.000
He's asking which of his works are an A-level or Gcse syllabi.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:38.000
I'm not up to date. I'm not up to date on this.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:40.000
Here. I don't know if you covered that, or maybe hmm!

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:49.000
They certainly worked at anytime that I was studying or teaching in schools which is interesting, isn't it?

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:51.000
I've never! I have never encountered Byron in the school system.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:00.000
I certainly didn't. I know that. And in this seventies and eighties, okay, here's a question from Stewart.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:07.000
This is, this is quite good one, and you talked about his views on the lake.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:08.000
Yes.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:09.000
Poets. What did they have to say about him?

00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:11.000
Oh, it's a it is a good question.

00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:15.000
Less is recorded, and it depends. I mean, they weren't.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:25.000
Universal words were was very dignified in terms of public relations, and didn't comment and we don't have anything in his letters about Byron.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.000
Shelley was a friend of his, Shirley admired him.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:35.000
And was a friend, as we could perhaps see from that affectionate description of all the animals that were in his house in Venice.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.000
It's disliked him and is on record as saying so.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:47.000
The older generation, polo Itchy came round to. And so Coleridge appreciate it.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:51.000
Him. Sorry. I'm just distracted by the his heart is buried in.

00:51:51.000 --> 00:52:01.000
Huckknell, and he was tomb there. I didn't know his heart was there, this may be. This may be a case of, you know, needing exhumation that we want that to find out where his heart actually is.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:06.000
If the Greek are claiming it too. But yes, of the romantic poets.

00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:12.000
Some, in fact, were on his side, and others powerlessly, perhaps disliked him as much as he.

00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:16.000
Just like them, but they couldn't ignore him. Of course.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:22.000
Okay? And question from Christia. You talked about some having being banished from England.

00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:24.000
Why why was that?

00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Alright. Well, 4 or 5 things. It wasn't. It wasn't simple.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:37.000
There were the rumors about his half sister that was probably the one that he really had to escape.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:39.000
The rumors about his affair with Augusta.

00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:45.000
He wanted Augusta to go with him but you know she was a married man with several children by then.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:51.000
There were rumors that he had had homosexual relations.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:56.000
There were rumors, or rather his wife had actually made known.

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000
What she called on natural acts sodomy, in other words, in the marriage.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.000
So those were the reasons, I mean he was in danger, perhaps of actual criminal investigations, but he also had had enough.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:17.000
I think society turned its back on him. He went to a particular reception with Augusta, and you know they turned their backs, and no one would speak to him.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:21.000
So he was out of favor.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:22.000
Hmm!

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:33.000
It was also politically dynamite, I mean he. He was still supporting Napoleon, or rather saying that Waterloo was a disgrace and not a triumph at all beautiful.

00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Okay. Another question here, which I think might be a final one.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:40.000
And then, unless anything comes in late and well, I guess it's more of a comment than a question.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:49.000
But this is from Anthony. Anthony believes that he was the subject of the first blue plat in London.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:56.000
Oh, I didn't know that, but I can well believe it.

00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:00.000
Hmm, okay.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:01.000
Hmm!

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Yeah, that could well be the case. I saw someone comment there that his body has been exhumed, but that would only perhaps show that the heart was missing and not what it was.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.000
We've got something here from clear as well. Aqa.

00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:13.000
English Gs. Gcse. Byron is currently being studied.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:20.000
Right. So I'm glad to know that. I wonder what I wonder what what text they are studying.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:26.000
Might be interesting to find out. Okay, folks, I think that is us for today.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:30.000
I think I've got through this thing. I think so.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:35.000
I hope you all enjoyed that really fascinating, and I wonder what side of the coin you all fall on.

00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.000
Thank you very much indeed Fiona. Right?

00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.000
A very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have seen quite a few friends in the faces.

00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:18.000
Looking out, back at me and it's delighted I'm delighted to have you all on board.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:23.000
I mustn't pick out names, but I'll say you know who you are.

00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:41.000
New as well as old. Right? I am going to be talking on this amazing collection Aspirin has already said of Anglo-saxon, which is on display in a museum in North Germany, I mean in Lower Saxony, indeed, and I'm going to give you

00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:53.000
the background to the material, its archaeological background and we're going to discuss a little bit about Dendro chronology or tree ring dating within the body of my talk.

00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:00.000
Now I apologize for bums on seats, but with every headline you've got to have something to grab people's attention.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:05.000
I'll figure that was quite a good one. So on your screen hopefully, you have a nice picky taken by myself in the museum at bad decade.

00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:17.000
Of a 5 legged Saxon table.

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And you're thinking. Good heavens, what an extraordinary thing!

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I know you can only see 3 legs of it. But never mind.

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This, you can see what we're talking about now.

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Now the background to all this is what happens in Northwest in Europe between about 300 a.

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Day, and about 608. We are all very familiar with the concept of climate change and our sea level rise, and so on.

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Well, that's exactly what we talk about here. Starting about 300 a day, we start to have a melt of the Greenland ice sheet, and as a consequence, global sea levels go up and up and we are we and northwestern Europe are all quite seriously affected now we just look at

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:10.000
Britain for a moment we can see that my home in Grimsby is now underwater.

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The whole of coastal Lincolnshire. The whole of the fen right down to Cambridge, and right up into the Vale of York we can see the Somerset levels.

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We can see Romney Marsh. Bits of Norfolk and parts of the Thames estuary, and from Flanders right the way.

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Up, to halfway up Denmark. All that very, very low lying area of North Western Europe is inundated, and we're talking about inundation with several meters of sea level rise saline water, which is a bit of a worry.

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And anybody lives in that part of the world today will be equally worried because in the next century I suspect we're going to see something not dissimilar.

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We can also see the effects on Upland, and that's a bit of a misnomer where Denmark is concerned.

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He hasn't got any. But never mind, it does mean that we are seeing Upland abandonment of farming.

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Certainly in Scandinavia, and certainly in the Pennines.

00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:11.000
At this period, which, of course, is the end of the Roman period.

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Traditionally Roman Britain ends in 410 AD.

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A couple of reasons which are far too complicated to explain to you all. Now.

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But this is the the background. Then, before we describe as the migration period in North Western Europe, when the Saxon peoples arrived on our shores.

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Now, just to give you an idea. This is the visa S jury and Brown, Bremerhaven and Bremen in North Eastern Germany.

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Indeed, it's the province of Lower Saxony, and it's called Lower Saxony for Johnny.

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Good reason. It is pretty low lying now. All the squares you can see on that screen abandoned.

00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:04.000
Native Saxon settlements, many of which were thriving from the first century AD.

00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:10.000
Onwards, and by 500 they have all been abandoned.

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This coastline has been subject to reasonably recent, ie.

00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:19.000
In the last 200 years. Reclamation and the coastline today is out here.

00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:29.000
But the ancient coastline in 400 AD. Was somewhere back here, and all this area and all these square dots are subject to inundation, which is one of the bad news for the West German Navy.

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Whose main base is Villain's Harvard. Here, because that's all going to disappear into the Jade Bay as well.

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Now, recent excavations in this area up here north of Bremahaven and just south of Cook's Harven, which lies just on the very top of the map.

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Up here on the angle of the L, where it disappears eastwards to go to towards Hamburg.

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Have shown and proven by excavation, and we do like empirical data and archaeology, that we have.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:10.000
Whole settlements which are on what are locally described as Turpin, or there's another German word for it, as well.

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Vera, which means mound. But these things are matter of 50 cm.

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High, only half, which shows you how much the landscape is shrinking because of modern drainage and modern sea defenses which are rather upsetting the drainage patterns.

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Now one particular site up here that one indeed!

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There you are now going to see at the end of the excavation this season in 1997.

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So you can see completely inundated, remotely long Saxon longhouses, made of timber. Of course.

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So this very large example in front of us. These are horizontal timber beams, which will then had vertical posts mortise into them.

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We can see internal divisions, we can see halves, and we can see people at one end, and we can see people sorry animals at the far end.

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This one next to it. We still got the posts upstanding from that inundated settlement, and every every house has got an outhouse. Fiona.

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You probably could. As a clergy, I'd imagine a new part of the world.

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But the important thing here is the complete preservation of this site under 2 metres.

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That's 2 solid meters of marine sediments, silts and clays which have been deposited by that marine transgression over it.

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That means the People's homes, people's settlements, and people's farming.

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Land has all disappeared, under this under the brackish North Sea inundation, which is pretty worrying, isn't it?

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:06.000
But this is archaeology, literally in action and informing.

00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.000
I suspect what we'll be doing in future years.

00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:32.000
So that's the evidence on the ground. This is a model in the museum at the Caseer, which shows us the radial planning of this settlement itself with a central marketplace, with the radial longhouse is all running back with fields immediately behind them.

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And fresh water holes, and the creeks of the North Sea literally right around it.

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So this is somewhere which is deriving its living from being on the North Sea margin, from pastoralism, particularly grazing along the coastal marshlands.

00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:59.000
They are clearly fishing, and they are collecting fuel in the form of driftwood.

00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:07.000
And dried out seaweed as the main materials which with which they are using as fuel for cooking.

00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:21.000
In these longhouses they are presumably thatched with coastal reefs, but they're all timber timber constructed, as you've seen from the evidence now, being literally on the C board here.

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This is a land, low tide of salt and mud.

00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:39.000
Now we flew over there, on our light airplane to go and visit these sites, and I can tell you, going right the way along the coastal strip all the way along the Zyde Zee and north North German coast.

00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:47.000
It is a land low Tide of saline mud, little tiny islets, and the old bit of green.

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It is the most dreadful landscape to appreciate from the air, but this is the reality of life on the edge of the North Sea.

00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:01.000
In the period between the first century AD. And the fifth century AD.

00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:02.000
So this is right through what is chronologically the Roman period.

00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:13.000
But this area lies well beyond the Imperial boundary, which is the Rhine River.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:27.000
So this is free. Germany, outside the Roman Empire there are Roman traded goods which have been found within the settlement, ceramics, glass, metalwork, and that's sort of thing but it is in no way a Roman sight.

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:45.000
It is culturally and geographically a Saxon site, as are all of these now, with each settlement there has to be a cemetery and one of the cemeteries associated with this line of settlements has indeed been excavated at felt.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:10:00.000
This is the next village down, and we have a waterlogged cemetery of some 200 cremation burials, and about 50 or 60 inhumation burials.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:21.000
These are the tops of some of those 50 or 60 inhumation burials, as you can clearly see, and we have the remains of the wooden frameworks of the edge of individual coffins and lining each individual grey now we can very clearly see a crowdched burial in here and this

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:27.000
much paler, sediment which is accumulated inside the grave.

00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:35.000
Inside the coffin. Coffins are not waterproof, and that tells us something about the ground.

00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:50.000
Conditions being moist. Certainly, when these graves were dug and filled, and their remaining moist ever since now a number of the graves were dug particularly deeply, 2 or 3 of them.

00:10:50.000 --> 00:11:00.000
This is one where we have got complete water logging of the entire grave, and its contents.

00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:07.000
Now I have a very strong suspicion that when this particular funeral was taking place, when the coffin was lowered in, I think there was a loud splash.

00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:23.000
I think was actually standing water in the grave. But you can't hang around cemeteries and you certainly can't hang around with monkey old bodies because they get very smelly very quickly.

00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:39.000
So in this amazing water, logged context, we have first of all, this wooden trough, which is, in fact, a that is to say, a wooden chest which has been recycled as a coffin.

00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:46.000
It was not designed as one. Initially, we can see the lady's skull inside.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:51.000
Here we can see fragments of textiles and clothing.

00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:58.000
She's buried pretty close, of course, in the grave, and we even have her walking stick along the side here.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:03.000
But more importantly, we have inside under the lid of the coffin itself, will this extraordinary Tb. Object here?

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:13.000
Of which more in a minute. We have a large wooden platter.

00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:24.000
We have a handle here of a wooden drinking baskle with a handle on it, we've got a much larger lays turned wooden vessel down below with a handle again.

00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:42.000
We have a stave built bucket, and we have another vessel here with his handle on the top there, and another stave built structure beyond it as well, but we also have our table there.

00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:43.000
It is. Age weighs on, lowered into the grave.

00:12:43.000 --> 00:13:03.000
Beside the coffin within the grave cut we can see 2 legs, one here and one here on one side, and we can see 2 of the 3 legs on the other side of the table, which are laid on the lower side, so this is the context.

00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.000
We're talking about from the artifacts to associated with this lady's burial.

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:16.000
She was buried about 480, and she's all there all by her flesh.

00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.000
Now, the obviously thing about this is the amount of timber in the grave itself.

00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:28.000
Normally we describe all sorts of timber, household objects as of being of train.

00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:47.000
So this is a very large collection in data, and the only metal objects in this grave were the 2 brooches which she had on her clothing, which were made of bronze, and amber, and are called titulous brooches, so, if for instance, we found this burial in Britain.

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:53.000
In a dry land context, which is where we tend to find most of our Anglo-saxon cemeteries.

00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:00.000
All we would have had were 2 little bronze brooches, and her bones, and nothing else.

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:09.000
Which is why this particular form of burial is so incredibly important for reconstructing Anglo-saxon life.

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:10.000
Now all this was all very carefully lifted in blocks.

00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:25.000
Micro excavated back in the laboratory. Hence the table I showed you on the first slide, so you can now see exactly what we're talking about, beautifully put together.

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:40.000
What I can only find a parallel really of as something like an invalid table or a hospital fable that's laid over the bed of somebody being fed in bed.

00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:48.000
The legs are relatively short, and there's a large, you know, rectangular tray effectively on top with what it would appear to be.

00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:53.000
Hand grips at each side to lower it into position.

00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:10.000
Having said that we have magnificently lathe, turned legs and stretches and spindles and carved decoration right the way around the edge of the table itself, it really is fantastic.

00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:19.000
There are 7 of these from this one specific, cemetery at Salva, and all of the material is on display.

00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:43.000
As I say in the museum at so photographs through the displayed case with the glass, we see exactly what I'm talking about with these wonderfully laced lathe turned legs and stretches and spindles, all supported with pegs and you can see the

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:52.000
edges of pegs. Here, on the side, as well where the whole thing has been assembled from a whole number of pieces, little bit aware on this example, at the end.

00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:59.000
Here, for instance. So all of this would have been made by a Turner on a poll.

00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:04.000
This is a late medieval Turner, with his pole lace.

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:23.000
It comes from a rather wonderful thing called the Mendel Housebook, which was made in Hamburg about 1,500, and it shows the profession of all of the individual inmates of what is effectively a late medieval old and they will have a sketch of what they were doing.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:44.000
In life. So this is a poll. This is the pole behind the gentleman here, with the beam coming over the top, and they bow string as in a longbow coming down around the working axle and down to a footprle and literally by going up and down on this the turning

00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:51.000
pieces rotated and contra-rotated, and here are the chisels with which the turning was physically done.

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.000
You don't want to argue with that chisel. Do!

00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:57.000
Yes, it's a serious piece of work. So that's how they were made.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:16.000
This is the output of a modern Turner today. From beckons Field on the Chilterns, which is still known as Boja Territory, where timber beach furniture is still made to this day, and you can make all sorts of things for Darwin socks with and

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:40.000
legs and bowls, as you can clearly see, right? So from some of those other 7, 6 other tables, some of them have been dismantled before conservation now, conservation in this case is dealing with waterlogged timber, which are though intact has the consistency, of

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:50.000
wet, blotting paper, so it has to be consolidated and conserved, and the water got out of it and replaced with something else.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:51.000
And that's something else is a water soluble.

00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:56.000
Wax, called polyethylene, glycol, and it's exactly the same technique with which all the waterlogged material from York has been preserved from the Viking layers.

00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:05.000
The Mary Rose shipwreck the tutor shipwreck in Portsmouth.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:24.000
Exactly the same technique. So it involves vacuum impregnation with polyethylene, glycol and freeze drying to risk to remove the water from the cellular structure of the wood and replacing it with wax so if these have been fully conserved and you can see the

00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:33.000
mark, of every chisel mark as it's being turned very, very clearly, and these are the bottom of the feet, and you can see again that there is physical wear on the bottom of the bottom of them.

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:40.000
These are not grave goods made to grow in the grave.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:46.000
These are used every day goods which are going to the afterlife which, of course, is a pagan one.

00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:53.000
In this case of the individuals who owned these train and pieces of furniture.

00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:57.000
Another example. I'm sorry, Helen. I'm getting you wake up to beg your pardon.

00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:22.000
Will you? All on camera is another one of the 6, and, as you can see, handles very clearly both ends as well as this rather odd fixture of of legs with 2 as far apart on one side and 3 close together on the other, and chip carved decoration on the face of

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:37.000
the table itself. Now we have a quotation from the Roman historian Tacitus, who writes about both Britain and Germany, who's writing in about 1 20 a.

00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:46.000
D, and from the Latin translation he says, and I quote the Germans each eat at their own table.

00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:54.000
Now we didn't really understood what that meant until we find all these Germans buried with their own tables.

00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:59.000
And that's clearly what Tacitus means. So to each person, 8 table.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:07.000
Hence the 7 of them, so far from this individual cemetery, but only from the deeper graze which have remained waterlogged.

00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:30.000
Now the train items I've already mentioned are large lathe terms like this which have got chip card decoration on the span drills in the corners, and these little star or flower like carvings on the edge all the way round so these become the handles on all 4 corners sadly

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:37.000
in the ground. It is dried out a bit and split, and the Cons Conservatives have filled in those splits.

00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:45.000
There is a modern facsimile here, directly behind, to show you what it would have looked like when brand new, which brings us to this extraordinary thing.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:52.000
And if you read the German label at the bottom of the case there you can see it says Question.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:55.000
Mark. Nobody knows exactly what it is. I personally rather think it looks like the thing on my draining board.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:01.000
The plates go on when they've been washed.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:07.000
I don't know, nor does anybody else. So that's open to to suggestions.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:27.000
We have the conserved lid back on her chest, her linen chest, so there's the lid conserved back in place, and this linen chest a coffer would have contained household linens, as I've said, and was an item of furniture, in its own right because you sat

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:36.000
on it as a bench, so she's actually buried in a piece of furniture with furniture in her grave.

00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:47.000
We have another deep, variable, and this time meaty boys, 4 metre long dugout canoe was rescled as his coffin.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:52.000
He and some of his possessions were laid out inside of it again.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:03.000
It's all been conserved. So this is a worn out 4 meter, long dugout canoe, which was recycled as a coffin, and then had this lid put onto it.

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:26.000
When it was filled with he and his grave goods all again blocklifted and excavated in the laboratory very carefully, and, as you can see, it's got a fairly capacious interior and reach a ridge poll down the top to support this lead in situ in the ground managed to track

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:37.000
down a photograph, showing it during excavation. No, it's a scammed color print, but it shows very clearly the edge of the whole.

00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:47.000
Yeah, those roof timbers laid gently over it, and the depth to which this has been bad with being buried didn't mean to do that.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.000
And back the depths to which it's been buried.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:03.000
I would, in my case, if I was digging this, I'd have safety helmets on people, because that sediment there is the amount of sediment deposited over the ground after this cemetery was abandoned.

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:08.000
This is much peaked soil into which the cemetery was physically cut.

00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:19.000
Now behind this lady excavator, you can see something sticking up, and that's something sticking up, is the spl or the back of this.

00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:30.000
This is what has been described as the throne of the marshes, and it is his chair in that boat going to the afterlife with him.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.000
It is astonishing it is 65 cm tall.

00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:51.000
This is cut from a single piece of oak, and we have all the upholstery sockets around the side here for the presumably leather straps running across it, and a nice big cushion presumably it's mobile.

00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:58.000
It can be moved around, and these appear to be hand holds to physically shifted around as well as to lessen the weight.

00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:13.000
In this rather chunky object, which is wonderfully decorated with panels of chip carving remarkably similar to the decoration, we find on contemporary Saxon metalwork in this country.

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:31.000
We have a trio of arcades on the bottom down here, and a highly decorated seat back, return to in a second so there's the arcading around the front, and all this wonderful chevron decoration chip carved into it, and your eyes ladies and

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:47.000
gentlemen are not deceiving you. That is a painted frame with the black paint has been retained in the water logged round round it, and the frames around the Arcading on the base, as well.

00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:57.000
So these are the sockets, as I say, for the upholstery to run through it and a bit look at the back, and you can see exactly the same thing.

00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:08.000
Black line painted right the way round. All this wonderful swastika, like decoration, which is typical of the pagan Saxon period.

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.000
Now you'll notice I'm not using the word Anglo-saxon.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:20.000
I'm just using the word Saxon, because this is physically Lower Saxony so that's the back of the actual piece of furniture itself.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:26.000
And there it is in all its glory, and you think that that's really it's quite something, isn't it?

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:38.000
Well, the museum's got one better since last year, and they've created a facsimile so we can now see what it would have looked like in its original undamaged state.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:42.000
Perfect, creates a new trend that Ikea, but I can't see it taking off.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.000
But never mind, but that's the sort of thing we're talking about.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:51.000
Absolutely astonishing. And just gonna have a sip of tea.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:00.000
Right. This is my third hour lecturing. I should point out today, okay, so that's the facility. And that's the original.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:11.000
Now we come back to Britain. This is the only evidence we have from Anglo-saxon Britain, anywhere of any form of chair.

00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:18.000
It is a cremation pottery lid from the cremation urn from a big cemetery.

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:23.000
It's Spong Hill, in Norfolk, and, as you see, it is ceramic.

00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:29.000
It's been molded in ceramic, and then fired in a bonfire, not in a kiln.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.000
And we have this rather pensive looking individual, with a pill box hat sitting on what is very clearly a chair, or maybe a throne.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:41.000
Who could say? But this is all the evidence we have in Britain.

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:47.000
We do have evidence for about a dozen bed burials.

00:26:47.000 --> 00:27:02.000
Now these are box beds, every which every one of which has contained a high status early Anglo Saxon female burial, and the only other thing we have is from Prittlewell at South End.

00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:14.000
In Essex we have a collapsible iron zed framed chair or stool, I think will be a better word and those are the only evidence we have in Anglo Saxon, Britain.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:22.000
The furniture of any sort. We go back to Salvador, and to go with our wonderful throne as a marshes.

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:26.000
We have this footstool again. Elegant chip carving.

00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:35.000
We've got a Greek Neander pattern round this top here, and typical Germanic chip carved decoration on the top face of it.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:48.000
This is a mirror, a modern mirror in the museum case underneath it, and you look at in that mirror is a large hunting hound dropping onto the back of a stack.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:13.000
So it's a hunting scene. Even more impressive is the front bar here, with a runic Anglo-saxon inscription clearly cut into it, and when you transliterate that from the Runic alphabet into Latin, in this case we find it has the word on

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:21.000
it, and that's all. You good Latin scholars will know.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:29.000
That means. But still so we have an Anglo-saxon gentleman buried with a footstool.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:47.000
It says, footstool in Latin, and there is a certain amount of evidence that this chap, during his working life was a mercenary soldier, probably in late Roman Britain, because he's got his last wages with him in Roman coins, like Roman Coins.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:29:01.000
And his office's belt, so he would have been familiar with Latin, because, of course, in the Roman army all the orders were given in Latin, as though his lingua franca, sick would, of course, have been Angl Saxon Germanic.

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Isn't that amazing? This is an example of what we called Saxon speaking furniture.

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:16.000
There's one other example from near Stuttgart whether parts of a chat back has been preserved in the deep waterlogged grave, and that, too, has its name on the back of it.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:25.000
But that's only partial. This is complete, as you can see in that, ladies Grave.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:30.000
We could see a circular drum shape object on the right hand side, and this is it, and this we now know not to be a barrel or anything like it.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:40.000
But it's a stool built in the same way as the throne.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.000
With these hand holes in the bottom to move it around.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:51.000
So, if we assume he is, the gentleman is the leader of the society chieftain.

00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Something along those lines then this week guess might be a still belonging to his offspring.

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:02.000
So a prince or princess is still built in the same sort of way.

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:10.000
It and the throne are utterly unique, but we do have a whole number of simple what you might describe.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:17.000
I suppose, is milking stools with simple joinery and well worn seats.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Isn't that what the word for it is that again, in these deep waterlogged graves?

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:39.000
And there's a whole number of these, and their best shows are, suppose really, by this display in the museum of all the facts, similes of these wooden objects and, as you can see, this particular stool on the left has got very nicely laced, and legs as has the

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:49.000
table, of course, in the back, and then we've got that stack of treen wooden platters and bowls, and of draining board thing.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:56.000
Whatever it is, we can see the same thing lock from a different angle.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:03.000
Which also shows us that we have lidded boxes, and these things, which are skittles.

00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:06.000
They are solid blaze, turn wooden pegs, and they're presumably used for some sort of G of skittles.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:29.000
We think, looking at the originals after conservation. Here they are there's our liddy box on the right, and our bowl with its handle, which is, in fact, carved as the head of a duck that's its bill from the underside, there, it's like a bailer

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:44.000
to me, the lidded boxes. We don't know what they contain, because it has long perished, but they're clearly important, and they had something in in the people valued that went to the grave with them like this.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:48.000
Now this is another box, with its little peg holding the lid on.

00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:58.000
Here carved in the form of a duck, as you can very clearly see, but you can also see it's got woodworm these are all woodworm holes in here.

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:06.000
So this was old it might even be described as an heirloom when it went into the grave with whatever the contents were.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.000
So it's old and it's again got this wonderful chip carving all over it.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:29.000
And this wonderful rudder on the back from the back of the duck. And it's good great long bill here now, and this little eye, by the way, up here, and the Curator said to us rather peculiarly, did we think it was a.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:38.000
Pelican, a pelican. Now I know pelicans in the Mediterranean, but I don't know pelicans around the North Sea, so I looked at him rather quizzically, and he seemed quite insistent.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:44.000
That he thought it was a pelican, so a pelican.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:47.000
It is, bless it! So that gives you a bit of an idea.

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:56.000
Why we went to North Western Germany, northeastern Germany, and why we got so terribly excited to go there.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:05.000
This would come up in the archaeological literature, and as I've said, you know, Anglo Saxon furniture in this country is an utter, complete, unknown.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Now we are waiting for the scientific dating on the furniture itself.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:17.000
I was in contact last week with the Academic, the University of South Sweden.

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:26.000
Who's doing it? And she said, I've done the woodwork from the graves, but I haven't done the timber from the actual furniture yet.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Now the principle of dendro chronology is every growing tree, as I'm sure you're well aware, has a bark and a growing ring.

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:37.000
And then the previous growth rings in pairs backwards.

00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:50.000
In time, and a tree lays down a summer thick growth ring, and they winter narrow growth ring because trees are still alive in the winter.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.000
Aren't. And if we start from day, where are we?

00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Day. Now, in this case 2,013, and the climate growth of all trees varies.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:11.000
Summer, winter conditions, back into time. Every year it varies.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:17.000
Oh, wonderful! British weather could never be guaranteed to be whatever on whatever day and was ever season.

00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:30.000
So each of that pair of rings rather like a barcode going back in time, and they are recording the growth conditions and the climate back through time.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:47.000
So if we take that our piece of timber our modern piece was founding, it was growing in in 1924, and we then find an older bit of timber, and we can look at the unique pairs of growth rings, and then tie them up.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:58.000
So we've got a a synchronous chronology across them, and go all the way back with that bit of timber and D so back with an earlier piece of timber, and so on.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:12.000
We can construct a dendrite chronological dating curve in Ireland that curve goes from the present day back to 6,000 Bs.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:24.000
Because we all those lovely Irish, preserved in the pee so we've got a brilliant one in Northern Ireland, and we have regional ones within Britain and in Germany.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Of course, as well, and those samples will come from a living tree today with its bars back into a timber frame building timber, to a frame, from a painting to the waterlogged timber through a lake pile dwelling all the way back into what you might describe this sub

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:48.000
fossil woods, and their roots preserved in the wet peatlands of northwestern Europe.

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:58.000
You've already got to think again of the wood that's preserved in the the bogs of peatlands across Britain and across North Western Europe.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:19.000
We can then plot those against their known felling dates back through time with the old, giving us the statistical significance it has to be long enough to be statistically significant and we can then construct by joining all these things together the treated in chronology way way back into touch so the

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:39.000
academic who is dealing with the timber from the furniture will be taking narrow bores with a hollow drill, bit through the timber, and that under the microscope, measuring in microns the distance and the weights between the rings and then being able hopefully to give

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:46.000
us a set of actual date. This is for one of the German museums, as you can see.

00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:54.000
It, says oak on the top left hand corner and we have a Fing date in this case of 1748, because there is the bark, and then going back through time, counting those pairs of rings.

00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:04.000
They could thin all the way back in time to what it was unacceptable.

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:17.000
Right back there, which gives us an absolute chronology, utterly independent of radiocarbon and any other radiometric dating techniques in this particular.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:23.000
A piece of timber was a pile. Take it out from somewhere in Denmark.

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Flensburg. I think it was from a pile dwelling stuck down into the mud.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:41.000
All this material I've been showing you is in the Museum at Baltimore, Kaser, which is 20 kilometers inland from Bremerhaven.

00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:56.000
No, I'm speaking to you today from my home in Grimsby, and but Emma Harvin is Grimsby's twin town, which is one of the reasons we wanted to go there, and, secondly, it was to see all this amazing furniture.

00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:02.000
This museum is run by the cook's Harvin Municipal Area District Council.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:12.000
If you want and he's an old converted schloss, as you can see with it whole brand new wing here, all filled with that furniture.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:18.000
I've been showing you from velvet, and this is the cafe on the left hand side, and it's licensed.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:25.000
It's got a moat around it. It's got cannon parked around the outside, and it's an absolute sweetie.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:31.000
If you're in Lower Germany, in Low Saxony, that medication is the museum for you.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:32.000
But this also what it cooks haven't. And of course, in Beta Marvin, as well.

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:58.000
So I leave you with our amazing, astonishing, and I would suggest quite a astounding pieces of unique Saxon furniture from the Saxon homeland from which the Saxons, the Frisians, the Angles, all migrated to Britain.

00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:09.000
When they became environmental refugees after their homes and their lands, all disappeared under the rising North Sea.

00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:22.000
So I do hope it catches on Ikea. As I say, and I'm very pleased to have shared this material with you.

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.000
Yup!

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:32.000
I was asked to make sure I stuck to 3 quarters of an hour which I've hopefully done, Fiona, I'm now going to stop sharing and then throw it over to Fiona, who will moderate your questions to me, and I hope I can answer some of them.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:38.000
Great thanks very much, Simon. How amazing all of that is!

00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:39.000
Let's go straight to some questions. We've got quite a few here, so let's crack on.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:42.000
At least, okay, radio.

00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:54.000
Shall we first question? I'm just gonna start from the top.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:55.000
Yeah.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:57.000
Everybody. A question from Miranda. So near the start when you were talking about that first table and the lace and turning of the legs.

00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:00.000
When did they start doing that, I mean, are these kind of early examples of that? Or?

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:10.000
They're early, but they're not the earliest we have lace turning back into the early iron age about 500 BC.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:13.000
We have evidence of lace. Turning.

00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:14.000
Right.

00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:23.000
They're not using chisels. They're using bronze axis, a gang, the turning piece on the lathe.

00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Alright!

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:27.000
Right. That's nice. And another question from Sheila.

00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:38.000
Again that first table. What sort of dimensions is it?

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:39.000
Hmm!

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:58.000
Oh, it's about a meter and a half long, and the legs are 45 centimetres long, so it would sit nicely over a bed in modernness, wouldn't it?

00:40:58.000 --> 00:40:59.000
Hmm!

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:04.000
As a, but the idea of the legs being 3 together and 2 apart is so you can stretch your legs in your feet underneath it from a low slung bench, stool, or seat, so they are dining tables individually personalized, each individual.

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Right. Of course she was also asking about by so many were in the graves. But I think you covered that in the top in terms of Yup.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Each one is a personal possession, and he's going to the afterlife with the individual who owned it.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:20.000
Okay. I hope that answers your question. No one from Sylvia.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:27.000
No, with the students have been painted or gilded. I mean, we saw one of the examples.

00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:38.000
Screen, generally speaking, isn't because the lathe Turner selects modernity today, mostly fruit woods pair, and applewood.

00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:44.000
For the actual decorative growth rings in the timber itself.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:52.000
So no, not generally today. And we don't have any evidence of them having being painted, or indeed gilded.

00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:55.000
So I think it was raw timber, and they would have been.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:07.000
I'm not gonna say to a penny, but clearly, from the number in each grave they were common, whereas pottery is not common at all in any of these graves.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:12.000
So everybody's eating off timber, tree and presumably drinking too.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:21.000
Umhm, okay. Okay. Interesting. Okay? I've got a couple of questions here, one from Maggie and one from Katherine that I'm kind of rolled together.

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:23.000
I think Marie was asking, where would it be?

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:27.000
Where would the nearest woods have been for them to use this furniture?

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:28.000
Uhhuh. That's yeah. Yeah. That's a logical and difficult question to answer.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:30.000
And Castlein is asking, what sort of trees? Yeah.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:48.000
We think that rafts of hardwoods are being felled in the uplands and propelled down the river systems to these coastal communities, where the timber was sold to them.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:04.000
There is clearly no woodland anywhere near. There's plenty of Major rivers all flowing into the North Sea, and we think it's this, harvesting of wood from the uplands which is being brought down the rivers in rafts much like the Canadian Tim the

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:08.000
raft today, going down to the paper bills. It's exactly the same idea.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:11.000
There's no way any timber was available on these lowlands, and there's no way that they could have relied on.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Driftwood, either. So the quality and length of timber would suggest.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:21.000
It had been deliberately imported, probably as floating rafts.

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:28.000
Hmm. Fascinating! Well, there we go. Maggie and Katherine, and oh, that Catherine!

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:30.000
I was asking what sort of trees do you think I mean?

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:35.000
Oh, much of this is oak, European oak!

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.000
And we can under the microscope slide, differentiate all the different species.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000
By the way, no problem at all.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.000
Obviously, hardware. Okay.

00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:43.000
Yeah, okay. And another, couple of people have asked very similar question.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:51.000
And this is the that helpfully had its little label on it.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:56.000
So this from Andrew and from Madeline. Why would they have done that?

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Done, what?

00:43:58.000 --> 00:43:59.000
The name of the item of furniture on it, so not obvious what it is.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:05.000
Oh, the name? Well, yeah, sure. It's a phenomenon.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.000
We only find in the early Anglo-saxon period.

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:22.000
We don't know, is the short answer, except to say, because we know the chap whose brave it was in was a soldier, probably in late Roman Britain, that he would have been bilingual.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:30.000
He would have received his orders in Latin, and given his orders to his troops in a Saxon Germanic language.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:33.000
So he's an intermediary, and I think in his.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:41.000
In this case his furniture was also an intermediary between the life of the living and the life of the dead.

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:47.000
It reminds me a little bit of when I was sent off to boarding school, and inside of my trunk was an inventory of all the things we had to have, and of course your name in cash.

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:50.000
's name. Text was on everything. Wasn't as you were sent off to school.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:55.000
Yeah. Well, knows. So I think this is rather the same idea of labeling up the materials.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:04.000
I guess when you move house you put all your stuff in the boxes, and you label each box to each room and maybe what's in each box, don't you?

00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:13.000
That may be the same sort of idea, I think, in this case, when moving house to Hmm.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Hmm, okay, interesting, hopefully, that answers your question. Question. Andrew and Madeline.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:22.000
Hmm!

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:28.000
No question from Jill, and just one with these items have been high value items in these personal.

00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:39.000
I think not the only high value items we can determine in this settlement are things which would have been expensive, which would have been imported.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:52.000
So it's fine glassware. Fine Roman ceramics, Chinese, German from the East, kilns and metalware that'll work in the form of jewelry, or, in the case of the chap.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:58.000
His big, swanky Roman military belt buckle, which was an insignia of rank.

00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:16.000
So those are the expensive things. But let me ask you a question back when you bury whoever one to a funeral recently, did you bury Uncle Fred in his savile row suit or his demo suit?

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Did you put his best teeth in or is everyday teeth in?

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:25.000
Did you leave the rolex on his wrist or did you put the time X.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:37.000
On his wrist. Sometimes what we see in funerals are for the benefit of the participants, not of the recipient.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:38.000
Yeah.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:43.000
If you see what I mean. So I suspect a lot of this was very low value stuff, and it was an everyday items, because things like pots and pans you can use and keep going.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:48.000
Can't you, generation after generation? So I think they are personal items of relatively low value.

00:46:48.000 --> 00:47:00.000
It's the short answer to that, but all depends on the person organising the funeral, doesn't it?

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.000
As to what goes in the grave and what doesn't.

00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:07.000
It does. Okay? Right? Let's move on and question from Sue.

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:12.000
This is quite an interesting one. This is in connection with the dental chronology that you were talking about.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:13.000
Oh yes!

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:20.000
She's saying where she lives now has half the rainfall of where she was born.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:21.000
Of course.

00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:22.000
All within the Uk. Does that affect the tree?

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000
Chronology.

00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:38.000
Definitely, absolutely, definitely. Yes, we can very clearly see in the trick tree, ring chronology, drought, years and very wet years, because trees love very wet years because they put lots of growth on, because they're roots of a lot of water.

00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:45.000
And we have very narrow growth rings in drought years, even if it's sun shining like mad like last summer.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:48:06.000
The tree will react, and we'll see those things very much, very immediately in the ring sequence definitely and that what's that's those big variations or what allows us to match up pieces of timber from different periods to give us that overlap to give us that accurate dating all

00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:07.000
the way back through time. We love things like drought, sequences.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:13.000
Yes, because they stand out immediately. They're very, very, very obvious.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Hmm. Okay. There you go, sir.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:20.000
So it's it's a little called of paulio climatology as well sorry.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Right? Okay, from Miranda. The mystery piece of woods. You know that.

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:28.000
Hi!

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:33.000
We looked at quite near the start. Did that have been something like a calendar or something like that?

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:38.000
It could certainly be. I can see fresh fish, carcasses being scraped on it.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:47.000
To take this the skin off, for instance, with an abrasive stone, or something like that, so I can see that being look, I'm not a great cook.

00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:57.000
I don't have lots of kitchen utensils, but I bound to those who have, but I suspect it had a very specialized usage, and I think the preparation of fish carcasses might be a very good possibility.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.000
Yes, I'm being very flippant while I talk about washing up.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:03.000
I'm a bloke. I know nothing about it.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:13.000
Okay. And okay. Now, let's have a look.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:14.000
Oh yes!

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:16.000
Clear, is asking if you could spell the name of the museum, but could you spell that for everybody?

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:17.000
Hi!

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:25.000
And just for the information, everybody will try and post up a little bit of supporting information and the wording when it goes up on the website.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:26.000
That we'll have all this on it to.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:28.000
Yeah, for sure. Right? I know to need to put my spectacles on cause.

00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:34.000
I have spelt it out here somewhere in my notes. So it is.

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:51.000
2 2 words bid and then, and which is obviously b, e, d, a, r k e s, a.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:55.000
And on the tourist signs it could actually be burg as well as bad.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:00.000
By the way, Borg, better Caseer, and it's a little castle.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000
So you do have European standard brown tourist signs pointing to it.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:05.000
Okay.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:12.000
And he's 20 kilometers east of Bramerhaven, and we managed to get there on public transport on the buses, which is great.

00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Okay, there, you go, and clear, and, as I say, we'll try and post up some of that information.

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:20.000
For sure, good.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.000
Beside the recording as well. Interesting question from John, what happens to the sites?

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:25.000
I mean, you showed us what that site had been excavated.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:26.000
Quite amazing. And what happens to the sites once the work is, the work has been completed.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:43.000
Okay, yeah, this, right? Well, this is sure. Once the work has been completed, you've let the air in, which means that decay is inevitable, which is why what you excavators got to be conserved.

00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:51.000
However, it is physically and financially, absolutely impossible to dig all of those sites I showed you on those dots on the map.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:59.000
So I'm afraid some of them will gradually become waterlogged and inundated, and will be lost.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:08.000
Simple as so survey work within field archaeology is incredibly important to find out what we need got.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:16.000
And these excavations, again, are reasonably expensive things. I don't work for nothing and all of my colleagues.

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:35.000
So they are somepling the archaeological record of what there is, and just by random you're sampling the available resource and seeing what there is, what we can tell from it and what we can learn from it, whereas the others will remain unexcavated sadly and eventually meet them you know

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.000
make the face of all sites. They'll be washed away by the sea.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:40.000
But the point is.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:43.000
So the site that we looked at will that eventually get filled back in?

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Then it has been Hmm!

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:49.000
That has been filled in now. Yes. Oh, yeah, the cattle in the field kept falling in the hole.

00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:50.000
No!

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:05.000
Never a good move. This is Lush grassland, and it's prime grazing land for cattle when we were there with, for fields and fields of very happy, rich, fat cattle, all grazing one with lovely long march, grass, so it's a huge valuable resource I

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:23.000
could culturally today. But I just asked you to thank about the whole area of inundation I showed you on the bath of Britain, and the most productive agricultural area is the fan from Lincolnshire right the way down to Cambridgeshire, and that will all Go

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:33.000
underwater if you're the Minister of Agriculture and Fishery, you might want to be thinking about moving your arms to somewhere else.

00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:34.000
Okay.

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:35.000
In the longer term. But yeah, that's what happens.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:45.000
And we are honor bound in archaeology if we excavate something, and it's delicate and requires conservation treatment to give it that treatment.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:50.000
We do not like to say decay setting in, because we've excavated an object, whether it's pottery or metal, or wood or leather, or whatever.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:53:05.000
So there is a an imperative on us to make sure the funding is in place for access to conservation laboratories as well as dating laboratories.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:15.000
For Dendro chronology, and so on. We do not do these things lightly, so all of this is relatively expensive in terms of money and input of people.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Hours and expertise. It doesn't stop with the excavation it carries on with the continuous research and the publication of all that material.

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:36.000
And the reason I can't give you those dendr chronological dates yet is because the report has not yet been completed and submitted to the sponsors.

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:41.000
So it's still subject to embargo, as you might say.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:42.000
Yeah.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:59.000
But watch this space, and in the future we will have lots of lovely Dendro dates to give us a firm chronology, and tell us which objects in the grave were antiques or heirlooms, and which were in everyday life and use and went with the owner and that will

00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:00.000
give us that information critically. Hmm!

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:08.000
Fabulous. Okay? A question from Liz and Peter, and forgive me if we did cover this a little bit and talk.

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Obviously, you know, the spurn survive because it was waterlogged.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Right, sure.

00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:20.000
Why, we have other sites. Where? What's for? Logged?

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:26.000
It doesn't necessarily.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:27.000
One.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:30.000
Most waterlog sites preserve organics incredibly well, and the reason for that is a the exclusion of oxygen.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:50.000
Oxygen? Is the gas necessary for all decay processes, whether it's a Ford escort or whether it's a piece of wet wood or leather, and those are all predicated upon fungi in the soil, and micro organisms, if you exclude air then they can't

00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:01.000
live simple as that. So by excluding oxygen, by replacing it with water, logging to processes of decay, are seriously arrested.

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:04.000
Hmm, okay, interesting. That's something I didn't know.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:21.000
If well, put it this way, Fee, if we didn't have soil, bacteria, we would be several metres deep in this country in all the vegetation which haven't rotted down per square meter over the whole country.

00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:26.000
So this is vital for the health of your soil in your gardens, and so on.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Is that organic material is recycled into the soil, and it's the bacteria and the fungi that do that.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:43.000
Okay, right? I've got a couple more questions, and then I think we'll wrap up folks.

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Hmm!

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:47.000
Madeline's asking. We are looking at the long houses that have been excavated at start.

00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:48.000
Alright!

00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:49.000
How many people would have lived in one of those 2 things!

00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:04.000
We think there are extended family groups, possibly of up to 3 generations under one roof, with the store cattle at the other end of the building, and they are the central heating system.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:18.000
You may have smelled a bit wiffy, but if you live in a cow shed, but the cattle do produce all that lovely warmth, and if push comes to show you can dry out the dung, of course, and use that as a fuel on your fires as well, if you

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:22.000
run out of dried seaweed from the strand.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:23.000
And I think they were.

00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:25.000
To some of the ancient dwellings up here in Scotland.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:27.000
Of course. Yeah. Black houses that sort of thing. Yes, absolutely.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:31.000
Like this exactly. That was the word I was looking for. Okay.

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:38.000
And a question from Norman is asking about the source of your dental chronology diagrams.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:41.000
Now, what we can probably do is provide that afterwards.

00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:49.000
I fish through the end. I look, I did a Google Dentro chronology and found the clearest diagrams I could.

00:56:49.000 --> 00:56:53.000
That explained what it is and how it works.

00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:54.000
Right? Okay.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:56.000
So quite simply, just Google, dental chronology, and then press images and see what comes up.

00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:03.000
And you'll find those images there, and others too.

00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:08.000
Perfect. There you go. Norman. Right? Okay, I think we've covered all the questions in fact, I think there was one more.

00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:09.000
Great. Hey? Okay.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Actually, I think it was one more. It's coming back to this idea of everybody having their own table.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:16.000
Yeah.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:21.000
Seems strange, everybody having their own table rather than sitting eating as a family.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:22.000
Hmm!

00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:24.000
Right. Yes, the family that each together stays together. Of course.

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:25.000
Huh!

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:43.000
However, if you're living in a great longhouse like that, cleanliness, not the best thing, perhaps, in the Saxon world, means that if you're eating off your own table, then you're dropping your own food and spittle, and whatever onto your own table, and not

00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:54.000
cross-contaminating anybody else. So I think it's about hygiene, or maybe the lack of it, and keeping each meal isolated to its consumer.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Hmm!

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:58.000
Just think of the Henry Viii. You know, in those films with chicken bones being whack, left, right and center.

00:57:58.000 --> 00:58:16.000
Well imagine being on the receiving end of them. So, having your own table means, you're in control of your own eating experience, and you could leave the pips on the side or the bones, or whatever, without everybody shouting at you.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:20.000
Oh, well, there we go, I think this so there you go!

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:21.000
Hmm! It is an idea.

00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:26.000
And interesting idea. Okay, let, okay, I think that is us.

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:36.000
Now that was absolutely brilliant. Simon and it's just so astounding how these pieces have been preserved for these hundreds of years.

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:37.000
Yeah. Yes.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:39.000
It really is. I hope everyone enjoyed that, and found that informative.
 

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:16.000
Thank you very much. Welcome, everybody. I am pleased to be here with my fellow members of the Association who have got some interest, I hope, in in exploring some of these ideas that have been.

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:29.000
I've been thinking about for some time as a part of my work in women's education, and I hope we do get some questions at the end.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000
What I say, so I'm like, spark some curiosity, or even some controversy.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:45.000
You never know. So I'm I'm I'm going to introduce lots of ideas to you. But so, and I hope that you know you will challenge me.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:01:01.000
All ask me questions at the end, and you know quite sure wasn't yours. It is a story I'm going to tell you a story, and, like all good stories, let me just I'm gonna go. Stop! I have got some slides to show you so I'll just get the first slide up

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:06.000
so I know where I'm I'm going with it all right.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.000
So, yeah, welcome to some of my ideas. And it is a story.

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:14.000
It's a story, and I hope you can.

00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:18.000
You see that I put that all right? It's a story of the psychological story of womankind as a very grand title, isn't it?

00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:29.000
But, as far as it goes, as much as we can get done in the time, I will.

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:38.000
I'll try and show you what's going on, and I called it her story because it's trying to point out various ways in which, when women begin to tell their stories from their point of view.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:02:06.000
Things can change. I'll just go send them as storytelling is normally in 3 parts, I there will be a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I will tell you a little bit more about what I think her story has contributed to our understanding of womankind, and then move on to

00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:22.000
the psychology. Part of it, I suppose the the ideas about patriarchy and folk psychology and the impact that has had on women's lives, and the way we think about ourselves, our stories, our individual life stories.

00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000
But I have got a positive ending, a happy ending.

00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:30.000
I hope that we can make changes for women through education.

00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:49.000
I would say that, wouldn't I? But I do. I do think that we don't need to be totally pessimistic about how change can come about, so I do have a little prologue, though it's good with a have a prologue isn't it I will be using the f word.

00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:59.000
I hope that doesn't offend anybody. Feminism is often understood in lots of different ways, but you'll see I don't need to spell it out.

00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:12.000
I think it might come across that I I speak from a feminist perspective about all of this, and take that as take that as red, and I will also be saying the dreaded p word patriarchy again, much on misunderstood. I think.

00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000
But I hope to say some a little bit about that, and she show you how we might address.

00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:25.000
I issues and ideas and the impact of patriarchy on women's lives, and certainly on our psychology.

00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.000
And you know there will be times for questions at the end.

00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:45.000
So we'll catch up then. So to begin at the beginning as we should, I, when I first started thinking about this, I thought how many ways can I write down a list of all the ways in which we hear stories all our lives?

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:55.000
And I, and I love this everything, everywhere and always, and most of the ways they're written, how they're written, who's directing them at us?

00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.000
I'm talking as women also as women, and well, and men too.

00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:22.000
They're told from a particular perspective. And mostly the people that have got who get to say, though all the stories in all the forms, probably until women started writing novels and getting them published, even if under a pseudonym, we saw the world through the writings

00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:29.000
and ramblings, and whatever of men, and you might as well, that's they're telling the truth that're telling us truth about ourselves, and they're perfectly capable of doing it.

00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:44.000
But this idea that we're listening to those voices predominantly affects this inner voice that we have of ourselves.

00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:48.000
So we we are telling our life story as we grow and change.

00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:55.000
And so on, we're building up an understanding of the world, and it's through that lens so it's a double whammy.

00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:01.000
Really, we're getting the commentaries to all of us about the world, how we should live, and so on.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:11.000
But also individually, we're building an understanding through that way of looking at the world which I hope we might address or make sense of it all.

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So that's the that's the beginning, the beginning of the beginning.

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I have labeled this per story. That's my title.

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So here we go, and I'm I was very struck with the idea that in in last 10 years or so there have been a plethora of women writing writing books that in translation from around the world, from all aspects of life, different I mean so many different books, and so many different voices, of

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women accessible to us, and reading groups and beginnings of films were being and and programs and TV programs produced by women.

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And it struck me, yes, this is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

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What a what a good change has come about eventually. Women, you know, we can hear their voice in all its forms but a little naggling, niggling voice said to me, But who's listening?

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Is it just the women listening? What are we making of it?

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Here's an understanding ourselves, and so on, and lurking in my mind is this this song the Oxford girl?

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Some of your folks singers who will know this, and and I love this, that the kind of approach of this poor girl I never had a chance to prove them wrong.

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My time was short, story long now I never had a chance to prove them wrong.

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It's always them that write the song, and you might say, well, with all the writings of women now, and the things happening, change is happening to women.

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So all kinds of agencies. Me, too, you you name it.

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We know we're we're on the move, and young feminists say to me, Well, we're getting equality now.

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It's it's nearly done, you know. Here we are, and I'm old enough to think maybe not.

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Maybe not, because it's still same people writing most of the songs, most of the words.

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And maybe our words are not, you know, making a difference yet.

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Maybe not, you know, making a difference yet. Maybe if I don't want to be white so pessimistic.

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So the next aspect of her story of my getting over my, you know idea.

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It's all them that writes the song, and we never get a chance to prove them wrong.

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This is the big, really, are we proving them wrong with our I'll go at her stories.

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Telling our view of things that were talked about in other ways by man.

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In other histories, but we get a chance to add, in what it seemed like to us and it our experiences from our point of view.

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I mean, it's great. It's in there.

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It's out there, but is. There are also ways in which we think we're still very invisible.

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And maybe our songs are. Our words are not yet making too much of an impact.

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So we have to recognize that it's not denying it.

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But the but the other aspect of this is, we tend to think that they were talking about.

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You know the invisible women, the hidden from history, women.

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Well, yes, brilliant to recognize those, but we will.

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We want a story about all kinds of women, all kinds of women are doing amazing things and contributing to society.

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So this does that kind of you know. Emphasis on special, you know.

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Exceptional, of people, and it still isn't getting it, you know.

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What's the fundamental story about ourselves as men and women and as a society that still holds swe and as a psychologist I am aware that that story still holds okay.

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I'm not gonna do all slides, but I'm I just want to while I'm on the her story bit and I just want to. And I do say I'm just saying this, if any of you have been aware I'm sure some of you have read or know of the work of Caroline

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Crado prayers and her book book, Invisible Women, and I was struck by her latest writing Newsletter about them.

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It's called this sex, disaggregating adverse events.

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Now, that's really research into the effects of drugs and medicines on women, mostly effects of drugs on people are on men, people, not women, people.

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And it's taken a long to. And so one of the ways in which her story and invisibility has a direct and real impact on our lives, if you like.

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Is that they don't even investigating about us, let alone talking about us or including us.

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In this notion people. So that was just one example she had about that.

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But the second example that she gave this month also suddenly struck me as being another way in which we're not paying attention to the kinds of society.

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The order of society, and I'm not going to call it all patriarchy, but the way we organize society.

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And this was an example of ice, written roads, and and mostly the roads were gritted from A to B, from home to the places where men go to work.

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When really it was much more cost effective in terms of lives and hospitalizations, of people falling over if they gritted the places.

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When women went from home to the nursery, to the shop, to their place of work, or that them, and so on.

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These were 2 routes that needed to be paid attention to much more cost-effective saving lives.

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But it's the prioritizing, I suppose, and so on. These were different routes that needed to be paid attention to much more cost-effective saving lives but it's a prioritizing, I suppose, and so there's a this other hidden.

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This is another hidden history. It's another hidden history that her story, Caroline, doing her bit to sort of shout out What's what's not being spoken about, what's not being done, and it's and it's not because they don't mean, it or want to be difficult

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it just that we'll get round to it. We'll just get round to it one day.

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No sorting out things like women's lives or women's health and well-being.

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And although you might say, Well, we're catching up.

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Well, yes, and I say, if you take nothing else from this lecture, maybe it was just really really think about how we, how we shout louder.

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So I'm I'm it is. There is time.

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Yeah, there, there is need for us to pay attention to those stories and the ways and the actions that are being taken us.

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So I see that as all part of the campaign for her story is to make us visible, and to make prioritizing the kinds of areas and matters that concern us as well, not just as telling the stories of women, it goes beyond that is what it's more important really say that I love reading not from

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sports. Okay, so I'll do one more slide to show you that we're moving on.

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That was my opening cell phone. In a way, for her story, and I'm thinking, well, okay, that's that's the out in the world.

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Bit. What about the psychology? What about this, though? All those ways of talking about men and women actions taken in in our society to look after us or not?

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What about the way in which we, as individuals see our lives, see our life story?

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How do we develop it? How do we make things of it?

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Which is what we're doing all the time, and we have stories that explain.

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Oh, sorry we have stories. We have stories that explain women.

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And so we picked that up because we've heard these explanations.

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As for why, we are the way we are, and this is called folk psychology.

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And but it is through this lens and psychology is also to blame, because for the most part for many, many decades, it was men researching man.

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Basically and the shock that I had when I first became a student many, many decades ago, was, I had the textbook.

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I was very key to read it, and I found there was a chapter called Women's Psychology, a chapter, and the other chapter next to it was called Abnormal Psychology.

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I'm not like, well, who's normal? How do you have a chapter on Abnormality and a chapter on Women?

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I thought we were. I thought we were included in people in the rest of the textbook, but apparently not, and that was my first inkling that somehow psychology was also perpetuating the stories about who we are.

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What we are, what makes us tick, and all those ideas so.

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And I look carefully at the assumptions that are being made.

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The institutions that are educating us with these. Some of these ideas about us, when we are reading about these who think well, are they?

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Are they including us? And it? What goes all the way through to our workplaces, and so on.

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And I will come back to this. This is my area of psychology that I've studied most is our sense of self an identity.

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And the impact that has, how do we? And this is our well-being, our mental well-being?

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But you know, that's in the next bit of story I got one more slide, and then I'll go just me talking, cause these, if I I show it to you.

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As I say, the stories that we get the assumption forget the ideas we get about what makes us who we are and different from them.

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The story, you know men first will find out that them first, and then we'll get round to you later.

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And and of course, when women came into psychology in the Eightys, it did make a huge difference, because we set off to look for women in the place.

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As you find women in the home, in nurseries, looking after children in the workplace.

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But different kind of workplaces than the men. But and then started looking and asking questions and talking to them, and trying to get an understanding of women's work.

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When his lives, what affected them? And we have some very sad, and I'll ask.

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It is the big biological story, even, you know, at the times when women were struggling with life, and they may go to the doctor, I think, in the Seventys the the prescriptions of diocese pan to women that came to the doctor with difficulty were prescribed something that

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made life seem seem better without actually addressing the very things that were affecting their lives.

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In other words, we don't need pills. We don't need a biological answer.

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We want a social answer. We want action taken to address, you know, which which came about with shore start and nursery schools, and so on.

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And women's education. That's where I come in with joining the Wa.

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At a very small branch in Milton, Mowbray, and we decided that we would have something about our bodies ourselves.

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We would learn about that with some brilliant tutors, and we started programs for women in the daytime, arranging the crash and so on.

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And and and it was an eye-opener for many of the Wa.

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Of the old stalwarts that women should want to learn about these things.

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Well, our idea about learning about these things was that we wanted to know as much about ourselves and the world economics, politics, history, proper history, history that included women.

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We wanted to know that as much as the men wanted to know that, so that we could actually participate and join in and form groups, or whatever we did in those days, but lying behind it.

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And it hasn't gone away in all these years.

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It's still there. It's still the folk psychology, if you like.

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It's about biology that you fix things with a pill.

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You fix things by, you know, recognizing acknowledge it, that we are different, and look for differences, measure differences all the way down.

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You name it. Psychologists have measured it and decided you're either one or the other extra introvert abnormal, normal.

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What able or disabled, you know. Really stark kind of labels and categorizing that were given to people, and still are, of course, and and and some people are not something they're diss or non.

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But the big one, male female. Again. Doesn't it look lovely?

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It's a nice, even category. You're either male or female, to be male is not the equivalent category to be female?

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If you live in a society where male assumptions about males, psychology is is dominant, and and women's psychology as well.

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You know, they're just different, and we'll get round to finding out about those when we when we get round to it.

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And sitting behind it, and again, I'm glad to say the oh, the evidence for brains being different has now actually been I mean, thank goodness, we have neuroscience.

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We have brilliant neuroscience now, that shows that our brains develop differently because we grow up differently.

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Our brains do not start out the same. So it's it's they're flexible.

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They're plastic, they're plasticity allows all these differences to show up and develop.

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But we don't start off so it it get, you know. There we go.

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Let's let's not assume that we're different because of our brains.

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It's not if our lives are different. If we don't have equality, if we don't do all those things, it's not because we're incapable of.

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And the one thing that I really want to kind of dispel is when I hear something we're just as good as the men.

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What? Why don't we just say, what are the men?

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Not as good as the women at, but it is still a binary. It's still marking people out labeling people and saying, You're either one of the other instead of actually coming to this conclusion that there is diversity.

00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:10.000
There's huge diversity across both sexes and we don't need to be marked.

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We don't need to be marked out in different ways, and we can have labels, and names, and we can have labels and names.

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And obviously. But this, and again an idea that ought to be, you know, I suppose, put out to the world, is of all the things that psychologists have measured, that trying to look at.

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I'll actually stop screen sharing that. I've tried to look at different and an obsession with difference in measuring it.

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The conclusion drawn, if you're trying to find differences particularly with between men and women.

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But it is between old and young, black and white, or whatever is the one conclusion is, there is more variation within any group.

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Than there is between groups. Now, that's a kind of strange statistical thing, isn't it?

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:04.000
Think, how can that be? Well, take any group, measure them on anything?

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:12.000
They will vary, I mean, if you if you go, and if you wanna, you know good at knitting a good at sport, and then you only test them on sport knitting.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:15.000
You'd find an awful lot. Very good people in those groups.

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That's not what I mean, I mean for any group.

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If you look at another psychological measure, you will find variation and part.

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That is, you know, the myth of that and the they, the perpetuation of those ideas, have got in the way of women's development.

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For sure, because that we internalize it. We women take it on board, and it's very hard then, to see yourself in any other way.

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You can say, yes, we want equality. But actually no, we want liberation from ideas.

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We want liberation from some of those ideas that that kind of keep people thinking.

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Well, there's no point, cause I'm different.

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You know we can't do that. We've got different brains.

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Well, you know our brains have become different because of the way we're raised, and so on.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:21.000
So it's the end of nature. Nurture end of nature, nurture it, and in its place we have to put ideas about how individually we, we gain age, and some of the stories we hear and what we don't hear that dispels our agency and takes it away from

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.000
us because we're not meant to be doing that or being like that.

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And then there's the other one collectively. Women. Work collectionly, because that's the best way we found of actually making a difference in society.

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:38.000
But but it also means that we're engaging in ways that that teachers, things and enable us actually to do anything.

00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:46.000
But you know, whatever we want to do we could do if we join together.

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It's an old idea, isn't it? But but nevertheless, you know, I think it's it's worth, you know.

00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:07.000
It's worth keeping saying it, anyway. So that's that's my my middle bit really is to say, if we want another story per story, we we want a story about a proper story about biology.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:08.000
A proper story about nurture. If you like. How do we raise children?

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:15.000
What is the states of schooling? What are the ideas that are fed into you know what's appropriate for them to be studying?

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:26.000
One example actually, that came. That was a student, so told me recently that she, when she first started work she was.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:33.000
She was a mathematician, and I think an engineer.

00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:56.000
Very rare, no state. But issue went into computing, and it was all women doing the computing, not with computers, computing, working out the code, working out all the formula, doing the maths, doing the engineering, making the machines right, went off and a break had some kids came back to work, and found she was

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:06.000
the only woman working in computing and the decline of women students going in to universities, taking computing has just kept on declining.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:11.000
Now it should be a very good example for everyone.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:20.000
That course computing is for women. And but what has happened is another social change, a social understanding of what's appropriate work and the girls are picking it up and not taking it up for their career as with other science subjects.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:28.000
I mean it, which should be shocking. It should be outrageous, and all the work is put in to increase.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:35.000
Girls to take it up, but they haven't changed the story.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:44.000
They haven't addressed the story and said the real story underlying it is that people still believe there's a difference between men and women in their capabilities.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:45.000
Okay, we vary. Some are going to be good at computing and not.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:46.000
That's not the point, but it's across both.

00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:56.000
Genders, and so, you know, the girls might be encouraged if only we could just dispel that story.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:07.000
So, we're bearing that in mind. Folks, let's see what the next thing is we do have to talk about the big P.

00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:08.000
But but I'm gonna take a perhaps a some of you before.

00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:16.000
Good old feminist of my era would say, well, the definition of a feminist is that we're working towards changing the patriarchy.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.000
Yeah, yes, right on. That's what we're doing.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:35.000
But I think one of the things that I've I've learned over the years is that we really need to kind of keep looking at this idea of even the story about patriarchy can get can lose its meaning.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:53.000
And this is a quote from Angela Seney, who's got a new book out, called The Patriarchs, and again very highly recommended, and she says Patriot has lost some of its meaning through over use, but it affects us in various ways, in different places, but not everywhere and not always and most

00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:00.000
importantly, not necessarily. That might come hard to some of us hardline feminists not necessarily well.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.000
We have to believe, not necessarily. If we're going to bring about any change, and I find that you know quite encouraging.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Well, let's say not necessarily. Why, why, you know, it can change, and and also the idea of relation.

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:17.000
You know, it's a, it's relationships, beliefs and values. Right?

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:31.000
And that's what we call a male orientated management of the world society and all the heads of everything, and women struggling to do what always gave me the Hebbies.

00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:33.000
When I first heard it, said, breaking glass ceilings.

00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:38.000
Very dangerous thing to do. Showers of glass coming down. I won't use that myself.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:44.000
I do see, is much more of, you know, struggling over and climbing over things and destroying barriers.

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:50.000
That's a much better metaphor. But but these stories of natural difference still getting the way, and it's still there that there gender in inequality is still seen as natural.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:26:09.000
And and so back to the big biology problem. But patriarchy can be changed if we change the story about why it is that men are there in these positions of power and so on.

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:24.000
And, you know, diminishing these, these old ideas of feminine attributes being sort of lesser or less important or less serious than the qualities that men can claim to have.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:26.000
And it is a privilege to claim those things and to walk up through the world in a different kind of way on unlabeled.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Go back to that labeling on March. Women are always marked and marked by something.

00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:42.000
You cannot be just a person. You, miss, Miss Miss Miss Misses. Men are just mister.

00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:48.000
They're just blokes right, and there's so many ways in which we, you know, it's just subtle ways.

00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.000
And you know we could do with it and the other big thing, though, that I will say.

00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:01.000
And this this is again. I'm a hardline feminist, but I will say most men are disturbed by the hatred and fear of women.

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:11.000
I think they are, and male violence. Of course they are, because men get hurt by men as well, and and they don't like the men who perpetuate that they don't.

00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:30.000
But I it's sort of this is a clarion call to the men to also see the story has to change, and and in order to help them as well help us dismantle the the kind of top heaviness of masculinity that's a really affects them, and affects the women

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:36.000
and the women in their lives, and so on. And also this, oh, really bad idea of nature or institutions, who, they say, is institutional racism.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:49.000
That's people as folks doing it. They've got the story, and they believe it, and they're acting upon it, and nobody stop them.

00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:51.000
And you can't just say it. Too few bad apples.

00:27:51.000 --> 00:28:01.000
So again, you know. I this is, let's let's look again at this idea of what we can do and what the patriarchy is.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000
So I'm suggesting that it is about these stories, right?

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:11.000
So this is, this is moving on. We could we could say, Well, how can we shift that?

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:23.000
The biology, part of it, and and this lens of patriarchy that we all can look through, because all the newspapers, all the stuff, most of the stories, and we need the men to read the women's stories and see make more films and I I went wonderful films.

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:39.000
And go back to her story again. What I meant to mention this before wonderful film so go back to her story again. What I meant to mention this before. Wonderful film that's just come out called women talking and went with some of women.

00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Friends and fantastic, but we really enjoyed it, sat talking a bit at the end, and the man came in who is clearing out this sort of cinema, you know the way they do, and and we said, my friend said, Well, you know, it's a brilliant

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.000
film, and when you you have you seen it yet?

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:08.000
The look on that man's face was. If I could have captured it, I could haveve shown you, and that's the reaction, like what swimming's film I mean, really shocked like, what do you mean? See?

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:14.000
It. Go to it, you know, and it was just that that reaction.

00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:20.000
This is a women's film. I'm just clearing up here, and and I think that's that's part of the problem.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:23.000
So who's going to go and see that are mostly women?

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:27.000
And the good thing about that talk about changing the story was a very good example of how women negotiate and talk, and look very good at that.

00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:36.000
People get very good at that. Women get very good at empathy.

00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:42.000
Get very good at all those organizing things, arranging to flee them in, or whatever, because if you're in a lesser position that's what you do.

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:47.000
You have to be able to manage all the other rules and regulations that seem to be limiting you.

00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:55.000
You find ways of doing it. So it's very good film for that as well.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:08.000
But it's but to go back to whether we need to have patriarchy, and there are many women societies, matrilinear, maturally local society societies.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:14.000
It is, it is false that you know the dominance thing is a paid is patriarchal a race of arranging things.

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.000
We should be more aware of how it's possible to change things.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:26.000
And and the other idea, too, is it's it's it's not something we they do.

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:29.000
It's a patriarch isn't done to us as women.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:32.000
It is the system, and we perpetuated not in a bad way. You know.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000
It's because the story we perpetuated because we fall into it.

00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:41.000
We fall in line with it, and we feel there's nothing we can do to change it except say, let's make us equal.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:43.000
Well, actually, no, we don't want equality. We want liberation from it, and and and it's you know, it's not.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:47.000
It's not, it's not they. It's it's all of us right. It's not just.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Men in charge it. We all contribute to it in some way, and by into the story, and then we buy into our own stories about what you can't do and choice of a levels, and how you're meant to dress and live, and so on.

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:13.000
So change the folks. Psychology. This is this is what we're the message that we're we're, gonna you know.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:26.000
Try to kind of put across, really, and that the and this notion of diversity, not difference, not contrasting this with that, and and really believe that this is spelling, there.

00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:31.000
Other systems are available. And until we can persuade ourselves and encourage the feminist amongst us that this is what we're really working towards.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.000
But the patriarchy is not Ver patriarchy one great thing, it's multiple different areas.

00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:44.000
We could work in, and I suppose that's where I am.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:47.000
I believe it's a chance. There's a chance.

00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:51.000
I'm an optimist. We can. We can change things.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:32:03.000
So I'll just go to the next the next slide, and I just want I'll just screen share again so that I can have a look at.

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:10.000
I hope I hope you like this is somebody said to me, Oh, my goodness, you're still using that wonderful cartoon!

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:11.000
By Jackie Fleming, and I said, Well, I'll go and using it while there's a need to use it.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:20.000
If you know the work of Jackie Famine's cartoons. She's got several.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:30.000
She has this character, this youth and and the the heroine is this this girl who is wearing a frock and a bow and a hair?

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:37.000
But she's she is always in disguise, and he says you don't look like a feminist, and she says, Watch out!

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:43.000
We disguise ourselves as human beings. I'm I'm gonna put that forward as a you know.

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:50.000
Thought for the day really hold on to that idea that probably we're all in disguise in some way. We're not.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.000
We're not one thing we have to shape up. We've played different roles.

00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:58.000
We fulfill them in different ways, and we change throughout life.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:01.000
If we can get the idea, we're not fixed at birth.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:02.000
We're continually changing as things change.

00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:10.000
So that's always a possibility of changing in other directions.

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.000
And I think the strong, the story, our life story, what we're telling us often we are.

00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:20.000
We are in disguise. That's why I say we are marked in some way we have to identify it.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:22.000
Identify. So are you, miss missus, or miss? Are you?

00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:23.000
You know, it's like it's it's always a challenge or even the way you dress, or what you do.

00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:29.000
It's kind of you're that type of person you're that kind of woman, and and in a way we shouldn't have to explain ourselves.

00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:43.000
We just say, I mean skies. You don't know the true me down the road, or when I'm gonnaing, I'm a completely different person, and we've learned to be different. People.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.000
And then have to do to course. But there is a greater need for women to keep in disguise for their own safety, for the claims they want to make about their lives yes, I do want to be an engineer.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:00.000
Please what you do, have to then create something that is believable and sunny.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.000
Say, oh, really want to be an engineer? Okay, you really want to be an engineer.

00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:09.000
Okay, you really want to be an engineer, and we learn that way of guising, presenting ourselves on performing something and and and if only we could then do something about the story as well.

00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:25.000
I think that's you know. The next thing that leads on to what would be my my end point.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:33.000
But I'm I want to pause here before I finish and call it an epilogue.

00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:45.000
What is it? The end? I'm gonna say, girl power is a Miss and that's all very strange kind of spice girls girlpower.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.000
Okay. You know, if somebody could say, you're fulfilling you're playing the role in the story.

00:34:49.000 --> 00:35:00.000
Why doing that? It's like, you know, this is this is not the way I think, but you know we're all playing some part in some story.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:06.000
But some princes have forgotten, you know, if you're the second born in the, in the myths of the fairy tales.

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:13.000
Come on. And actually you could it us middle people also, you know, we know our place in the stories, and there is a myth about.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Girl power, and I think it was. It was. It was an idea that said, Come on, girls will let you show you know you can, but you could do anything you like now.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:28.000
No, we all knew that. You can't do anything you like.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:32.000
It was always going to be in the formula in the guys that is acceptable and and allowed.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:40.000
And there's still, you know, I still find some women will come to class saying, Well, I'm not allowed that, and if you turn it around, said, Who's forbidding you?

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:46.000
They don't know what the forbidding is coming from, and I say the forbidding is coming from yourself.

00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:49.000
If you're not allowed, you need to say well, you know I'm a grown person.

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:53.000
I can make my own decision. There's nobody telling me what to do.

00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:56.000
And yet you know the whole. All of that time. When we were told there was goal power, and women were still being treated in the same way.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:05.000
There wasn't equality. There wasn't equal pay, though, wasn't it?

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Nothing had changed, nothing had changed. In fact, we were going backwards in many ways, in many areas of women's lives, like not going into, you know, all kinds of ways.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:20.000
So we have to think where those myths are, and where our real power is, which is never giving up.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000
There she is, and I would also suggest it's I love this.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:26.000
My granddaughter said that her school was to school.

00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:34.000
She didn't like the schooliness of school. It was too schooly and I know what she meant.

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:43.000
She looked, learning. She loved the topic, but she didn't like the rules, the regulations, the whistles, the locked doors, the can't lift a pencil unless you ask the you know so many rules.

00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And you think what is happening. Your schooling, you're constraining, and the girls are feeling it.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.000
For you. The girls feel it because it's the length of their skirt, and how they're dressed.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:54.000
And of course they're developing this way that way.

00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:57.000
And they they don't know their their role in that.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:07.000
In that institution, because the story is perpetuated even in schools and the dominant narrative continues, and and they're struggling, their mental health will struggle because it's it's a conundrum.

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:10.000
They say you could do this, and you could do anything you want.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:27.000
You can even be good as the boys. They know that they know that better than that, and yet, somehow, that they're caught in this in a world that has yet has not managed to change the story.

00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:33.000
So there is, yeah, we've got a change. This idea from hardwired difference to diversity.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:36.000
We've got to change the story of inadequate science.

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:41.000
That's actually, you know, really damaging to women's health and men's health.

00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:44.000
If we miss health and they're not going to school, and they're off workers. I'm gritted.

00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.000
They have been roads. Then everybody suffers, everybody does so it's changing it through it.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:54.000
Through education. I really believe that sure education is is going to be the way we're going to do it in schools whenever you know. Stop!

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:05.000
The schooling us of schools, and and really get away from you know what we are.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:15.000
We're not sugar and spice. We're definitely not sugar and spice, and not to be treated in a you know, as a confection on life.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:21.000
I did some things to take away.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:28.000
The first one. Yes, her story is necessary. We want the women to be visible.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:51.000
We want truth about. You know, medical conditions. We want society to reorientate it and think about the whole way in which schools or schools and children, and the way in which we can all have a you know, a fair share of what's you know what limited resources we have I suppose I also want the

00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:55.000
big story of determinism and the binariness of everything.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:01.000
The either, all the thing and the other thing to be looked at far more carefully.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:10.000
It gets in the way in so many ways, and it's very harmful and very damaging to be one or the other or not.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:21.000
Something or app something. And I think, finding alternative ways of understanding that we range in differences in all kinds of ways.

00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:22.000
And my third more positive thing. But on this happy ending is that where is education?

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:42.000
Let's educate women if we're the. If the feminist were thinking about patriarchy as needing dismantling, I think we don't see it as a great big thing out there we see where we're at where we're at we're at all these places in the

00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:43.000
workplace, but we can educate in the workplace just as the first people.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:49.000
The first men in the Wa. Oh, that century, whatever it is!

00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Ago. They wanted to know the stuff that the bosses knew in their workplace, and come and learn.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:01.000
And I think women need to find a way just as they did, to find out and change the stories and get out there and find, you know.

00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:17.000
Be everywhere. So we can change, you know, where they shut your school or your workplace, or your community hall, or whatever club or group you belong to, and think how how to educate women, whether in sheds or they.

00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:25.000
You know what they're educating them in then, and assert the a different understanding of who we are and what we are.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:28.000
And then the old one. I'll stop the screen. Share now.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:36.000
So I'm rapidly coming towards the end of my talk I hope you're still with me.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:41.000
Are you still there? I you know.

00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:46.000
I hope it got my things to take away, and I do hope that you know you do have some questions about.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:55.000
You know what the next thing is, and that we can start in this.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.000
Wa, actually, I will say my little word. The funeral, let me say.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:02.000
You know that there is one women's branch in the Wa.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.000
In Nottingham. It's the last one left and we're a twig.

00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:21.000
We hold on in there. I'm doing our bits, and Covid got in the way a great deal of our mission, and and all the work we were doing prior to Covid, I think, and I think there's probably some people from Nottingham here, that might might go along with that and we can start

00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:23.000
somewhere stop from where you're at and start dismantling, start working to, you know.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Change society through education. I hope that's me. Questions come in.

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:38.000
Right. Thank you so much for that. And, Jill, now we do have some questions.

00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:43.000
I'm just gonna start from the talk here. Now, just give me a second scroll.

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:47.000
And so like we've got lots of comments here, which I'll make sure reach.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Now let me scroll up!

00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:55.000
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I've left plenty of time for questions, cause I thought that would be something.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:57.000
Or if you want to challenge me and tell me like.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:03.000
Right? Okay, like, final place. Now, okay, this is from David.

00:42:03.000 --> 00:42:06.000
Yeah.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:07.000
Yeah.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:13.000
And obviously you've talked a lot about. David is asking what has happened to the words matriarch.

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:17.000
The word word oh, matriarch!

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:19.000
Yeah, cause we haven't really spoken about that halfway.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:20.000
So what are your thoughts?

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:23.000
Oh, my, yeah, well, I mean, I hinted at it in a way that we say that there are around the world.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:30.000
And actually the bit that I've missed out, I think probably on one of my sheets somewhere, was the idea of, you know we should be, we think, globally, it was International Women's Day.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:37.000
Yesterday, and it is the fact that we are not a lot.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:38.000
We sit here in the, in our Western culture, with our problems.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:46.000
But I'm totally aware most women in women's education are aware what we're doing is about.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:47.000
But those other societies, and some of which are matrilineal, and and are matriarchies.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.000
So what what gives me hope is? It's not. It's not to substitute one for the other.

00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000
But be aware that the kind of patriarchy can change, and that there's not one model.

00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:08.000
And and I, you know there are matriarchs within our patriot hockey!

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Of course there are and there are, you know, whatever we're doing, we they do.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:24.000
Women are doing in groups all around. They organize everything. What I tell you once they that really got me was when I had the Covid and there was Boris Johnson saying, yes, and we've got to set up all these centers in my local to where I live.

00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:34.000
Ahead of him, saying that they'd already identified a big, you know, sports hall and got the women. And who are they going to be?

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:39.000
The volunteers, and it was women's groups has already done that already, for the vaccination.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:41.000
It was like, I said, yes, that's it.

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:44.000
That's what we do. There's Covid.

00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:45.000
We'll need vaccination centers. Get out and organize it.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.000
That's matriarchy. That's where the thing on the ground gets done.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:55.000
And you just pull your resources together and you get out and do it, and you find the way to do it.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:00.000
That's what you do when you're not in charge.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:06.000
If you're not in charge, you get that what's my line, anyway? Does that help?

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:14.000
So on, we'll talk more about, I mean, matriarchy is a wonderful idea, and we could look at cases around the world and models that we can model ourselves on.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:15.000
Yeah. Anyway. Thanks. Question, yeah.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Okay. Nice. Let's see what else we've got here.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:23.000
We've got a question here from Jane. No, she's asking.

00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:33.000
Would you accept that even with ranges of physical attributes support sexes that are still fundamental differences that create difference?

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:34.000
Yes. Okay. I'm selling you a line about stories, aren't I?

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:40.000
And I'm saying it's what we make of it.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:50.000
What's the meaning of it? We don't check the fact that women have babies and men have a different bodily structures, and so on. We. It's not.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:07.000
It's not about ignoring that. But but those are diverse in themselves, and you know way, and when or who on how you look after children, or have them at all, or when you have them, and so on, or vary so it's not to not acknowledge that but what what it means to be a mother.

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:08.000
that's got young children is that you are not fully.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:19.000
You work in a different way to contribute to in your workplace, to society, and some women that will be one way and some of the other, and men the same as parents.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:26.000
I think men really miss out on. That's one area, while you know, it's it loads it all on the women.

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:27.000
And some of that old psychology they've got. Babies are going to stay.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Well, you know children do. But both parents could be better involved if we had a more.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:45.000
If we had a different arrangement about what it means to be a parent, we wouldn't put it all on the women to organize the, you know, getting to the nursery and so on for their work as opposed to the men organizing the nursery for their work.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:51.000
So I accept, of course, this different ones.

00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:55.000
Yes, there is, but it's what it means to be different.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:01.000
And we've changed that with disability, with mental ill health, we've changed the meaning of it.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:05.000
So those labels known longer carry stick well. They do still carry stigma.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:08.000
They do, but you know we can't wear beginning to address that.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:13.000
So I agree. You know, we got acknowledge difference, and I might be a six-foot tool.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Amazon do one thing, or be very petite and do something else.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:22.000
We all vary, you know, so what I might need as a woman would be quite different from, and the same for the men.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:25.000
So I stick with my argument.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:39.000
Okay? And okay, here's another question. This is from Elizabeth, and she's asking, are you familiar with Emma Watson's talk at the United Nations and September 2014, relating to Women's Rights and Human rights?

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Yes, it was a it was a while ago. Yeah, yes.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:47.000
Why? Oh, gosh, yeah, I haven't given you a reading list or a list of things that you could look at to do.

00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:52.000
This is where women's education begins. But but yes, I think you know that this is not recent.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Okay, there have been women that have been making all kinds of inroads and suggestions.

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:02.000
This is the her story bit, isn't it? They have been there.

00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:12.000
They have tried to have the voice, but sometimes, you know, I can see it as a you know, it's like lean in and leaning in.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:19.000
Whoa! Go talk to an old fashioned feminist that, leaning in there's better ways than that, you know.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:25.000
If we're really gonna make a difference, we don't wanna. We don't seem like we're, you know, edging our way in.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:33.000
And we can be, and we can be, just as good as the men ever coming out of my mouth again.

00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:34.000
You know we have to change the view of it on what it means.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:39.000
So yes, great great things. There's so much out there.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:42.000
Films, books, you know, inspiring things get be inspired.

00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:45.000
Women be inspired!

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:57.000
Okay. And like this from Maggie, it's not so much of a question but it might be interesting to get your take on this, Maggie is saying, we for decades to raise one of status of Mister ie.

00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:10.000
Miss, but it's women themselves that insist on attending miss and missus, perhaps because they've absorbed the story that their validity relies on being attached to a man.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000
What would be your thoughts, Stan?

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Yeah, but you know my thing. You know I have every sympathy with any woman wants to.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:25.000
You know, have any kind of title, you know because you gotta manage the world that you live in, and how you see things and what you see, you know in the nature of your relationship.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:36.000
But the point is, you know, you can't go you can't be nothing it doesn't make you nothing to be miss or miss.

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:42.000
It's it carries with it so much meaning by other people that's that's that's what we need.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:49.000
We can't change. That was. It's a issue for women, because men don't have the same problem.

00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:52.000
It just Mister, that's it, mister? Yeah, whatever that status.

00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:55.000
And it's somehow marking. It's that marking.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.000
And if the marking is good, you know, if you are Miss or Miss Miss Missus, and you own it and claim it and live by it, then it's okay.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:19.000
But be aware that it carries, carries this other, you know, sort of buying into this other these other ideas that we we need to be labeled, who needs to know that why do we have to have it on an envelope or every form?

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:23.000
You fill in. What does it do? Was it change? So? It's I'm you know.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:26.000
I've ever said you can call, you know, be be whatever.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:29.000
But be aware of what it is that we're doing.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:33.000
That's not have a discussion at your women's group.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:49.000
Yeah. Okay, now, let me just find there's another comment, actually, that I saw hold on second.

00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:50.000
Hmm!

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:53.000
Yes, and I think it was just coming back to what you were saying earlier about parents, and say this thing, and I think she thinks language is so important.

00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.000
Child care should never be talked about as a woman or a mother's concern.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
It's a parent's concern.

00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:08.000
Yeah. Yeah. Hmm, yeah. Let me once again. Yeah, I mean, it's but it's a shift, isn't it? In in our understanding, not.

00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:10.000
It's not just understanding women, or you know what we're made of, what we're capable of.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:24.000
But but also you know, what, how does society function better if if we did acknowledge that we can't just keep seeing things as women's issues, I will.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.000
I won't have it as women's. That's another thing.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:33.000
Oh, well, you could go and talk about that. I spent you want to. You want to have your women's classes because you want to talk about women's issues.

00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:37.000
And I have to say, Well, no, they're society issues.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:52.000
Actually, we're women in it. But the whole point is, you know, they become an issue for us because of the way things are so again, it's challenging language all the time and without upsetting people too much.

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:53.000
They mean well, and they say, go and talk about your women's issues.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Well, no, we want a voice that goes way beyond that, you know, talking to ourselves, we're done with that.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:08.000
So when we gather to have what is education is so that we can work for social justice, and we can change things.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:12.000
That's what that's what my Wa. Classes are all about.

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:13.000
What can we do? What we change in Nottingham? You know what?

00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:21.000
Why are we? Where are we? Gonna make a difference by by, by our shift in our way we understand things little by little.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:24.000
It may not be much, but you know we try.

00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:31.000
That's the point of it. Not so that I know more, but that we can do more. That's what women's education can do.

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:52.000
Yeah. And the question here from Jude, do you think that although we have moved towards diversity, there now seems to be a retreat into my identity among a myriad of identities along with the sound of drawbridge is being drawn up in a lot of angry divided discourse?

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:56.000
Yeah, I was, I thought we might get onto this.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:05.000
I was trying to stay clear in a way, but I know it comes down again to us to a culture where identity is individualism, and the individual is what we're all concerned about.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:15.000
And you know, and I am an old fashioned feminist to say Anna Cycle, as a psychologist of identity and self.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:26.000
Is about our social cells on ourselves, social identity and our G and our being with other people.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Which is the way in which we we're best when we're interacting with other people.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:41.000
And you can claim them in a way we're all in disguise, anyway, whatever you have your hair or what you wear, what you do, you know, we're all. It's all a claim.

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:47.000
And I, you know, us. For me it also seems another way of claiming I want to be this kind of woman. I want to be that. Well, go!

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:55.000
Yes, we want all kinds of people, and then to be whatever kind of man they wanna be, and we are, anyway.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:58.000
But it's like what it as an individual I would do that.

00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:02.000
But it's respecting that, you know this is I'm with you, Guy. I'm with you.

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:04.000
I'm but I do it dressed like this.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:05.000
So I'm like this, or I've got these skills.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:11.000
Or this knowledge, or whatever so to the extent that we're individuals.

00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:19.000
Yes, we are. We manage that with my own life story, and it's not like next door neighbors, life story.

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:20.000
But nevertheless, we all live in this other big story.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:29.000
So together. You know me as me, and you know that other person like that, claiming I mean, if I may just be that little girl we're all in disguise as human beings. That's what we're doing.

00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:30.000
We're all in disguise, so we can claim something.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:38.000
We can claim it. It's it's it's what that meaning.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:39.000
If people then start beating you up, or excluding your discriminating against you because of it.

00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:53.000
But we face that, anyway. Try being blonde, all your life I've been waiting, no, I mean, blonde jokes have stopped happening now, but you know it's like, Oh, for goodness sake, you know.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:06.000
Can I be this age? And still, you know, could that still be a problem but it's just you said, I mean, we're all gonna if we discriminate against for being what we are, then that's the problem.

00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Not that we all claim. You know something about ourselves, and I would look forward to the day when men are much more inventive and creative as women are being different all the time, cause we are amazing.

00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:26.000
A room full of women, and you've got kaleidoscope of of colors and things and attitudes and age, and whatever.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:29.000
And and you know I don't want to liberate the men as well.

00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:33.000
Come on! Get free! Be in disguise, anyway.

00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Okay.

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:37.000
That answers it. I'm not dodging the question.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:39.000
I think there are definite issues about, you know, gender identity.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:53.000
Believe me, but that's a whole other. That's.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:54.000
I'm teaching.

00:54:54.000 --> 00:55:00.000
It it is we've got one more question here, and then I think we'll need to wrap up things and folks cause I know that Jill has a another course on after this you're teaching, so here's a question from Anna, and she's

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:07.000
saying Jill Biden was marked for using Doctor in a way no man would have been.

00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:08.000
Oh!

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:11.000
Do you think that was to do with her job or her gender?

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000
Isn't it? Yeah, it's terrible, isn't it?

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:19.000
You know the little ways in which women, just, you know, just occasionally want to be.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:22.000
You know neutral doctor is, and you know it's just like this isn't neutral, isn't it?

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:27.000
It doesn't say men could be doctors, you know. They can be.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:31.000
They are, you know, and you know, gives a woman a break.

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:39.000
Yeah, I think I know a lot of academics, and and then they get it, and they're very proud. And they say I'm going to use it all the time because I stop asking me whether I'm a miss or whatever.

00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:42.000
And then they get a bit embarrassed. It's a bit much, isn't it?

00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:45.000
You tell the postman that you, you know, call me doctor.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:46.000
So and so, yeah, you know, in a way, you know, if only there was something.

00:55:46.000 --> 00:55:56.000
But no, but no, I think I think it is with Biden, was. What's she doing?

00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:05.000
She's trying to say, Look, don't take me for a floozy, or whatever I have I have done had a life, and I have done these things, and it's not bragging.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:06.000
It's a kind of saying, Oh, come on, you know some of us.

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:20.000
Yeah, we can, we can make claims about things like you know that we have done a doctorate, you know, as other people have done other wonderful things, and they should be able to make that that claim, as well, it's the world.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:26.000
World she was living in, and I don't blame her.

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:36.000
Yeah, okay, well, thanks so much for that. Jill. That was really fascinating.

0:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.000
Thank you very much. Fiona. Okay, it's lovely to see all of you, and I can see a few.

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:14.000
Familiar faces and names, which is really really nice to see.

00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:21.000
So today we're going to be looking at growing things on your windowsill as fairness heads.

00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.000
We've had all these shortages in the big supermarkets.

00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:31.000
And so it's probably quite a good idea to have a think about what you might like to grow and what you're able to grow.

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:39.000
So I've got a presentation, so I'm going to share it with you, and we will make a proper start.

00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:55.000
So here we go, right. So growing our own on the windowsill, it's you might not have a window, so you might not have much of a window, but you know you may have a port conservatory something like that, so it doesn't have to be an actual window.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:13.000
So, but basically it's inside in a small space. So the sort of things that you can grow are things like salads and herbs and sprouts, not the green sort, and tomatoes.

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So those are things that are definitely attainable to to grow indoors, and you will get a reasonable crop with them.

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So part of the reason. It's quite nice to grow your own food, is it?

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Makes you feel good because you've grown something yourself.

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You've seen it grow. Go from seats to cutting it and eating it, which is always nice.

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The costs can make a difference. It can help you save a bit of money, you know where your food's come from, and sometimes you can grow things that are out of season, you know.

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We can all buy stuff out of season in the supermarket because of the way that commercial grows grow.

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Items, but it is possible to do some of that at home in your own home, and also growing.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:03.000
If you don't have an outside space, because not everybody does have an outside space.

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So it's nice to have something green in your house.

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Okay. Next thing you can have. So we've had our introduction.

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We're going to be looking at containers. We're going to look at what you can use as a growing medium.

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We've got seats and we're going to look at cost.

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Cost-effective crops and limitations of of growing indoors, because there are some and some of you may be aware of that already.

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So that's what we're going to cover today.

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So first of all, we're looking at containers. So what can you use to grow your vegetables, or your fruit, or whatever you're growing?

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What can you use? Well, you can use your standard flowerpots if you happen to have some, but you can also reuse some of those plastic containers that you buy fruit and vegetables in, so particularly the fruit ones.

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I've shown a picture here of the you know the soft poop ones in the lead, and those are really good because you can get seed started up in their own little mini class.

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If you use the list, and they already have holes in the bottom.

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So you've got drainage. You can also use the sort of plastic containers you have for mushrooms and and just but it just poke a couple of holes in the bottom.

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So it drains. Drainage is important, but you don't have to bark.

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Go out and buy special equipment you can go to the garden center and you can definitely get special pots and so on. But you don't actually have to buy them.

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So this is my selection of containers that you can use.

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So we've got flowerhots, plastic containers from supermarkets.

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You might want to use some sort shallow dish, just some of the things, and we can get away with that.

00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:08.000
And and jars and jars are for our sprouting seats.

00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:14.000
Okay. We're going to be grown lettuce in the jar, but they are good for the sprouting seeds.

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So with flower parts you can grow things like salad leaves that you can just cut and come again.

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You know. You probably don't want to be growing a whole lettuce.

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You don't want to let them get that big, but there are many, many varieties that you can of seeds that you can buy where you can just pick one or 2 more leaves as you want them, and just have them as a solid to pick them and eat them straight away your plastic containers as

00:04:44.000 --> 00:05:04.000
I said already, really good way of reusing your plastic, and then, you know, then put it in the recycling after you've used it, you've got your shadow dishes, which are good for micro greens, and obviously the if you are reusing containers, or you're using flowerpots.

00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:05.000
Give them a good wash first in some soapy water, and then they're clean and ready to go.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:16.000
Sometimes, if you reuse them without without washing them. The old compost, there will be little bits.

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It's stuck to the sides, and it's often harbor diseases.

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Your plants see, you know, fundly and that sort of thing which you don't really want to have so nice clean pots.

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Just do put them in the washing up liquid water, and it's absolutely fine.

00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.000
Okay.

00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:54.000
So growing mediums. So when we think about growing medium, we think of soil, but generally indoors, you don't tend to use actual soil, so you can use compost.

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And if you decide to use compost, use any compost, you don't have to get the special seed compost, or anything like that, just by a bag of standard compost you don't have to get the special seed compost or anything like that just buy a bag of standard

00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:16.000
compost you don't need to get the really expensive stuff if you got room to store it.

00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:22.000
The compost inside a grow bag is really good because it's got extra nutrients added to it already.

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So that's always a good option, and they tend to be a little bit cheaper than buying at the equivalent volume of actual multipurpose compost as well, and I don't know about you, but I often have a group had because I can actually list that when I can when I'm going to

00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.000
shop? Where is, you know, 40 litres of compost absolutely.

00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:54.000
No, I can lift that. So compost you can use cotton will, if we are growing things like micrograms.

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We will use cotton, wool, or absorbent paper, you know, like kitchen roll, that sort of thing, and it's for those you'd want.

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:10.000
You sell the dishes. So that's lots of things that you can use for your your.

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So to be your growing medium is alternatives. Okay? If you're growing with children, you can always get them to stop to. It's a really good opportunity to talk with children.

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So if you ever have children come to visit you, or you look after your grandchildren or your nieces and nephews of that sort of thing.

00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:37.000
Then growing things. It's really good activity to do, especially if it's a bit cold and wet and raining, and talk about what the compost feels like, what it smells like and touch it.

00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:46.000
Play with it all of that sort of thing, and really talk to them.

00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:54.000
It's an opportunity for talking, and then also it's cotton world, I mean, I didn't hear.

00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.000
You probably do remember doing this little bit of cotton wool in the washed out egg.

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Shell, and you put some crust seeds on it, and you draw a little face, and then you grow a little thing with hair so that is a micro green, and it's really fun for children to do with absorbing paper.

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If you if you do this thing with children, you can get them.

00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:28.000
Very young to maybe draw out the capital legis. The first letter of their first name, and then you can cut it out, and you can grow the micro greens in the shape of that letter.

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You know, tool helps with this their education room. So that's options.

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That you can do if you've got some small people to entertain and then each time they come to visit they can see how it's progressed, or they can just take it home with them, and that's always good things.

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Well, so the sort of things you can grow so you can go sprouts which are not green ones, although I love those.

00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000
It's a like bean sprouts that you buy to put in a stir.

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Fry, and when you buy those in supermarket they come in quite large bags, and if you are if it's only 2 or one or 2 of you in the house, you often find you use half the bag, and then you throw the rest away, because they have a very very short shell life.

00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.000
sprouts, so that's quite a good option.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:27.000
If you often use sprouts, and being scratched to your surface. But you don't want to be throwing away all the time.

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:31.000
You can grow microgreens at the big in thing these days.

00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.000
That's the fashionable thing to grow.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:36.000
But basically Wendy Blue press as a child that is actually a micro green.

00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:45.000
You can buy lots and lots different seeds. And in the garden center of different types of micrograms, lots of them are based on cabbage.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:53.000
Cabbage, family Brassicas. So you'll find quite a lot of them that you've got things like Missuna Kale.

00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:04.000
That sort of thing you often find those in the scouting seed section micrograms.

00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:08.000
So you choose what you like. And microgrids? Obviously, it's only tiny.

00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000
And you're not gonna get much of them. You have them get a full meal from them, but they can be depending on what you choose to grow.

00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:18.000
They can have quite a nice flavor to them nice little kick, you know.

00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:25.000
Mustard, mustard, a little scraps. Microgreens are nice, and they've got a real hot peppery flavor.

00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.000
So he put them in with a just a normal green salad.

00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:40.000
Then they just pop up your side a little bit and they're full of vitamins as well so that's always good things like baby salad leaves.

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.000
I think most a lot of us have seen this, and you know, on the Internet.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:11:01.000
And so on. You can grow a little pot of a baby salad leaves and just keep cutting them, and you can again buy them the seeds. For these you can buy single single type seeds like rocket, or you can buy seats where there are mixed mixed leaves within there so you get a

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:08.000
variety of of leaves coming up at the same time, and again top them and eat them.

00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:19.000
I think it works really, really well. If you've got a really big windowsill and you can grow lots and lots but this is only one of you in the house, and you you don't have quite so much room, you know, a pot, will give you a reasonable meal, and some of them.

00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:32.000
You can cut them, and they will actually grow again. So you might get a second crop on them, which is always nice to have.

00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:40.000
So those are a really good idea. And again, you can get you just say you buy the seats for them.

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:47.000
But you could experiment. You might have some, you know, if you've got a big garden, or if you've got a garden, you grow vegetables.

00:11:47.000 --> 00:12:04.000
Anyway, you could try some of the seeds that you've got, maybe for the garden, and see how well they do indoors, and whether or not they'll grow, and it tastes nice or not, you know, if you can eat the leaves if you grown them outside you can eat the leaves if you grow them

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.000
indoors, as well. So it's something to think about.

00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:12.000
So babies will at least work really, really well.

00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:35.000
Hello! We all well, most of us who do any cooking will end up going to the supermarket, and very often will buy a packet of green herbs, you know, parsley or coriander, and all of those can be grown indoors on your window so be aware parsley if

00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:40.000
you grow seat, parsley seeds they can take up to 8 weeks to germinate, so don't fear, don't give up on them.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:55.000
Give them time, and Basil Gross really, really well on the windowsill coriander, I have to say it will grow well, but you need to sell it nice and thickly.

00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.000
Okay, because you want to eat those particularly with Coriander.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:06.000
You want to be growing, that I'm picking it quite, quite young, because the actual plants are coriander.

00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:15.000
If you do it in the garden, they're actually quite big negro to about 2 2 foot so you can't have that in your house like that wouldn't really work.

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:27.000
And I mean when you buy when you go to supermarket again, you often buy a little box, a little flower pots with with growing herbs in them, and all they've all done. The growers have done.

00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:36.000
There is they have just kept them warm. Lots of lights, and then you get that will dense growth.

00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:44.000
And of course, when you get by one of those pots you've probably got about 2030 pounds in there.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.000
Incidentally it's things like parsley when you buy those in the supermarket like that.

00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.000
If you do, and you have got room outside, you can actually split them off.

00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:57.000
And you can actually put plant them outside in the summer, and they will grow.

00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.000
So that's something to think about, too.

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:06.000
And then we're looking at tomatoes and chillies and sweet peppers.

00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:11.000
These are ideal things to grow in your house when you think about it.

00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:21.000
At the moment. Tomatoes are in very short supply in the big supermarkets, and that's part of the need to do the supply chain.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000
But smart as you grow yourself, they taste so much nicer than the ones you grow that you buy in the supermarkets.

00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:33.000
They have a lovely flavor to them, so they're definitely worth growing.

00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:40.000
And the normal tomato plant will grow to 4 foot or more if you let it, but you can buy like dwarf varieties.

00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:47.000
They tend to be the cherry tomatoes and they like little bushes.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:55.000
Other ideal for your house. So think about tomatoes, and then, of course, you pick them when you want them.

00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:03.000
So you know, they might be ready, but they'd be absolutely fine left on the bush for 2 or 3, 4 days longer.

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:24.000
If you don't want to eat them. So instead of buying a little punish charity apart tomatoes, and maybe not using them all you can choose from, as you want to chillies are another one that's very very good to grow yourselves, because they they look really nice.

00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:25.000
But you have to start early. So if you you want to, you want to start them.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:38.000
Now, or if you've got a friend who's got some spare little plants, get them getting them from them now, so start chillies quite early on.

00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:43.000
And then they will start to flower later, and you'll get your chillies.

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:48.000
They look really really nice and sweet. Peppers are the same.

00:15:48.000 --> 00:16:06.000
They take up more room, obviously for slightly bigger plants, but they again you can grow them yourselves if some of you will be lucky enough to live more in the southern part of Britain, and with these tomatoes chillies and sweep packets, if you do and you do happen to have

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:13.000
some outside space, you can start them off indoors, and then you can take them out, and they will actually ripen.

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:19.000
If you've got a nice shell to spot, on, you're quite far, you know, sort of anywhere.

00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.000
So halfway down the country and down, you'll know what your conditions are like.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:28.000
Whether you'll be able to get away with it. But that's an option as well.

00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:39.000
Okay, all right. So, what we're gonna see now is, I'm going to just actually no I'm going to do something else first.

00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.000
I'm going to talk a little bit more about sprouts.

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:52.000
So if you're doing being sprouts or any of the those you can sprout lentils, even sprout peas, you can sprout lots and lots of different different scraps.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:17:07.000
And what you really eating when when you do that, if you're eating the root, it's the root that you're eating, because as many of you might know when seeds first start to grow, it's the root that grows first and then the leaves.

00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:13.000
So when you're growing something like being sprouts. What you're eating is that first root and full of vitamins.

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:14.000
They're really nice, really tasty, crunchy, very good for you.

00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:26.000
But if you're if you're growing them, you tend to grow them in jazz, and they need to be wince through with water at least twice a day.

00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:35.000
You have to be very careful when you grow in sprouts, because you can get bacterial growth on them.

00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:46.000
So it's just something to to be aware of, and if you buy seeds for sprouting, it will give you instructions on the back of exactly what to do.

00:17:46.000 --> 00:18:04.000
But definitely win them through. So you sort of put water in, and then you drain it off on water and then drain it off, and you do that twice, 3 times a day, and your sprouts should be really really happy they need that damp conditions but you don't want those dump conditions are

00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000
are the ideal conditions. For bacterial and fungal growth.

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.000
You don't want that. So you need to wash it all through.

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:35.000
So. But you can experiment with that with sprouts, and I I have a friend who's from all sorts of different seeds as sprouts, so if you're very interested in that, you can find out lots of information about those okay so our next little thing we're actually going to have

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.000
a short video. And I'm going to come out of this share and share the video separately, just because it just it flows better.

00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:48.000
It works better. So this video, it's a lady from Kew Gardens, and she is going to show you how to grow.

00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:03.000
P. Shoots indoors in a pot. Now hers do look very, very lush and that's partly because she is actually growing them in a greenhouse.

00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:10.000
But it will work on your windowsill, and if it's very bright, yours should look as good so I'll just show you.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.000
It's very interesting. So just stop that for a moment, and I'm going to now share the video.

00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:22.000
Okay, so here we go.

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.000
My name is Elena does, and I'm in the kitchen garden. Here they are.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:31.000
Gonna be looking at a few herbs and vegetables.

00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.000
But for any projects you don't need a pulse.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:41.000
You'll need multiple purpose compost. You'll need some scenes.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:43.000
The very first thing we're gonna be doing today is P sheet.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:45.000
We aren't growing the whole P plan. So don't worry.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:48.000
We're not looking at 2 metre plant on your windows still, just the sheets.

00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:59.000
If you've never been anything before. This is such a good cop to have a go with they're really nice and solid, but also just pick as you go through the specs that you actually adore them in a constantly garnishing their place with them.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:02.000
So the very best thing we need is we've got a lovely old terracotta one here, doesn't h be deep. It just needs to be a large surface.

00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:16.000
There is crown as many peps in there as possible, and get as much harvest as possible, which is always the a so once you've got your parts, you need to fill up with compost, so we filled it up most of the way.

00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:22.000
But we also can add up bit more. So it goes to about 2 cm below the top.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:33.000
So once you popped it in, press it down, or tamp it down, just give yourself a nice new service, and make sure there's no big holes in the bottom so he shouldn't have something akin to that.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:48.000
I know that you can get fancy also. Your hand is absolutely fine, next thing you need your seats, you can buy specialist seeds, or you can just go to seed market and buy dried piece at Eastern mushy much much cheaper if I bought my last box 2 years ago.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:51.000
50 p. And it's still going.

00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:55.000
Sprinkle them onto top of the complex. Don't read the C packets that's how you stay.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:01.000
5 cm, but not growing people put a growing piece sheet so just pop them in as thick as you like.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:09.000
They can touch, and when you think you've got as many as you can pop a few lines, so the guarantee you come.

00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:13.000
Doesn't need to be really deep. It's just so we're covering them up put a little blanket on them again.

00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:18.000
Press it down just a little bit, just lighting with your hands so you can't see them anymore.

00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:22.000
And then you need to water it. There's 2 ways you can water.

00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:30.000
One is overhead, is it a nice watering pan, and just give me a good saving on top, and you want to make sure that they're really all the way through.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:33.000
You might want to let them sit down and do it again the other way of doing it is to water.

00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:49.000
It's underneath, so stick it in a bowl or a tie, and let the water soak upwards. So when that's hot, layer Crump Fox is West, you know you've done your job once water you stick them on your window still, and you have to have patients now once your

00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:57.000
plans start growing. Check them every 2 days. Hop your finger in the soil, and if it's damped down to a nuclear fine, if it's not get the watering, can they give it a really good surface?

00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:06.000
And it's completely saturated within 5 days. Have a little piece sheet, and then within a week or 2 you should have ones about this talk. That's 10.

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:10.000
Also centimeters, with a couple of leaves. They're ready for slipping.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Stick them on the off at the bottom, and then the great thing about Peach is they will grow back month or week, or at least one more time they will grow again third time, but for my experience they don't taste quite so nice, and will often run to flower really quickly, and get a little bit

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:39.000
harder. So here crops is really good, and if you like them as much as I do, you have several pots on the go, so you've always got something to harvest, said.

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:43.000
Okay, we're going to go back to my presentation now.

00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:48.000
Okay, and.

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:55.000
Okay, so I think that's quite interesting. Of course you don't have to use such a large pot of shaded. And, as I said before, it doesn't have to be a proper pot. Obviously, she's from.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:01.000
Cue garden, so she's gonna have proper pots.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:05.000
But we can use whatever we want to and if you like piece sheets, and you there that's if they're not for me.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000
But if you like some, I thought the the tip about buying dried piece at the supermarket.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:26.000
You know the ones that go into mushy piece. I thought that was a really good tip, because they are so much cheaper than buying an actual package of seeds.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:33.000
I thought that was quite a good one. There you go! So next.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:44.000
Okay, so, now, what we're going to really look at is the limitations of growing when you're growing on your window cell, there are some limitations.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:58.000
So we have got lights and heat space. I put this that space picture because I just liked it, and cats, which can be a problem.

00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:10.000
So with lights. What you need is you need ready a sunny windowsill if you've got a sunny windowsill, it doesn't have to be south basing, but it needs to get some sort of the you know.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:16.000
Most is a good for a good length of time in the day, whether it's the morning or the evening, or during the day.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:30.000
If you're on a north facing windowsill, you probably will struggle, but you at this time of the year not so much when the days get really long, but definitely, at this time of the year, because the plants will go leggy.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:40.000
If you've not got enough light they will just row and grow, and they will be all stork and no leaf, so it's very, very important to get your lights right.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:48.000
It is possible to invest in. If you're really really keen on the windowsill growing, you will get the bug for it.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:59.000
It is possible to get lights that you can sort of put above your window that shine down onto you windowsill, and they will have that.

00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:03.000
You can buy, they have the bulbs that give you the light that plants need.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:06.000
You know the full spectrum colors that they need.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:07.000
So if you really can't see that, then, you know, you can go down that route.

00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:17.000
But I I would just, you know, go with daylight, start with, because that's quite an investment.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:24.000
But you can do so when you get to the heat spot on it.

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:40.000
What we really want is something room temperature. So if you happen to, if you've got rooms that you're heating, anyway, you know your kitchen, your lounge, your bedroom, those sort of rooms, even your bathroom, if you've got room on your bathroom, window cell

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:43.000
that's always quite good, if it's nice and bright.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:52.000
Those places are ideal because you don't want to be putting a special heater on just to grow your plants on your window, because that's going to cost you too much.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:26:01.000
You don't want to be doing that, so put them in in areas that you, you know you have your heating on, anyway, or our warm from cooking, or from the shower.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:14.000
That sort of thing. So he is important at this time of the year, especially if you like me, and you've got your service that turned down to what it would have been last year.

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:32.000
Then the plants will take longer to grow, so they will still grow, but they will take longer, so the warmer it is, the quicker they grow, and you will find that as we go through into spring, and certainly as the day lengths gets longer, as well that any seeds that you so will actually grow

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:40.000
quicker, and you'll get results much, much faster. I planted some little salad leaves, I think it was 3 weeks ago, and they're still not really big enough to pick.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Well, no, they're absolutely not big enough to pick yet, but I have got them in the room that is quite cold.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:59.000
It's very light, but it's quite cold. And so that's that's why they're taking so long.

00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:08.000
But they will come, they will come, if you're going to grow them indoors and on your windowsills.

00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:17.000
It's a good idea not to grow them between the glass and curtains, so don't draw the curtains at night, and with your plants, because then they'll they'll be.

00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:23.000
You get a really really cold bit between your curtains and your window and plants.

00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Really really don't like that, you house plants don't like that either.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:30.000
So you really really don't want to be closing the curtains on them.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:41.000
So the best thing really is to shoot room, maybe, that you don't have curtains in like kitchens or bathrooms, or, you know, porches are good, actually really good.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:47.000
My daughter's got a porch. It's unheated, completely unheated, but it's like a mini greenhouse.

00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:51.000
Really. And she grows things on her windowsills in the porch and it's very successful.

00:27:51.000 --> 00:28:08.000
But obviously it takes time. The other thing is drafts plants don't like drafts, so it's it's a good idea to try not to try to keep them away from a draughty window soon, if you can okay, I mean when you get the weather gets nicer.

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:28.000
You know. The windows. That's fine, but if it's really cold outside, and you open the window to get cold drafts it just it slows growth down of the plants, and they often actually just don't like a draft so that's something to to bear in mind as well and you need to think

00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:38.000
about space you've got. So you know it's all very good me saying, yes, you can grow tomatoes, but if you have a very narrow windowsill, and it's not very long, then tomatoes are maybe not the ideal plant.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.000
For you, unless that's the only plant you're planting.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:51.000
So how to think about how much space you've actually got.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:55.000
You know, it's very easy to get really. Okay.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:04.000
You. You go to the garden center. You just want to buy all the seeds and you get home, and you think, Well, why am I gonna put them all so you know?

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Think about that before you just spending your money, and, in fact, buying seats as well. That's something that we ought to think about to.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:11.000
Obviously you can go to garden centers to buy your seeds.

00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:33.000
But supermarkets sell seeds as well, and if you happen to have a supermarket such as Liddle or Alzheimer's, you, they sell seeds, and they tend sell seeds as a very very good price, so there's something to think about as well obviously if

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:34.000
you had an allotment you would you buy you buy online straight and receive merchants?

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:42.000
But I don't think we can't need that volume of seeds for windowsill.

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.000
You'll be, you'll have the same seats, you know.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:49.000
20 years time, so that wouldn't really be very good to grow.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:50.000
What fits in your space, and that's sort of the way to do it.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:03.000
Okay. I remember your light and your heat and hats cats, I mean, look at that kitten.

00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:18.000
It is absolutely adorable. However, if you have a cat, and it likes to lie on things you might find that you're cat likes to lie on your plants and your pots, especially if you've got them on a warm windowsill, so if you have a cats that does that sort of

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:25.000
thing, then you're gonna have to protect your plants from your cat, and that might mean putting some little sticks in to stick up.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:32.000
So it's not comfortable for the capital, Ion, or you know you know your cats, and you can decide how to do it.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:40.000
But do think about it, because if the lie on you see, it's not crush them, and then, you know, you won't get any crop at all.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.000
Okay. I don't know about anything else. I but I don't think pretty much.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:49.000
Most pets apart from caps, are going to be okay.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:56.000
Right now we can go back to our video again. And this time she is going to show us how to grow herbs.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:01.000
And you know, planting herbs seeds on the windowsill.

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:06.000
There is a third part to this video, and I'm not showing you that one.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.000
And in that one she plants, radishes. But to be fair the way you do radishes and things like spring onions, which you can also do online on your windowsill.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:23.000
Those are planted in very, very similar way to the herbs okay, so I'm just going to show you this, and we will go again out of this.

00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:32.000
And back in again. Okay?

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:38.000
Right. So we're going to be looking at her. So this in particular, this one's Basil to go.

00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:44.000
The next crop we're gonna look at is Basil, which is a really familiar hurt to most people I'm really nice to go on the window.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.000
Still again, you need to a pot. You don't need such a large pot this time.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:52.000
You can see a bit deeper, cause need those roots to run down?

00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.000
They have quite large, so this will call the upside.

00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:01.000
Again. Fill it up. So we're filling up to just below the rim and give it a little.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:10.000
Press down a little tam down again, just to make sure they're seeing things like cracks, but also it gives it a nice flat surface, so we'll grab our seat in the little full packet.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:16.000
It's like me. You find the small packets. It's just a little bloat, and it will pop up.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:18.000
They are tiny, tiny, to proceed. So put them into your hand first.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:23.000
You can see them and then it's like a little pinch on top of it.

00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:29.000
They want to be about sent me to work from each other now you don't want to own, so we'll save this too quickly.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:33.000
It is, you will end up with quite leggy plants.

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:34.000
So by that I mean very tall, but I don't have a lot of leaves on them that have a tendency to fall over.

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.000
And today we're selling a classic Italian buzz.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:41.000
But they come in lots and look for what we call cultivars or types.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:47.000
They can get lemon, basil, or tie Basil and it's really fun.

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.000
When she got into it you were fine, with lots of different things had to go out, and they had a really different twister. Every single thing.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:59.000
You have a go with?

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:00.000
So they all Mediterranean plants, so they wanted quite free draining soil.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:06.000
But most multi-purpose composite is absolutely fine.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:13.000
We really? Since so literally sprinkle over topics, don't need to be covered too quickly, because they're only we see.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:29.000
And they all. Let's push through. If you buy a look on posters, got this grit and a bit of wood in it, which some compost, and then just give that a tiny little tap down to make sure you've got the contact from the bottom and then water again.

00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:40.000
Like to start shooting within a few weeks. They want temperatures about 21 degrees, and she's inside my phones and outside until around October and I'll come up and it'll be tiny, tiny little feet.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:45.000
So you know, blinking, you might mix them, but they will start to grow really, really fast if you find it.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:50.000
Start to go a little bit yellow. They might want speed. So a little quick plant food is fantastic.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.000
Really, any multipurpose one is absolutely fine, and then you start picking.

00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.000
So the 10 degrees at the top are really delicious, but if you pick the very top ones you might stop the plant going.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:10.000
But picnic slightly low down what they keep picking them to keep the nice and tender and fresh. So the final thing I'm gonna do are radishes.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:17.000
Okay, so we're not looking at radishes because it's it's very, very similar to what we've just seen.

00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Okay, so we're not going to look at radishes, but radishes are really good in that.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:22.000
In the it on you windowsill, and you actually eat the leaves of radishes as well.

00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:37.000
So, if you like, you know radishes, you can also cut the leaves when they're very young, and pop them into salad, and they're lovely, and of course things like spring onions.

00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:56.000
They will grow very, very well in a little pot on windowsill as well, and again you can pull them out, and with something like spring onions, if you, if you UN radishes actually so them, and then pick them but sort of pick them randomly so that you're allowing space for the ones that are left

00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:00.000
to grow bigger and that way you. So you'll start off with some very, very small radishes, or you might just pick them and just eat.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:13.000
Have the leaves, and it'll give. It'll allow room for the roots of the other ones to get bigger to fill out.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:24.000
You might want to grow something more like was radishes, something more like French breakfast, which is a sort of more cylindrical radish, and they'll fit in a pot.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:28.000
You'll get more in a pot than, say, one of these globe type ones near the salt that you buy in the supermarket.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:36.000
So have a think about that as well with radishes I love radishes and radishes are really good.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:44.000
You can eat them, obviously as a salad vegetable, but you can slice them and stir, pry them too, so very versatile.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Okay, so we are looking at. Why would we grow on the windowsill?

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:57.000
So really, we're growing because it can be cheaper if you think very carefully about what you grow.

00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:04.000
It's you know. Think about what's really expensive in the supermarket that's definitely worth growing.

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:09.000
If something is very cheap in the supermarket, then it probably isn't.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Also you grow as much as you need. So this last waste.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:27.000
So you grow your beans sprouts, and you, Rosemary, as you need, and you have you what you do with all of these vegetables is you well, apart from your tomatoes and your and the papers, and chilies.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:31.000
But the summit stuff and the sprouts and the micro greens.

00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:38.000
You'll see. Some one week, and you might sell another, maybe a week or 2 later, and another week or 2 later, and that way you end up with a succession of lovely fresh things to eat off your window.

00:36:38.000 --> 00:37:01.000
So, and she don't get it all at once. So that's always good, because I you know, when you buy sort of leaves and salad leaves and supermarket pre-bagged ones, it's it's so easy to this often just far too many in there and they don't keep very

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:05.000
long, and you end up having to throw them away. And that's just a waste.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:10.000
You know, so it's worth it's growing your own, and you don't waste as much.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:17.000
And in actual fact those solid leaves, apparently are one of the main sources of food waste in country.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:22.000
There's bag salads, the other thing, of course, is no chemicals.

00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:33.000
I mean, obviously the Cue Gardens, lady said. You know you might want to put a little bit of fertilizer on your crops, and I think that's an excellent idea.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:36.000
And obviously that would be a chemical if you don't want to put fertilizer on and don't put it on.

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:38.000
It's up to you, but you're not using pesticides.

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:48.000
You're not using herbicides. So you know that what when you pick some, you can pick them, and you don't even need to wash them.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:54.000
You know what's been on and the other thing, of course, is that fresh you pick someone you eaten straightaway.

00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:55.000
It's nothing better than picking it and eating it within an hour.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:12.000
It's always always lovely. And on the picture here, on the side you can see, there is some tomato plants in some little, and this little, those little pots are actually Pete pots.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:16.000
They they rock down in in the soil and tomato pants.

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:23.000
You start them off in a small pot like that, but they will need to go into a big pot, and so will chillies and peppers.

00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:27.000
You will need to end up with a substantial size pot sort of about 8 8 cm diameter pot.

00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Sorry. 8 inch diameter. Pot for those plants, and they will need feeding regularly, just use a tomato food for those cause you want the fruit, so just use it.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.000
Just any. All generic tomato food, and it will be good for all of those plants.

00:38:43.000 --> 00:39:00.000
Okay? And then in front of that, and then on the picture there is a little plastic container, clear plastic container, with some cotton wool at the bottom, and that's your microgram.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:06.000
So those will be crispy seeds that somebody is growing they're always lovely, hey?

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:11.000
So cost-effectiveness of what we're growing on the windowsill.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:16.000
It does depend on what you grow, so herbs tend to be quite expensive to buy.

00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:26.000
I mean, even if you buy a little bag of herbs, you can easily spend depending on where you buy them from anything between sort of 50 pence and one pound 50.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:39.000
So they are definitely worth growing. If if you use them a lot, and also you find that when you do grow herbs you know it more because they're there.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:55.000
So you think I'll just pop a bit of basil in this and a bit of basil in that, and because you think you don't want to go out and buy a whole bag of it micro greens, they if they can be very expensive to buy if you you can't still buy little

00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:02.000
boxes of press, and that's not too expensive. But any of the specialist micrograms are really expensive, and to be fair, you can't find them in supermarket, anyway.

00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:10.000
So they're definitely worth growing. If that if you like that sort of that sort of idea.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:29.000
And, as I said before, the sprouts, sprouting beans and piece, they are great because you just you just throw as many as you actually need so you're reducing your food, food, waste your picking what you need, and oh, this is a good thing.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:43.000
You can also try different varieties. So if you, if you tempted on chillies or tomatoes, you can, you can choose some different types of variety, something that you never see in the shops, and you know maybe different colors, different sizes and sweeter ones.

00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:54.000
You if you're doing chilies, you, you can grows different sizes and sweeter ones.

00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:55.000
You. If you're doing chillies, you, you can grow the super duper hot ones, or the less hot ones.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:08.000
So you can choose. And that's that's quite nice to do to be able to grow something that you can't buy in the supermarkets, because supermarkets are very limited in what they you and sell.

00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:23.000
So those are all. It's great. So, in conclusion, really, what I just like to say is, when you grow things on your own windowsill, it can be it can save you a lot of money.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:33.000
You can. You know the provenance. You know where it's come from. You know how it's being grown and how it's been looked after.

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:39.000
It is something to do with children. If you have children that you look after every now and again.

00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:44.000
It's always nice thing to do with them. They love growing stuff, and also with children.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:50.000
If you've grown things with them, if they've grown it, they're often more likely to eat it.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:58.000
So, if you have, if you often look after children who are just fussy eaters, if you grow something, you find that they will try it because they've been involved in it.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:08.000
Okay, you can grow things throughout the year. You are a little bit more limited in the winter.

00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:19.000
Micro greens are great in the winter the sprouts are great in the winter, and you can keep your herbs and your chitties grow going throughout the winter.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:24.000
If the rooms warm enough, so you can actually do that with your chilly plants.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:29.000
If you grow chillies, tomatoes, or peppers indoors, you will need to actually pollinate them yourself. Okay?

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:41.000
So I can use a little soft paintbrush, and just take go from one flower to the next with your paintbrush.

00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Or you can indeed use just your fingertip. And again you just touch the first flower.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Go round all the rest of them and go back to the first one, and then you're transferring poly around the flowers, because indoor flowering plants won't be pollinated in the same way as if they were outdoors because obviously you don't have well, hopefully, your house isn't full

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.000
of pollinating insects. So you have to do it yourself.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.000
So you can grow things all year round. It's good for your well-being.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:20.000
It's really nice to grow something and have something to look after, and to feel that you've achieved something when you pick it and you eat it.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:26.000
So it's really good for you've got your well-being, I mean, you think about, you know.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:43.000
Oh, this past few years! How the the dog ownership went up, and so did house plant ownership because people were just enjoying having something at home to them, you know to kind of know how plans not gonna talk back to you or anything like that.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:57.000
It's just good for your well-being to have something to do with what I'm also gonna say is, cause I just put this on on my list because I should have mentioned it possibly earlier when I was talking about space for your your plants on your windowsill.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:16.000
I have seen some little arrangements of wooden shelves like shelving systems that you can put on your windowsill, and they then you can have tiers of of plants.

00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:17.000
You can have some of the bottom, some in the middle, and possibly a third layer.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:25.000
Maybe. So. That's an another way of actually increasing the amount of space you got in your windowsill, and it can look really nice.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:44.000
As well. Of course it will stop some of the lights coming into your room, but it can look very attractive, especially if you care about what types of pots you use.

00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:58.000
I would like to say, Thank you very much, and I hope that you found this interesting, and that maybe you've been inspired to try a little bit of windowsill gardening, and you know there's lots and lots of information on the Internet.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:16.000
If you want to find out a little bit more detail. Obviously, we've not been able to do lots and lots of detail in this this time, but I hope you've been inspired at the very least, to try one or 2 things on your windowsill this year, okay, so thank you i'm going to stop

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000
the share, and I'm going to hand a back to the piano.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Thank you very much.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:31.000
Thank you very much, Cassin. Nice, really interesting, I've got a few questions for you, so I'm just gonna start from the top.

00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:32.000
Okay.

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:35.000
No, actually, the first one is not really a question well, I'm making it a question.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:42.000
It's a couple of comments, and it was about, and some of our members here have been chatting about Pete free compost.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Hmm, hmm!

00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:46.000
What's your opinion of it? Because obviously, you know, it's probably best.

00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:54.000
And environmentally. But maybe it's not such good results.

00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:55.000
It can be, it can be equally as good as compost with Peter.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:56.000
It. It's peak free is definitely more importantly, friendly.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:11.000
And, in fact, most of the garden centers and supermarkets, and so on, now are trying to reduce or completely avoid peak free compost.

00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:15.000
So you don't find it as much as you did in the past.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.000
And really the recent Pete was added to a compost.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:25.000
Mix was because it holds water it holds water nicely, and there are alternatives.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:36.000
So Pete free compost is absolutely fine, sometimes with some of the peak free ones, as the lady in you were saying, you might have little bits in them.

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:47.000
They might not be quite as fine, but you can sit those out, and if you don't have a anything, you know, like a garden safe, I mean, I don't own a garden safe.

00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:52.000
What you can do.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Yes, if you put your composting small bowl, and then you just shake it gently.

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:10.000
The big bits will come to the top, and then you can just take them off.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:11.000
Okay.

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:12.000
So that's a way of of doing that, but definitely use speech free. I I would suggest that I try and use free because it it is better.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Thank you. No. You talked about. This is from Madeline.

00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:22.000
She was asking about bathroom window cells, and of course you did.

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:25.000
Yeah.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Hmm!

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:29.000
You have kind of partially answered this question, ready about bathroom windowsill being quite good with the dampness in a bathroom.

00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Not be a little bit beneath you.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:35.000
Hmm!

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:38.000
It depends a bit on what you're growing. But most plans quite like a bit of humidity.

00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:42.000
So the humidity in the bathroom often suits plants really really well.

00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:50.000
So I wouldn't worry too much about it. And I mean, you're always going to ventilate your bathroom after you've had your shower your bath, anyway.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:53.000
So you're going to get the, you know. Most of the steam out.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:54.000
Hmm!

00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:58.000
So the humidity shouldn't be a problem.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Am I? I have to say so. You should be okay in your bathroom.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Okay? Got another question here from? So it was about when you were talking about.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:16.000
I think it was a lady from queue actually was talking about.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:17.000
Yes.

00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:22.000
You can get 2 crops of, and she's asking, can you reuse the same port and compost for another planting?

00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:28.000
You can certainly use the same pulse if you empty it and wash it.

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:34.000
I wouldn't use the same compost, because once you've had one planting that those plants would have taken all the goodness out of that compost.

00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:55.000
And so there won't be any. There won't be any micro nutrients left in the compost for the plants, so always I would always use fresh compost, especially when you're growing like those pieces very very densely like that you the plants will take all of them all of

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:58.000
the goodness out of that that compost.

00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:02.000
Okay. Excellent. Okay. I hope that answers your question.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:18.000
So. And this is actually a bit more of a comment. Again.

00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Hey! Do!

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:21.000
But be interesting to see what else you might be able to do with this, Jane is saying, with spring onions she buys them from the supermarket and plants the root and when she's eating the rest of it, and the week row which is pretty interesting and is there anything else you can

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:26.000
do that with.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:27.000
That's my question.

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:33.000
There's no to stop on things there is actually loads of stuff on the Internet about this, which is why I know about this spring onions.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.000
I am. I have to admit I have never done it, so I don't really know.

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:41.000
I do know that you can regrow lettuce from the stump end of a lettuce.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:51.000
I believe you put it in water. I think I think you can just do it in water.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:55.000
And you will get you, will you will not get a full lettuce?

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:07.000
Come out of it, but you will get leaves sprouting from, you know, when you cut when you cut that end off of your lettuce you will get some leaves sprouting from that, and I don't know because I've never tried this.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:13.000
But you might find something similar with sprouts actually, I don't know either.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:14.000
Hmm, yeah. Okay, interesting.

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:26.000
The green ones, but they're all there are lots of things, and I have seen it on on the Internet. And it's something that said that in the past, you know, you never really did.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:34.000
But I have seen quite a lot of information about it, so I think it's definitely, if you're into, it's something to to look at.

00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:37.000
But it definitely works as spin onions and lettuce.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:38.000
Okay? Excellent. Right question here from Katherine, and obviously with growing.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:47.000
These kinds of things watering seems to be very important for these.

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:48.000
Hmm, hmm!

00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:52.000
What if you have to go away for a few days? What would you suggest that people do?

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:59.000
I put them. I put your crop somewhere cooler, and maybe out of the sun.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:03.000
If you are growing in a plant problem. And obviously, if you're going on your instant, you'd have your plant pot on something.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:05.000
You know, a sauce or a trade to keep you into so nice?

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:28.000
If you're only going away for a few days, and it's summer time, I would actually put water in the in the, so that there is actually water in the source or the trail, and then it'll just be drawn up so for a few days that that will work really really well, so that's something

00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:42.000
you can do watering is quite interesting when you do the micro greens you you have to keep your cotton wall or your your paper wet at all times, because if it dries out, the seats will just stop growing, and you won't.

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:47.000
They won't be able to come back. So the watering is very important for that.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:55.000
Okay. No. I think it was when the lady from Q was talking about growing.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:07.000
About picking the side leaves, and not ones from the top is, would that be a kind of general rule, you know, for growing these kinds of leaves and vegetables?

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Or is it particular to Basil?

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:16.000
Yes, no, plants always have they the the top, the top sheet of a plant, you know.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:17.000
We've got the little leaves in the top chute.

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:26.000
That part of the plant produces hormones actually, and also it's got certain areas within within the plant tissue itself, and that's the growing area.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:31.000
So that's where it grows from. It always grows from the tip, not from the bottom.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:52.000
So if you pinch out the tip, what you do end up getting is side shoots, so if you're growing Basil, like she was in the pot, you don't want side shoots, because you've already got a full of stuff full of leaves, if you were growing something like a tomato plant

00:52:52.000 --> 00:53:01.000
you might want to take the top, shoot out, because that would encourage side shoots to grow some of these bushy tomatoes.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:06.000
Then that would give you extra side shoots, extra flowers, and tomatoes.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:11.000
It depends on the little bit on what you're growing, but certainly, if you're growing things like Basil in a pot, and you've got a lot of seeds like she had you.

00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:20.000
You don't really want to be taking the top out because you went.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:23.000
It sort of bushes, and it stops it growing up as well.

00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:27.000
So soon as you take the the top, shoot out, the plant will stop growing up.

00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:30.000
It'll start just growing sideways.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:41.000
Okay. No, let's see what else we have, which this is a question from Catherine, which is a better bet for window performance.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:44.000
Margaram, Oregano.

00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:52.000
I don't think there's much in it, because they're very, very similar plants from a very, you know, from hot, dry conditions.

00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:55.000
So I would grow whichever one you prefer to eat.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:00.000
I don't think there'd be too much difference in them.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:12.000
I always think Oregano seems to be a little bit more robust, so it might be a better bet, especially if you're not grown something before, but they're very similar plants, so whichever you really would prefer should be fine.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Okay, and.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Hi for Madeline! Can you dry sweet pepper seeds and grow those?

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Yes, absolutely. Yes. You can add the same with Chilies and tomatoes as well.

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:38.000
So you you can save your seed and just grow them.

00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:51.000
In fact, I have got some chillies. Well, if they haven't started sprouting yet, but I planted the seeds from some chitties that I bought from the supermarket, and cause I didn't want to buy a whole pack to see I only want 2 or 3 chicky

00:54:51.000 --> 00:55:00.000
plants so I've saved some of the seeds, you know, when I prepared them, and and I sold them, and they will start growing soon.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:06.000
I only did them last week, so give me a chance. But yes, absolutely save you money as well.

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:11.000
So, particularly if it's if it's something that you know, a variety that you quite liked. It's definitely.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:27.000
Yeah, okay, I think maybe a good time for maybe one more like let me just have a look to see if I've missed anything and lots and lots of comments here and hmm, from Verity, how wet should you keep the soil.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:30.000
I guess that depends on what you're growing. We kind of touched on that earlier, didn't we?

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:44.000
We we did some from queue as well should say, you know, if you're not sure put your finger in, and if it's if it's damp about a centimetre below the surface, it's going to be absolutely fine, if it's dry, about a centimetre below it's

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:59.000
too dry, and another way you can do it the old fashioned these case because we don't always have newspaper, but you can put a little piece of newspaper on the top of the soil, press it down with your finger for a minute or so and if it comes out damp it's probably

00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:06.000
just about right, and if it's absolutely driving, you need to water.

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Hi!

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Right? One final question. And then, I think it will wrap up for today.

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:13.000
What is the easiest time to grow as in time as in the herb?

00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:14.000
No as in time. Watch.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:15.000
Huh! Hi! The easiest would be the common green one.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:25.000
That's the hardest as well. So you can actually grow that outside as well.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:34.000
If you if you're growing indoors, really, they're all very, very similar, and they should be, they should behave and grow really, really well.

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:46.000
Any sort. I because I live in West Yorkshire, I find that my outside time the only one I can grow is the common green one.

00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:53.000
I tried to fancy variegated, and you know the lemons and all of that, and they just won't survive the winter.

00:56:53.000 --> 00:57:05.000
But if you're growing it indoors, I don't see why you couldn't grow any variety of time that you want, and if I was really keen on growing 11 time, I would grow it inside.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:06.000
Okay.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:08.000
So I think.

00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Right, one final question, that I'm gonna squeeze in here, and then we're gonna stop.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:15.000
And from cattle, now I didn't know there was such thing.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:21.000
But do you recommend glass bulbs that would release water slowly?

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:23.000
This is coming back to the watering of the plant.

00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:30.000
Oh, yes, and that can be a really useful way of watering when you're away.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:39.000
Yes, so. Yes, there are various watering devices that just allow a small amount of water to to trickle out each day.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:44.000
So. Yes, that can be a very good way of watering, especially if you're not there all the time. Okay.

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Okay, right? Well, I think we have to wrap up there. And thanks again, Catherine, that will really was interesting.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:56.000
And I hope it's given you all out there some food for thought and some useful tips, and to take away.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:00.000
And hopefully you're inspired to. As Catherine says, to have a go and see how you get on.

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:14.000
Thank you very much. Fiona. Hi, have had a fascination with offer all my life.

00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:20.000
And currently, I'm trying to make sure that everybody I come in contact with.

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:27.000
Batches, that curiosity. So what is it? It's a very strange thing, is opera.

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It's overblown. It's over the top, it's over loud.

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It was the pop music of the day, but now we tend to regard it as something completely different so let's have a look at what it actually is.

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First of all, it's 2 worlds colliding. You've got what it was when it was first premiered on your got what it is now, and some poor producer, and opera house has to try and put it on, and please, everybody it's emotion it's hot over.

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The head. There was a gentleman, a Lord Chesterton, who said that when he went to see the opera he left his brain along with his hat and his cane.

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It's music, it's drama. It's also spectacle started in Italy.

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Spread. Really now, to just about every corner of the world.

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It wasn't experiment, and it just caught fire. The big 4 composers that we know that we still like today.

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Mozart, verde Vagna, Puccini, plus a whole host of others.

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Let's have a look at some of the things that they actually do what I'm going to do tonight.

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I am going to give you lips to look at, and then I'll tell you something about the light aside, as in the things that happened that weren't meant to so excuse me while I share the screen.

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Our first one will be who, I consider Verdi the most popular composer of our day.

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See if you recognize who it is and what it is.

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Be all!

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Of all love to turn da da.

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Be all naughty.

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Oh, good me! More than they are!

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Yeah.

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And oh! Oh!

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So!

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This is.

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Born on so many Indian.

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So the Brindis sea, or the drinking song from that raviata that is of the one that I first saw tender age of 16 and a flea pit cinema in the south coast, and 3 handkerchiefs.

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Later I was a complete emotional wreck, and I hope in a way that that's what opera can do for you.

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It certainly has done it for some of the poor principles, things that tend to happen with being an over the top entertainment.

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You do find that?

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Things like.

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At the Premier, the lady herself is supposed to be dying of Tb.

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Consumption in those days, and they had the fattest soprano that you could imagine.

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So the fact that it was set in modern costume a bit like somebody doing it in jeans and a T shirt to day, and the earth of the particular lady who was supposed to be dying of a a wasting disease.

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Meant that the whole production was what verdict called a fiasco.

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So what do you want to his manager? And it was only when they actually put it in very pretty crindolines, as you saw there, that people liked it.

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Other things that happened. I remember seeing a production Adjuston Miller production.

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2 things happened there, there was a different, different times. Somebody that I knew was singing the The boyfriend, at 1 point he's supposed to, through his winnings at the poor unfortunate soprano basically to insult her and to get his revenge on her for her leaving

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:35.000
him. Well, he forgot the money, so quick thinking he slapped around the face, which went down very well with everybody in the audience, but she never spoke to him again, which is not good but you're trying to actually sing with her.

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The other thing that happened, the nurse in that one was the large lady, and Jonathan Miller decided that he would have the the soprano.

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The poor unfortunate Traviata, dying of consumption in bed for the last scene, I'm the poor, considerate nurse sat on the bed, which probably collapsed.

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So you had half an hour while the curtain came down, and they put the back back together and carried on.

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There are all sorts of things that happen to it. A raked stage.

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Now, when I was actually doing productions, rate stages they tended not to have, and somebody decided it would be a brilliant idea that the audience could see everything.

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But you do have slight problems which is sliding. So what they used to do and what they still do is they would put something sticky, like lemonade or something like that.

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So it was the duty of the stage manager just to make sure that the whole thing was sticky to the touch.

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So that when you came on you didn't lose your footing.

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Well, it was night time. It was the.

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The the sorry brains gone, the the payment!

00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:17.000
One decided that this was disgraceful, that they'd left all this stickiness on the stage. So she cleaned it off, and then onboarding the principals, and down slid the principles straight into the orchestra pit.

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Now some of these things are just asking for it, and they are delightful when they happen, because you have sat through something like Macbeth which is bored, you silly, because the producers made it a boring production which is difficult for Verdi and then I was sat in one and not just

00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:55.000
one knife, but 10 sprang up across the stage, and the audience just completely dissolved in laughter, and the producer deserved it right so let's have a look at what else?

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Opera is the real story. Now that particular one was not a Barbara Cartland, and it was so real that that Verdi knew the lady.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:30.000
It was based upon a courtesan much respected in Paris, and not only that, but he married one of the singers who was singing, not in that production, but who was singing this the lead and lived with her for many years, very happy, marriage but you know she and she knew exactly what was going on in the problems.

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:44.000
That she had there so Opera's action, tragedy, emotion, in that particular one.

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You've got love, you've got fate. She was an outcast, and very few soprano's actually survived.

00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:59.000
They either conveniently died or were driven mad.

00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:07.000
So if you wanted to live a health and happy life, don't be a soprano in those days.

00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:15.000
But along came Mozart. Yes, he came much before then, and he was at the turn of us.

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:27.000
A a tide, and he was, had a delightful sense of humor, very German, very earthly for the time.

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And he took what was a very strange and serious opera, and turned it into a delightful mix of tragedy and comedy.

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So let's have a look at our next selection, which is a beautiful song from the marriage of Figaro.

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Oh!

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:55.000
Apologies for that one not having.

00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.000
The.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:05.000
Would. So underneath. But it is a very beautiful song, and in context she's actually singing it, not to the counts who she is.

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:28.000
Ostensibly meeting, but to her husband of a few hours, who is beside himself with jealousy because he thinks that she is genuinely cheating on him, as it turns out, she's not, and they really do turn the tables.

00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:42.000
That was a product of the French Revolution which changed everybody's idea, and enabled all sorts of comic approaches to come.

00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:49.000
The Emperor, who was paying Mozart, wasn't too happy.

00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:59.000
He said it had too many notes, to which Mozart famously replied, just as many as a necessary emperor.

00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:05.000
But problem was that Mozart also had too many enemies, too many composers in the same court.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:14.000
And it only really took off when he took it to Prague, and then it became well, very well known.

00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:19.000
The other thing that he instituted was these 20 min finales.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:32.000
If you do get the chance to go on the Internet or to go to the cinema where they have these on, you know, they have some on display.

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:40.000
Then these 20 min finalees are really delightful.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:47.000
That opera actually set up a very famous opera house.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:04.000
That was the first one that blind born born in Sussex, used to set the public opera house and a few things about it.

00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:26.000
One of the one of the action scenes is where the page who is just at the 15 to 17, where he is after anything in skirts, and he comes and he pesters Susana, who was singing that and he has to be hidden under a dust sheet and one very

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:35.000
silly producer decided that he would cover the whole place with furniture under dust, sheets.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:40.000
So the poor count, who is supposed to come upon him by chance, had to wander around the entire stage reasonably.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:20:09.000
Ing parts of his song to a very confused audience, and conductor, took the dust sheet off just about every piece of furniture he could find, until he right around him, and another little tip bit is that when Glideborn had its upgrading and we built the theater and

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:24.000
especially wide ladies toilets, so that the the cast could actually go into the toilets still in criminals, costume.

00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:38.000
So in that one you had love, intrigue, disguise, mistaken identity, and these were the favourite sorts of things that you had in opera. It's a fantasy.

00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:56.000
We're doing a very much whistle. Stop tour with no rhyme or reason as to where we're going, and when we're going, and our next one will be I'm sure, a favourite of everybody with a I won't say often coming, star because he has been up and coming

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:04.000
for 20 years, but he has very much taken over from the.

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:09.000
Have Aotti and Domingo and Carras era.

00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:13.000
Mister Kaufman. So here is a lovely treat it's very sad one, but it's a lovely treat.

00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:19.000
It's the Flower Song and a bit of information.

00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:25.000
Be, say when he was setting it in Spain, was asked What did you go to Spain?

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.000
Because there's such an atmosphere about it.

00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:59.000
And he said, Oh, no, I didn't want to disappoint myself, so.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:23:07.000
I!

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:28.000
The sun. Yes!

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:34.000
The Yes, sir.

00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:42.000
I to stay?

00:23:42.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Yes.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:14.000
Reason, nice army.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:32.000
Question is a personal is the word.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:50.000
Oh!

00:24:50.000 --> 00:25:11.000
A!

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:17.000
At all.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:47.000
All!

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:32.000
And welcome back!

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:39.000
But we didn't do badly, considering it never been to Spain, did he?

00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:46.000
This particular one has a whole host of things that happened to it.

00:26:46.000 --> 00:27:00.000
It was put on, not at the big Prestige Opera House in Paris, which has the beautiful facade and the magnificent staircase.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:16.000
It was put on at the what they call an opera comic, a comical opera which that definitely was not, but they called it that basically because it had a spoken dialogue as well.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:28.000
And that one was another fiasco. They kept it on for a season, but they gave away tickets, and even giving away tickets.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.000
People didn't come on. The basic reason is that he was a.

00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:51.000
B say was before his time at that point opera was written for families to go to, and here you are having a cigarette girl, a gypsy smuglers.

00:27:51.000 --> 00:28:07.000
A soldier who he's been he's deserted, and he killed her on stage, and this was totally unheard of, so nobody came to it.

00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:18.000
It was 10 years before it was put on again, by which time the whole world had moved on, and you had Puccini and you had Muskani and Leon Cavallo.

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:31.000
Doing similar sort of what I call kitchen sink dramas, where everybody you know, you're bound to find somebody's murdered at the end, or somebody's deceived them.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:43.000
This betrayal all over the place, and this is one of those where he really was a one hit.

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Wonder at that time. Certainly now I mean we love the pearlfishes duet.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:57.000
But we don't then go to the pearlfishes as much.

00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000
But Carmen is, I think, number 5 in the most popular.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:15.000
Opera throughout this this century, and it shows no sign of the of stopping being so, but this has all sorts of things.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:22.000
A tenor in act 4. He's dressed as a really rough tramp, isn't he?

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:30.000
So he decided that in between times he got himself nicely dressed up, ready for the last act.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:33.000
So he decided he'd go out for a drink in Spain next.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:55.000
Oh, no, not Spain, Mexico, and he was arrested because he decided he was a a down and out drunk, and they put him in jail, and he had to sing that song for every policeman that wanted to come and listen to it before they'd let him out to get back

00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:02.000
to the stage to do the the last act.

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:06.000
And just like Travisata, where the tenor forgot the right things.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:18.000
He supposed to stab her at the end. Well, he forgot he didn't take the knife on, so he had to strangle her instead.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:23.000
And do you remember the smugglers, quintet?

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Where it is a fiendishly difficult thing. Marries on it to pace, and at 1 point the orchestra I think this was Paris.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:41.000
They have a lot of problems with them. With orchestras in Paris, and they will laying bets as to which would finish first.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:52.000
The singers or the orchestra, and the orchestra was actually aiming to finish 10 s before the same goes.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:07.000
What else? Animals? Yes, a theatre dog took a shine to Carmen, and it's a big, big mountain dog, and it came on when she was singing her solo.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:13.000
And it sat, and it held along with her. So she's trying to shush this and back.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:18.000
Heal this dog off the stage, and it kept coming back.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:23.000
I think sometimes, if the performance isn't very good, these things are just an absolute gem, aren't they?

00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:26.000
They keep Hussein while you're in the audience.

00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:31.000
Perona. It was a cat if you've never been to Verona, please go.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:39.000
It is gorgeous. It is in one of the old Roman amphitheaters.

00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:56.000
And if you email that or Google, that what they start with when it gets to dark time, because they don't start till about 90'clock, and you you certainly used to be given a little candle.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:10.000
But ever lit the candle. So you had this glorious picture of the whole 15,000 people with a little candle each.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Oh, yes! And if you know this one, don't tell everybody what it is.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:19.000
It's the conductor, Thomas Beecham.

00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:43.000
His famous quote, a horse which was actually a cart horse, always was brought on, and this was in 1,932, and the horse, as they say, committed the ultimate indiscretion right at the front of the stage and beecham turned around to the audience and

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:48.000
said, my God! A critic!

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:51.000
So I think that's as many as we want from that particular one.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:33:04.000
Oh, yes, what I must say has a reputation for either loving you or hating you, and a well known Chenna Roberto.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Alanya did the lead part in this. No, you did, Don Jose in this, and they didn't like him, so he was booed off stage, and he never well, he vowed never to come back, and I took it good a good few many years before he did.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:32.000
So enough of that one let's nip to the next before we run.

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:41.000
After time this particular one. We're going back to Figaro.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:56.000
This one is the. It's at the beginning where you have the locally figure of Caribbean over the little page boy who is in love with anybody and everything.

00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:05.000
And he is singing to this page boy who's just been found, as we said last time.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:30.000
And now he's been carted off to the army, and Figaro is telling him just what a a life he'll lead in the army.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:54.000
Da da da da da da a to.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:59.000
Lump purely.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:09.000
Wake up and loly train with the back to your.

00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Yes, with a penalty.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Oh!

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:54.000
In!

00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:02.000
Mistake Assembly. It's.

00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:29.000
Of the Boston, and to all morning.

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:40.000
The to Bonnie.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000
I we've been.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.000
I!

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:53.000
I we're lucky.

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Know! Oh!

00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:04.000
On!

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:26.000
Oh, Northern Ireland!

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:56.000
Every La Victoria, la la Lord Enemy, the!

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:29.000
Well, thank you for coming to this little whistle.

00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:42.000
Stop tour. We do have one more thing that we're going to watch, but for that a few of the lovely things this will be Puccini, who is another great favorite.

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:55.000
Tosca is one of, unfortunately, we won't be watching that one, but is one of the great favorites for everybody.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.000
It's also one of the things that has the most things that happen to it.

00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:08.000
But all are Puccini. He has what he called big souls in little bodies.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:13.000
Their sole purpose is to die, and to make us, we.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:24.000
But he's very good at it, you must admit, and we come back time and time again to repeat the same experience, don't we?

00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:34.000
So a few of the things that he this, hits it's tragedy, it's love, it's death.

00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:35.000
It's he was the last of the composers who used the Italian singing voice.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:58.000
If that makes sense what we call the bell canto of Rossini and Bellini and Donizetti, where you just think you've died and gone to heaven when you're sitting listening to the the beautiful voices and it's a shame because he died in 1,900 and

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:11.000
24, just as the Talkie films was starting in Hollywood, he would have been a brilliant film composer on Youtube.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:23.000
There is a clip of the scene from the quantum of solace the O 7 film, you know the James bond, and they use the Tosca theme from that.

00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:31.000
Which is why I started talking about Tosca for the gun battle, and it fits perfectly.

00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:42.000
So we really missed out on on him, because, you know, we could have had such an effect on the films but we've still got lots of lovely ones that he did do.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:41:05.000
He liked doing them in faraway places of butterfly set in the East and tour and Dot set in the East, and all these things that we can revel in the spectacle in the beautiful costumes as well.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:22.000
So we'll have a look at some of the with the duet in the first act, and we'll forget that Caruso is supposed to.

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:30.000
We don't know whether he did or not, and we don't know whether it's a hot potato or a hot sausage.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:40.000
When he is talking and singing to her. Your tiny hand is frozen, he surreptitiously slipped a hot potato into her hand.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:52.000
It's a good job that opera singers have got a huge amount of acting capability these days that they can just managed to still carry on.

00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:11.000
So before we do that, Tosca, the things that happened there, the lady with the trampoline as she jumps off the the balcony at the end and comes up again and again and again, because the stage hands didn't like her.

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:20.000
The student firing squad, who, the producer was far too busy to tell them what to do.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:30.000
So he just kept saying, Oh, you go off with the principals when they're finished, so they managed to shoot the wrong person because she was singing at the time and they thought, Well, she's the important one.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:48.000
So we got to shoot her, and we're very surprised when the tenor guide instead, and when the soprano decided to jump off the battlements, they did the same thing.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:12.000
What else? Yes, callous. Her wig caught fire with the candles, so Tito Gobi had to actually rough house her out of the way and clamp his, fing, his his hand onto the wig to stop it, and she knew nothing about it until the end to you know until after we'd done it and she's

00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:18.000
supposed to have whispered queue to him.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:25.000
The black cannonballs, because it only has 3 main principles.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.000
It's one thing that they try to do cheaply.

00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:47.000
So instead of cannonballs, they had beach balls, and they painted them black, and she dislodged one of the pile on the battlements, and they started bouncing down and bounced out over the audience.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:58.000
These things really do happen. So thank you, and I will put on our final one and do enjoy and please give up for a try.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:13.000
It can be great fun.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:21.000
See.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:35.000
So it's.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:59.000
The.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:01.000
This?

00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:17.000
The.

00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:24.000
One time.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:36.000
Me!

00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:44.000
Oh, all!

00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:50.000
All we all!

00:45:50.000 --> 00:46:20.000
Must speak home, all!

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:52.000
So!

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:32.000
Hand over to you, Fiona.

00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Thank you very much, Chris. That was that was really entertaining, and goosebumps from from time to time, as well.

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:43.000
With those amazing voices. Let's hope everyone enjoyed that.

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:54.000
Let's go to some questions. And now we've got one question from Madeline, which everybody has been chatting about in in the chat, but it'd be great to get your take on it.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:49:01.000
And have the great operas ever been produced and presented in English?

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:07.000
Yes, there are. There are several.

00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Sorry I couldn't remember whether I turned my sound on.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:16.000
There are several companies that do them in English, English, National Opera, Welsh.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:24.000
National Scottish opera, opera, north.

00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:37.000
They tend to try and do them in English, just basically because you need to have this ability to understand what you are listening to.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:59.000
It's the reason that most of the opera companies like the Royal Opera House or the foreign ones, do it in the original language, is because it it fits better with the music, and to be fair singing in English, is a bit like wading through porridge.

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:03.000
Sometimes. But that's the reason. Yeah.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:07.000
Okay, thank you. Now, I'm just scrolling through here.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:17.000
There was another question that I saw. Hold on one moment. Yes, this is a question from Sue.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:21.000
Thank you very much for subtitles on the clips.

00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:26.000
It's really helpful is the Cds eclipse that you've shown.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:29.000
Is this a series that you can recommend people to watch?

00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:39.000
Or is there somewhere that you would recommend that people could go to watch? Some of these clips are fully clicked.

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:40.000
That is what that those selection of clips were taken from.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:51.000
It's from the Royal Opera House, and it's called an evening with the Royal Opera.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:53.000
Do you want to just hold it up again for a second?

00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:54.000
I. It keeps disappearing.

00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:56.000
We didn't see it.

00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:00.000
That's it. It's there we are. If you can see that.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:07.000
Just about we'll get details, everybody, and post the details of that up beside the recording when it's ready.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:08.000
Yeah.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:12.000
Was it a little bit more that you can tell us about that?

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:14.000
Then apologies for interrupting.

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:22.000
That particular one. It has a a lovely selection from once that the Royal Opera House has done.

00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:42.000
It's features there stars who are top class, and it's does a a mix there are some tragedies, some comedy, some chorus, some action, some finalees, some solos.

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:48.000
So it's a really nice mix of them, and it starts with a overture, and it finishes with falseaff doing his finale.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:56.000
So it's very nice. Well worth it, and it at the time.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:03.000
It cost me 1199. So it's not not out of the way.

00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:04.000
Okay.

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:07.000
So I don't know what it is now.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:10.000
Well, we'll make sure we post up details of that.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:11.000
Yup!

00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Besides the recording ready? Now, actually, here's an interesting question from Karen and Andrew.

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:21.000
Just something I hadn't really thought about. It. Be interesting to get your take on this does opera come out of pantomime, or vice versa?

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:28.000
Is there a connection between the 2?

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:51.000
There is a huge connection between the 2. You remember me saying right at the beginning that oh, no, but it opera came from the old Greek and Roman theatre, but it became, by way of the old Italian tradition of entertainment which was the they call

00:52:51.000 --> 00:53:15.000
themselves, the the Comedia De Latte, which were the comedians who used to tour the provinces but 6 to 8 of them, and they'd put on little plays and comedies, and it grew from that as much as anything because all these little entertainments will

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:24.000
put between the big acts when it started to be as an a unit on its own.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:33.000
And it just grew from there because you used to only have the serious comedy, the serious comedy, the serious Operas.

00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:54.000
And they went on for a long time. But what they do is they'd have a little anti-media, a little it in between the 2, between the first serious thing and the second serious thing, and these little intermediate comedies.

00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:03.000
Were more popular than the serious things. So in 1,600 it started with the serious ones.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:12.000
And then by 1637, everybody was interested, certainly in Venice, where it really started with a vengeance.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Everybody was interested in the comedies, and the little ones and it came direct from that.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:28.000
And if you look at Figaro, most of the people there have an absolute.

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:40.000
Mirror image with the the clowns that in Paliacci you have all of this into, you know the old comedia through the traveling troops.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.000
So. Yes, it does.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:57.000
Interesting, interesting. Now we've got a question from Guy. What is your view on the subtitling of opera?

00:54:57.000 --> 00:54:58.000
Yes or no?

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:03.000
I think. Oh, I can't do it, yes or no, if you're in the theatre.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:09.000
Yes, I think you need it, although it can be a distraction.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:17.000
You do need to understand what's going on, and you can miss so many of these nice little details.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:29.000
But there is no substitute for knowing the the storyline and mugging up a little on it before you go.

00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:36.000
I think you really do need to know. What you're going to watch, because you can't leave it completely.

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:54.000
You can try, but you do miss it. You've got to go back a second time to watch it and catch everything, and even a third or fourth time, if you're doing somebody like Verdi, as you always get a little bit more, I mean I keep watching these, and I'm always finding more.

00:55:54.000 --> 00:56:05.000
Things that I didn't realize, you know, so they're a hazard, but I think they're a necessary hazard.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Right? Okay. Well, I think that's all our questions.

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:16.000
In it, if it, and less than just got any late ones that they want to quickly pop in and thank you very much for that, Christine.

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:25.000
Some amazing voices. Certainly give me goosebumps, and my hands stand up on end for a little while there, and I hope everyone enjoyed that and enjoyed that little bit of a lighter sight.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:32.000
So Okra, which I thought was, was quite an interesting thing to do.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:41.000
So thank you very much. Oh, hang on! Here's another question for you.

00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:54.000
Quickly, Christine again, from Carl and Andrew. Question, murder, mystery won't work, then? Question Mark.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Murder, mystery.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.000
I'm not entirely sure exactly what that was. Release it to.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:03.000
No, is you say, Karen?

00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:05.000
Yes. Yeah.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:10.000
Where is Karen? Would she like to actually say?

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:12.000
If you want to give us a little bit more context question.

00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Yeah, to unmute yourself, Karen. If you hold your space bar, you can on.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:17.000
No, no, no, we can't do that, mistreat.

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:20.000
Oh, I see. Yes, yes, yes, perhaps.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:28.000
And I wonder if you want to pop in just a little bit more context to your question, and then we can come back to it.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:29.000
I mean, there are a lot of oh, murder, mystery!

00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:36.000
Aspects in it, but I'm not quite sure which particular one Karen's after.

00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:39.000
Right? Okay.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Knowing they out come, it will be a mystery. Yes, I see what you mean.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:49.000
That was to do with them bugging up on the story first before you go. I think.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:54.000
Yes, I think the producer. And this is answering your question.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:58:16.000
The producer has a duty to expect you to be able to go along as a complete novice to that particular okra and to understand it. And if they don't, then they're failing in that duty, I'm a I'm a bit of a.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:24.000
I really think they that needs to be. But.

00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:35.000
The first time you go you must get a all these cues coming to tell you, but I think it really does help with the enjoyment.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Yes, it's nice to have that feeling of, is she?

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:45.000
Isn't she going to die? Are they going to be happy?

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.000
Is so going to tell on them. Are they gonna get arrested?

00:58:49.000 --> 00:59:00.000
Is she going to get deported all these things? But there's something to be said for both of them.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:01.000
Yup!

00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:02.000
Okay, thank you. And just a quick question here from Chris.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:07.000
What was the penultimate opera show? And I think it was the manager, figureal, wasn't it?

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:08.000
The penultimate click!

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:21.000
It was. Yes, that was the clip of the figure out telling the page what sort of life you would have in the army.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:22.000
Yep.

00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:23.000
Thank you very much for clarifying that. I hope that helps you.

00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:24.000
Chris. Okay, now, I think that's us for today.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:27.000
And just as I say, thank you very much for that. That was really entertaining.

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.000
Thank you very much, Fiona, and thank you everyone for joining me this evening.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:17.000
It's great to be able to speak with you all, and so my educational backgrounds, particularly in our history.

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And I am passionate about history, and I love reading about art, but I'm also very conscious of the way that it's constructed and presented to us by certain people.

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And this involves obviously gallery directors, sponsors, writers, curators, dealers, buyers, people with certain art world related privileges.

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I'm just going to start sharing my screen.

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So even privileges and even biases, in fact, which result the way that affect the way, rather the art history is constructed and presented.

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And this in turn leads to marginalizations and exclusions.

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So. Some stories considered inappropriate or not desirable enough or not interesting enough to be told from one generation to another.

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Believe that whilst our history is compelling, fascinating, and essential, we need to consider the way that our histories are shared, by whom and for whom, and to consider how the idea of art and art history, which is traditionally dominated by straight whites Western men might become more diverse

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and inclusive, so Lgbtq. Plus history month offers a great opportunity to look again at the theme of sexual and gender identities in art.

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And why it's important to do so in terms of visibility.

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And what happens when certain people are groups don't see anyone like them in certain histories or areas.

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And further, to consider the role that art plays in the formation of social views on.

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Amongst other issues, sexuality and gender norms I believe that art reflects life in some ways, and unfortunately we have at large an undeniable history of homophobia.

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Involving, not only suspicion and intolerance of different but also of persecuting those living outside of commonly accepted and expected orientations.

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So where did this this leave art? That's what we're going to be looking at today.

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There are, of course, different ways to approach a theme of Lgbtq identities in art, and it's well, considering well worth rather considering wider histories of art rather than just the Western tradition from the Renaissance to now, but for this purposes of Today's

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session. It is that particular Western tradition that we'll be considering.

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So I want to find out where people from Lgbtq plus communities are in art, how anyone from this community managed to find a place in art, despite all the social and political restrictions and how like to generations have treated people who've defied the norms so I'm going

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to start by looking at her history. Now then, discuss some key moments, individuals and situations in the heart of Western art, history, up to the end of the twentieth century, which is significant for visibility, and then look more closely at 2 key artists and artworks in different times make a very different kinds

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of works, to consider how they've been treated by art history, and what factors during their lifetimes assisted their success, despite being outside the norms for the westing, and I think I put in in the course in the year, information rather that these are Donatello and

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Gluc, that will be looking at a little bit more closely at the end of the session.

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So this is a very selective approach that, of course, as a whole, the potential field is huge, and I'm also aware of flaws in kind of contextualized looking in a certain way.

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But it does offer a starting point into considering identity based themes which you might want to look into further.

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So social and political restrictions around different forms of gender and sexual orientation and norms are obviously different, depending on different times and different places.

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So that term Queenya art can hold different meanings.

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Sometimes there's the studies these days which are all about queer.

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Art, and I think that that terminology in itself can be open to interpretation.

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I'm sure everybody will have heard of some artists linked to the Lgbtq community.

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There's a massively famous names, including Frida Carlo, Andy Wallhol, Francis Bacon, Caravaggio, even David Hockney.

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But I'm gonna start now with the present culture, and I'm just going to share an image is not wanted to go forwards. One more.

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I'm just trying to. There we are one image from an artist who is quite celebrated at the moment, a contemporary artist.

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So this might acceptance in our society now than perhaps ever before, of the theme of sexual and gender orientation together with legislation and various equality, based initiatives in that there's recently been a rise of investigations into these marginalizations and that has been started to become more

00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:58.000
diverse people within the art world are becoming ever more aware of the need to be inclusive and accessible, and efforts around this have been gradually rising since the spread of the politics of identity and gender since the 1,900 ninetys there is now a growing field of study on

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queer theory and queer art, and or we are at history even, is becoming more widely written about, exhibited and celebrated.

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And it's interesting, of course, that the term queer itself was once a derogatory label but it's now being reclaimed, encompassing different forms of resistance to heteronormative identities.

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The most recent Turner prize, the best known art award in the country for living artists in 20 December 22 included all right kind of appeared as a platform rather for some artists from the Lgbtq.

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Community, which kind of shows the acceptance at the moment is, is rising, and we also get apps. Council.

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Funding, sometimes taged towards certain types of identities which aren't traditionally represented in the highest kind of circles.

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In a little over the last decade major exhibitions have been dedicated to queer at following these rider widest trends, and the first big gallery to openly explore this issue was, I think, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

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In 2,010, who had a big exhibition called Hide, seek difference in desire in American portraiture.

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It's interesting, though, that this show was met with controversy, including protests.

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People demonstrating about what they saw as the insult to Christianity of certain images.

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And this did result in the removal of one work from display.

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This aspect of backlash was not new, however, that 19 eighties and 19 nineties saw bitter disputes over controversial social issues, and one such issue was that the artist, Robert Mapple, thought, received money from a national endowment for the arts.

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Grant his major, 1988. Retrospective Exhibition.

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The perfect moment included explicit sexual imagery and homo eratic policyraits of nude black men.

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The outcry that followed LED to a debate on what taxpayers money should fund with the idea that taxes shouldn't promote homosexuality being put forward, and this resulted in some defunding from the artist and similar initiatives.

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More, recently, in 2017, in Britain, the Tate galleries held their first major exhibition on the theme, which was called Queer British art, 1,861 to 1967, and this was the first of its kind in a major Uk.

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Museum. It's interesting to know, though the survey only covers just over 100 years of art, history.

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And looking at the exhibition as well. It's interesting that the male nude in particular, was used as a kind of important motif.

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For queer art. And this this happened more widely in terms of thinking about queer art, history.

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The male nude has been kind of used as a a particular motif, so I like to expand this view into wide-out history, and that's kind of why I'm not using the term as a title for today.

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The, as I mentioned earlier, interesting examples of several other periods of artists.

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Several other periods having artist links to the Lgbtq community.

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But I believe that offer their specific identities haven't been discussed particularly openly while other artists have been lost marginalized, or written out of our history.

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So this image that I'm sharing here is from a major exhibition last year at the Tape Modern, which showed the work of contemporary non-binary artist, Xenilie Mull holy, and they are a documentary and portrait photographer and

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painter who's work off on conference stereotypes, and particularly for Black Lgbtq.

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Plus individuals and often women. And this is one of the.

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Self portraits. So the did a series of expressive self-portrait photographs and the title from the African translators Hail the dark lioness which references the history and symbolism of black African women throughout his history, as well as their own personal journey.

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And they talked about how, in putting these images together, they often came from confrontations and things like that, airpots or train stations lead into kind of questions about identity.

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So the images. Everyone. They're all kind of constructed images as well.

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So they they get dressed up and take the photograph.

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And so they were. On one hand they're sort of playful in their setup, and their references to different things from culture.

00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:16.000
And on the other hand, they're also thought provoking and confrontational, which seems to be an approach which several atis from the Lgbtq community used to address serious identity issues will hold.

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It talks about their purposes, including making out for education, for understanding, and for the need to do the realities of people who deserve to be seen, even though they're excluded from history.

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So whilst exhibitions like those mentioned here have explored queer art or queer aesthetics in the past few decades, as I mentioned, they tend to focus on the modern and contemporary, and and on image rate which references lgbtq plus experiences but the Rab

00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:57.000
of course, at is from all periods for whom a queer identity and.

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Well for some of the the queer identity is nothing to do with their art at all, but it's still worth considering.

00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:13.000
Their place within the history of art, whilst being mindful not to confine their contribution to purely kind of looking through the lens of the Lgbtq plus status.

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So, looking at that beyond the modern, through this theme, it can be quite tricky, as Western art, history, narratives, traditionally, as I said, normalize the idea of heterosexuality.

00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.000
And as such they tend to avoid discussing these different identities so openly.

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The such certain idea. Certain artists rather have become lost, marginalized, or written out even of art history, and in some cases they're sexual identities have been downplayed or even sometimes interpreted as heterosexual.

00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:04.000
That is, of course, a part of a society with all of its laws, restrictions, norms, and values, and sometimes artists, might even be in touched as only one part in the process of creating a work.

00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:05.000
Obviously the Works Commission pay for, produced and constructed amid certain cultural taste.

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:28.000
Sometimes made for exhibition, sometimes made for potential buyers, which will affect the way work is produced and how it's how it looks and how it's written about for future generations.

00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.000
Some recent theories on art and wider cultural series.

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Take the idea of creation even further, that the audience has more of an active part to play in constructive meaning for an artwork.

00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:51.000
So and if you take that approach, knowing about an artist biography, and there I identity.

00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:56.000
It's kind of less important in that view. And but in terms of understanding.

00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:57.000
And history as we've talked about it for hundreds of years.

00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:04.000
It is kind of it's important and obviously, it's important for visibility.

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:13.000
And for you know, younger generations to see and examples of themselves when they look into the history of art.

00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:19.000
So the idea of our history has 4 hundreds of years being constructed around this idea of biographies.

00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:28.000
So from the time of the massively influential text to the lives of the artists by Giorgio Vizari.

00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:34.000
This idea of taking one artist and writing about their life has been quite central to how people talk about art and the progression of our styles.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:47.000
And that Takes was originally published in 1550, so that kind of approach has, you know, it's been influential for hundreds of years.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:53.000
So for my next image, I'm gonna look back into the into the heart of our history.

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We'll start with Michelangelo and Michelangelo appears kind of as the star really of visaaries, lives of the artist, and everyone's heard of Michelangelo.

00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:07.000
What his sexuality is being represented in different ways by different narrators.

00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:26.000
Different writers at different times. This is his very famous piece, David, and for some Michelangelo was become a kind of a iconic, gay man within the canon of art history.

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With this image the beautiful, nude David figure, it's kind of like a poster boy, so is he really an example of a queer Renaissance artist?

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.000
And how does this relate to norms and laws in Renaissance?

00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:54.000
It today? Why is he so central? If this is the case to this version of history, that's very white and male and conventional.

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And how has he lasted in that kind of history for so long?

00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.000
Why? Why is it? And also what isn't he the center of studies on Queen art, history?

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:07.000
Where do they tend to focus more on the twentieth century?

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:15.000
And afterwards well in some masculine aristocratic pockets of Renaissance, Italy.

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:22.000
Did it exist? Something of a homosexual culture which it was kind of on the fringes.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:31.000
It was apparently public knowledge that younger men, such as artists, apprentices, would have intimate or even sexual relationships with their older mentors.

00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:47.000
But this, of course, was frowned upon by the authorities, especially the church a predominant force in most of Italy at the time Michelangelo, of course, was part of this culture, and his sexuality has never really been confirmed, but there are certain references.

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:49.000
In his less public poetry and drawings, which some critics have looked at and seen as confirmation.

00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:59.000
That he was, in fact, Gate.

00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:17.000
Even in one of his most famous works, the last Judgement, which is behind the altar, massive piece, a massive fresco the the of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope's own chapel, the most holy room in the Christian world.

00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:23.000
We see perhaps in here, references to different forms of sexual behavior or preference.

00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:24.000
So it's an image of the data of judgment deciding what will happen to souls after their death.

00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:32.000
And some are going to heaven so we're being confined to hell.

00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:41.000
Christ is at the center, surrounded by angels, and Michelangelo has arranged the painting so that on the one side are the unfortunate ones.

00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:54.000
They're on the left of Christ, and the ones who were going to head the righteous ones there at his right hand.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.000
So they were on the right of Christ, and amidst the damned.

00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:12.000
I'm just going to show a close-up some interesting portrayals here of pairs of half Nick and Ben, and kissing, embracing and staring into one another's eyes.

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:19.000
If you know on the right hand side of this image the old demands intense gaze is a poly younger and boy, as well.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:26.000
Isn't this quite controversial imagery for the Sistine Chapel?

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:35.000
And of course these figures then appear on the side of the damned. We are going to hell. But it's interesting that Michelangelo chose to show them here at all.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:51.000
Some critics suggest that a reference to Michealangelo's own queer desire is here, and even whether this imagery references, references rather sorry his contemplation of his own soul.

00:18:51.000 --> 00:19:08.000
It's important, though, to know that looking in this way involves looking at the past from our lens and our cultural understanding and it's now believed that sexual identity in the Renaissance was very different to how it's viewed today the whole concept of asexual identity as we

00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:18.000
understand it seems to be quite recent developing from the late nineteenth century alongside the development of modern science and medicine.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:33.000
In 1870. The first writing on the subject appeared in it a paper by Carl Friedrich Otto Vestf, and you discussed the experience of what he called country sexual feeling, describing such feeling as an identity.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:38.000
But before that it's believed that people did have same sex relationships.

00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:48.000
And what didn't necessarily always think of themselves in the way we do now, and it seems to have been understood less as a fixed identity.

00:19:48.000 --> 00:20:00.000
Perhaps this aspect of different cultural and understandings partially explains why so much study on queer out now, focus on modern periods that we might understand better with different cultures.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:08.000
We don't seem to have the cultural understandings, or even perhaps the appropriate language, to discuss the complexities.

00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:34.000
A different relationships involved. We do know, obviously, that before 1,861 in England and Wales, the death penalty even existed for people convicted of getting sexual acts, you Europe at the same time was a little bit more liberal, and but America was also very constrictive so with this in mind.

00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:55.000
references to alternatives, sexualities in art generally did have to be covert for the art to be accepted, and even since then it's not being particularly socially acceptable to be openly gay, and until or Lgbtq plus or any other kind of form of difference until very recently.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:56.000
and I'm just going to share this portrait by Toulouse.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:16.000
The trek of Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde was sent to prison for surgery in 1,895, and this portrait closely recalls Oscar at the time, and I feel it demonstrates that the queer experience doesn't only impact on people

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.000
from non-native sexual backgrounds to lose the fact never identified as homosexual himself.

00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:43.000
But he did make friends with Oscar Wilde in Paris, and he drew him several times, and in this painting I feel that there's a strong sense of affinity, and showing that to those sympathized with wild position it seems to capture it a sense of a kind of deep forward and

00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:44.000
anxiety, and perhaps even a ageing him wild at the time, was still aged 40.

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:53.000
One, but I feel this portrait in this portrait is made to look.

00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:58.000
Older, which kind of it links to the idea of aging through stress.

00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:03.000
The painting was actually completed from memory.

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:20.000
Given that friendship to lose the track, as if you could meet and paint wild again whilst they were both in London, and while was understandably anxious, perhaps because he could sense the outcome of his trial and say he he did agree to meet but he didn't agree, to sit for his part, time on this occasion

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:30.000
so the track went back to his London hotel room after the meeting, and this was actually on the night before the trial, which was for gross indecentency.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:44.000
And so he kind of put in some of his own feeling and memory of what he, what he saw from Wild at the time.

00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:57.000
From a similar period. Bear in mind the legal position in the nineteenth century is the story of Simeon Solomon, which is a story that I find quite troubling.

00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:06.000
In his early days he was closely associated with the Pre-raphaelites, who were a group slightly older and more established.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:11.000
When he was a younger artist, but he had great success as an artist.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:24.000
And the influence of Rossetti and others of this Pre-raphaelites circle LED him to explore risque subjects and including homosexuality and Lesbianism, must explore subjects.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:30.000
Sutherland was eventually arrested for attempted sodomy in February, 1873.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:36.000
At the time he was aged only 32, and it was found, together with an older man in a public toilet.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:42.000
I only a decade. This was only a decade after the death penalty had been in force for such a crime.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:50.000
Don't forget. He was eventually released to the care of his cousin, with just a fine and a warning.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:00.000
What the warning wasn't enough. As the following year he was arrested again, this time in Paris, found with a male prostitute, and this time he was sentenced to prison.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:10.000
By the time of his release, he's become rejected by most of his friends and his former artistic circle, who didn't want to be seen as accomplices.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:23.000
Even the very people who had encouraged this daring subject matter now denounced him at history dropped him, but it practically wrote him out and and at history.

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:32.000
For a long time said that his career suffered greatly, as he struggle to find work made him stop working altogether.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:39.000
They say that it quickly became homeless, struggled with alcoholism, and spent the last 20 years of his life in a workhouse.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:45.000
And yes, you did drink, and they spent that time in and out of the work.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:25:02.000
The workhouse. He he actually wrote quite positively, fairly, positively, about the word house, saying that he liked being in the Central London location in the workhouse but it's interesting that recent researches have actually found that he was still making at obviously his career.

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:22.000
Did decline because of people not wanting to be associated with his crimes as they were seen, and but he was still making a it just wasn't displayed in such a prominent area, and it might have been say, on cardboard instead of on canvas as money and opportunities became

00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:39.000
very tight, and it's interesting that he's at was at the time still being contemplated in certain circles with, and it's known that Oscar Wilde, when he was a young student, was intrigued by the paintings of the Solomon calling him a

00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:54.000
strange genius. It wasn't really a during the Aids crisis in Britain, a lot later that Sullivan started to reappear and continues to be shown in recognition of the subject matter and changing attitudes to diverse identities.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:14.000
So this image was quite to be for the time. It shows Stefo, a famous Greek poet, most famously associated with female homosexuality, and she here appears with another poet Irina, with a pair of doves symbolizing there love.

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:26.000
The scene takes place in a garden on the Greek island of Lesbos, the place where Sappho was born, in the name from which Lesbian actually derives.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:28.000
We don't know very much of Sappho's poetry now, and but apparently the most complete surviving poem.

00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:40.000
Oh, to Aphrodite involved! So asking the goddess Aphrodite to help her to woo another woman.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:52.000
So the the idea of Lesbianism is kind of seen in different different parts of the painting, and there's different references within this image.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:12.000
Whilst homosexuality was still illegal until the late twentieth century there was, however, some greater acceptance of difference during the East, that into war years, especially in large urban areas, such as Paris, where queer individuals, in particularly in artistic centers would integrate into

00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:19.000
mainstream culture. But even through the twentieth century there was a strange contradiction amongst artists.

00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Works of both, concealing references to queer identity, and something of a desire for visibility.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:34.000
There are certain codes, suggestions, and sort of half revelations in Western, and especially modern art, history.

00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:39.000
And one example is in the work of Jasper Johns.

00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:43.000
This is his white flag. That's an interesting example of this.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:44.000
So John's completed a series of American flag paintings in the 1950.

00:27:44.000 --> 00:28:00.000
S. And sixtys, and they were most mostly very bright and colorful, but in this one the flag loses all of its color, as if the image is being drawn and then rubbed out or painted over.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000
It's like a ghostly remnant this time of the American flag.

00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:11.000
If you look closely you can see the stars and the stripes within the whitewash.

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Some critics have then described this as an example of John's experiences as a gay man in the, in the very repressive society in America, where he lived.

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Where identities and feelings and experiences had to be covered up like the colors.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:46.000
And this flag of being covered up, and it's interesting that Johns at the time was in a relationship with another very famous male artist, Robert Rauschenberg, who is at also expressed his identity only through code in order to gain acceptance in the matcho New York art

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:47.000
world. In contrast to these certain hints and revelations, or symbols.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:50.000
Rather Andy Warhol, who's now celebrated as a game.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Modern artist initially struggled to make his mark in the art world where he was rejected for, rejected for images of young men kissing, showing, perhaps, that such a Madrid wasn't seen as appropriate at the time.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:22.000
It's interesting. At the similar time Francis Bacon celebrated imagery only it just show young men together, but it just so only imply abstracted form.

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:30.000
Perhaps more literal approach would have been seen as too transgressive.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.000
Following the decriminalization in 1962, in the Us. In 1,967 in the Uk.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Of homosexuality. That was still precious, and norms which heavily influenced the experience of the Lgbtq community, and I'm sure everyone said to the steel ball ragers which was seen as a turning point as they did coincide with a broader kind of social activism and

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:23.000
protest spirit. So they had to. In this time art was used as a kind of a protest with patchy text and posters with, and we see people holding placards, and it's seen as a mark of a social movement for the lesbian and gay

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:34.000
rights, movement, encouraging. As a result, people are encouraged, then, to be more open in contrast to the covert message approach which we saw in John's work.

00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:51.000
So a lot of images, then, about individual identities followed that this image is actually, it's from Pride Parade, which began the year after the Stonewall and uprising again with activist art in the form of posters and Placards.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.000
And this is quite, quite a sort of a challenging one.

00:30:53.000 --> 00:31:04.000
But also kind of playful, and that seems to be a message that comes through in art as well.

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:08.000
This is a work of Keith, having which in the 1980 s.

00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:28.000
He drew on this kind of activist imagery and produced posters and snnappy, rather looking at the posters and the snappy motto and like activist kind of imagery, together with references to the aids crisis which spread obviously among the conservatism of

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:42.000
the 1980 s. On first glance, the work is a kind of a fearless, useless, full energy, but, on the other hand, the work deals with a very serious subject, such as death, sex and war.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:50.000
He was very clever in breaking down distinctions, bridging high art, and low forms of culture.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:53.000
And so we's art was seen by many, and in the hands of many, because he produced as well as paintings.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:56.000
And produce T-shirts and watches, and and also public murals.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:03.000
So there was a huge appeal for his work.

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:14.000
With various audiences. He also tragically died himself of aids, related complications aged only 31.

00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:23.000
It's interesting that the Aids crisis also followed. Shortly after the 1976 publication by Michael Fouco, History of Sexuality.

00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:34.000
And perhaps this said kind of contributed to the attention that was coming to be turned to subgroups in the eighties.

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:43.000
This is another at this. Who's works are linked to that kind of aids related experience.

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:50.000
So, Derek Jam, and also a film director, became known as the Gay rights activist as well as an artist.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:59.000
And this is one of a series of paintings where he uses quickly smeared paint, in a kind of energetic form.

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:04.000
But then, with a very serious message, so this one's a taxi ages.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Aids is fun, and the taxi is a neurological condition which causes loss of balance and coordination.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:16.000
So, on the one hand again. It's a kind of a an energetic, colorful painting.

00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:41.000
But with this very serious kind of iconic element, I'm perhaps that kind of that kind of play between dark humor, perhaps, and the serious message is what made these images and appeal more overt references started to appear then in the nineteenth in response to the rise of identity politics

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:47.000
and at that point, however, instead of being playful but serious, they they, in fact, I think they are still playful but serious, but they appear to be more conceptually formatted rather than paintings.

00:33:47.000 --> 00:34:00.000
All photographs so much. This is the work of Felix Gonzalez Torres, who's a Cuban, openly?

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:12.000
Gay artist, and his work again responded to the Aids crisis, and this one it's a pile of sweets, but it's a conceptual portrait of his partner who he lost to Aids related ill issues.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:34.000
As well. So this is a pile of suites in the corner of a gallery, and viewers are invited to take and eat the suites and the sweet start off as 175 pounds, which is the ideal weight of his partner was the suites are taken by viewers the

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:41.000
pile declines until none remain at all. And it's apparently it could be read, as, isn't it?

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:51.000
You know, a reflection of his experience of watching his partner getting ill and sadly passing away.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:57.000
Some say that the suites here represent love, and that if you eat a suite there that's gone.

00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:03.000
But the love for your partner remains so that's kind of one way of thinking about it.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Gonzales. Tourists himself also unfortunately died very young, due to Aids, related complications.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:24.000
He was just 36. So as with having a jam and tourism work is on the one hand, play full important, but also with a very serious message.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:26.000
So having taken some very select examples there from identities from the Lgbtq.

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:43.000
Community, in western art, history. I just want to look a little bit more closely at 2 particular images, and this is Donatello.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:47.000
He was, his dates said, 1,386 to 1,466.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.000
And there's actually a major exhibition just opened in London, and the V. And A.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Of his work, and he was a prominent sculptor throughout the early Italian Renaissance, particularly in Florence, and is recognized as hugely significant to the development of art and the early Renaissance, and his sculptures are seem to have helped to transform the perception

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:29.000
of sculpture from something that's a medieval craft into something that's a thoughtful research LED individual expression, and these sculptures are also unusually life, like for the time.

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Who is often referred to as the father of our history, will wrote about Donatello, and he says that Donatella was the artist who most restored the art of sculpture to ancient Greco-roman standards, which was great place for the time.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:52.000
He also, in another passage, tells how he, how Don a teller, would beg his very life like sculptures to come to life and speak back to him.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:09.000
This is his version of David, the first known freestanding, life-sized male, nude sculpture of produced since ancient Rome, and we mentioned David briefly earlier in reference to Michelangelo, and he's presented to us over and over again in apps especially from the

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:14.000
Renaissance. The story of David is one of the most popular stories in Scripture, which is a story of courage, faith, and determination, making it a desirable artist for stories to tell.

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:28.000
It's the story of a young boy, and who was his brothers, had been sent to fight.

00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:36.000
With the Israelites against.

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.000
Against intruders, obviously, and and the Philistine army had Goliath on their side.

00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:45.000
He was a monster, and when all the the Abbey, what they it was. So Goliath!

00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:03.000
It was too scared, and the young. By David had only gone to bring messages back from his brothers and felt he had nothing to lose, and he volunteered to fight the monster, and he clearly wasn't dressed for the occasion.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:06.000
He had no armor, simply collected stones and a sling to fire them at the monster.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:15.000
So, hey! He as the story goes, he swung the the giants forehead to fell to the ground, and then he took Glais sword to behead him.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:31.000
So this is a moment. We see after the fight with the head of Goliath on the floor, and the massive sword in David's hand.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:35.000
So it's a story of.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:48.000
Overcoming David, using his faith to overcome a bigger, more powerful enemy and so it's the Victoria victorious aftermath here.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:59.000
So we do in this image really see the use and disadvantage of David in this very smooth or muscular physique, and they're like a clothing and arbor.

00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:05.000
Just his, the shield. As I said, it's God's, he's he's facing God.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:06.000
And and as I said, being the first life size, male, nude since classical times.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:26.000
David's restoring the idea of classical perfection into the Renaissance, and decided, we have nudity and beauty reference, the value of physical perfection as a virtue.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:43.000
People come in about how there's a kind of certain and tragedy, however, in this body, in this curved, muscular, youthful form, and, as I said, the mail, you just now become important to the theme of queer art, but it's also seen repeatedly in ancient sculpture.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:53.000
and often in Renaissance art as well, even though at the time of Jana Teller's work it was new, and so.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:04.000
David's. Don't tell us. David also inspired some subsequent sculptures, and some some of these images appear more prepared almost for battle.

00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:11.000
This one's armor, and Diverrocchio looks a little bit more appropriate.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:20.000
For battle, and I showed before Michelangelo's David, which is a much, much more muscular figure, as if he's been training for this moment.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:31.000
So most David's do depict a strong, determined figure, whereas Donatello's Sammy, I'll just go back here.

00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:40.000
That one I. Ps. Have to have kind of less on his side, just in terms of his physique.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:59.000
He also seems to be almost consumed by his own, are aware rather of his own and beauty, and we know that Donatello would will his sculptures to come to life from Vasari, and so there's been readings that this is there's an instance of that

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:14.000
with this sculpture, and we also know that Donna Tello, model of many of the heads for his sculptures from Roman busts, and it is believed that this one was based on a Roman bust of Antonius, who was actually a gay lover to the Emperor Hadrian.

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:28.000
So I'm gonna have time. So just go to move on to public, David to the and medallion.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:35.000
Just before. I do, though, just to mention that, as I said.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:42.000
Sexuality? Was it seen it quite in the same way in the Renaissance that it is now, and in Florence, which was seen as the best place to the Renaissance.

00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:48.000
This Betty Renaissance ideas. And there was this kind of gay.

00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:57.000
It was considered a bit of a gay mecha in Fifth in the fifteenth century, so we had a reputation for accepting homosexuality.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:14.000
The French called Gay sex, the Florentine vice, apparently, and in Germany the word Florenza was a slang term for a slang rather term for what in Britain might have at the time being called a Sodomite, and so there was this kind of culture that maybe

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:16.000
enabled this different kind of identity that might not have been possible in other places.

00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:29.000
So it wasn't exactly legally approved, and so to come on to look.

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:49.000
And as a contrast this is medallion, which is an image of a Lesbian love, and Gluc States at 1895 to 1978, Glucks, not generally as well known as Donatello, either now or in her own time, and Glucose their Gender

00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:55.000
non-conforming early twentieth century British painter, and she was popular in Britain at the time.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.000
She was named at birth as Hannah Gluckstein, but she came to reject any full name.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:11.000
She's quoted as saying, it's Gluck no prefix suffix are quotes she particularly didn't like being called anything like missed or missed.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:19.000
So just to say also that last in the last week or so, there's been a debate on social media.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:32.000
But about whether we should call glo. Here are they, and which at the time she was definitely a lesbian, even though she didn't like being called mids, or I said like that.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000
But she liked to dress in men's clothes and have kind of masculine hairstyles as she found it very fun to do that.

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:48.000
But some people now say that, and I suppose it's with considering that we should alcohol use the word they.

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:59.000
And but again that kind of comes back to putting our own cultural understandings on the past, and so that's kind of a point for contention at the moment.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:06.000
But generally Gluck is still referred to as a as a she, but a kind of a gender, non-conforming.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:23.000
She and she's particularly noted for portraits, and Flora paintings, and but she she spent earlier years in London, and then she moved to an artist colony in lemon and near Penzance, where she really started to develop this kind of identity.

00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:35.000
And she became adopted. This masculine appearance, and started to defy fashion and gender norms, and she also kept it on like Donatello, has seen as part of an early Renaissance movement.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.000
She kept her distanced from any kind of artistic movement.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:59.000
I wanted to be seen independently. She didn't really seek fame she was away from a very wealthy family, and the lions catering empire, and they gave her a fund on the 20 first birthday to make her own life so in a sense, she didn't really kind

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:13.000
of need to be part of any particular groupings, or to kind of sell her work in the same way as other artists might have needed to do in order to make a living.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:18.000
And to come back to the image here.

00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:21.000
And.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:40.000
This image was produced, she called a U wee picture, or a marriage picture, showing an alliance between herself and her lover at the time that was Nestor, and apparently it followed a night in June the nineteenth 36, where they'd been to a production of Mozart's done

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:48.000
Giovanni, and Gluck felt in the stores that they, the intensity of the music, just kind of bound them together, fuse them together.

00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:56.000
So she called it a sign, a kind of a marriage, in a sense, even though it wasn't an official marriage.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:01.000
And she made this painting afterwards a little bit like to lose a trek, made a painting of wild after the event.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Kind of partly from memory, and she wrote to nestor, now it's out.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Now it's out, and the rest of the universe I called.

00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:12.000
Beware! Beware! We're not to be trifled with.

00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:32.000
So she was quite celebratory as well. So the image itself is an idealized and celebratory kind of image of these 2 women, whose faces were almost fused together, and they're facing the same direction kind of staring out into their own future with a sense of determination most of the women in the time were

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:44.000
in the forties, but at the time Nesta had a wealthy, elderly husband, who helped to facilitate her glittering social life, that she didn't want to give up.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:45.000
So sadly the relationship which this point was full of still hope and excitement.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:55.000
Unfortunately broke down so unlike Donatello, was sculpture.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:03.000
The image here is openly autobiographical and not fulfilled for a commission, or to appeal to anyone else's taste, although it does kinda depend on the artists on the artist's life.

00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:12.000
Shortly after this Glock began another relationship with the first female reporter in the House of Lords.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:24.000
Edith Shackleton healed, and it was a troubled relationship which also broke down, and German.

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:25.000
That time Glock went so far as to retire from painting, but she still remained.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:49.000
You know later in life she produced a autobiographic exhibition a retrospective of her work which is very popular, and this painting was in one of her solo exhibitions at the time that you were the Queen visited, and the Queen spent some time discussing the

00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:13.000
works with the as well. Obviously we don't know what was said, and just to mention as well that in 1982, although by this time people don't really be invited about the looks so much, and a book was produced which was in addition of Radcliffe's Halls and the the well, of loneliness

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:14.000
which is about Lesbian relationships, and it used this as a cover.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:24.000
And it was really popular and it had to be reprinted over and over again, though that meant that they are became, you know, it.

00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:38.000
It raised its profile as well. So the act came into different people's hands, and different people celebrated it, and it also eventually, when the Tate did this quay British art, it was not this image, but another Glock image, and which was a later portrait.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:45.000
This was from. I'll just put this one on this one.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:53.000
Was from the time of her relationship with with the reporter, who I mentioned sort of just before she gave up painting.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:09.000
So this ridge in this image she is. It's just shortly after they split up with Nesta, and you can see a kind of emotion, a different kind of portrayal of herself.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:19.000
This was the image that was used as the poster image of the Kate show, and then it was used on the cover of books as well.

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:31.000
So these 2 images being used a bit more widely, has brought Gluc more into the spotlight in terms of Lgbtq plus identities it out.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:48.000
So it's interesting now to think that. And you know, taking these artists as examples, they will kind of part of certain societies, and they've got certain conditions that have helped their reputation.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:50:05.000
So we've done a teller. We was in this relatively, sexually liberal Florentine society, and at that cultural explosive moment, at the start of the Renaissance, and with glock she had this socioeconomic background and social networks and geographical position and

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:17.000
access to opportunities so from thinking in that terms, it's difficult to think about different artists in relationship to that.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Autism as comparisons. I think it's you know, we don't want to kind of look at other artists and compare and say, Oh, they were brave enough, or they weren't determined enough when certain artists found a certain adventure.

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:38.000
So just to say, then we've looked we the history of our different examples of different times.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:47.000
And then we've compared 2 particular artists, and just to finish by saying that used to be radically political, to explore different gender and sexual identities.

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Now it's more Andstream, especially, though for white men.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:02.000
But there's still a long way to go, for all forms of queer identities to be set to be accepted and celebrated in many stories still missing from our history.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:04.000
Okay.

00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:12.000
Thank you very much, Rachel. Some really interesting insights there and let's go to some questions I've got a couple here for you.

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:16.000
Everybody else, and if you've got some questions, let's get them in now.

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:21.000
And so obviously the word queer it's a word that we use a lot.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:28.000
These days? Which is this is question from Anne. Would you say that means anything not Normative?

00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:31.000
What would be your thoughts on that?

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:42.000
Possibly. Yeah, to different. I think different people have got different interpretations of that.

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:48.000
And different and you know different individuals like. So people might not want to identify as queer.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:58.000
But I think in general it is used as a term that covers all kinds of different.

00:51:58.000 --> 00:51:59.000
Yeah.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:03.000
I think generally. Yes. But yeah, it's all kind of dependent on being respectful to individuals as an individual's wishes, but it is used in general as a term that covers many different farms.

00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:11.000
A difference?

00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Yeah. Okay. No. Okay. Here's a question from Guy.

00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Actually this is an interesting one for you. And Guy is asking.

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:29.000
And look at Signor Ellie's Last Judgment, and or Vietto Cathedral, is also full of homo erotic nudity.

00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:35.000
Was this a particular reflection of earlier renewal's judgmentalism on homosexuality?

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:44.000
Where there any particular moral panics at the time.

00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:51.000
And it is possibly we actually, we can't always know with things from the past like that.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:54.000
But I would think it. Probably is a reference to that.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:20.000
But yeah, there were definitely moral panics, and particularly like I said, from the church and monks at the time, and we're worried not only for morality, but also worried that with so many young men be it in relationships with other men when they could be married that they could be even population decline

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:32.000
so at the time in there. Florence, Brussels were actually introduced to try and law men back into the arms of women.

00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:45.000
And so. But obviously it did. Yeah, it just kind of remain is this sort of identity on the on the sides that was allowed to flourish because of who was involved with it. But yeah, I think that's really interesting.

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:50.000
And and it probably is. Yeah. A reference to what was gonna be done more widely.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:55.000
Okay, thanks for that. I hope that answers your question, Guy.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.000
And let's have a let's see what else we have here.

00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:04.000
And no, actually, this is more of a comment actually, rather than a question.

00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:06.000
But let's have a little look at it.

00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:14.000
So this is from David, and he's talking about the term Lgbtq.

00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:24.000
Plus and it's kind of like a list of identity relationships and most pictures don't don't incorporate the total picture you're talking about.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:32.000
Individual Lg, or B and he's saying a corporate expression would be a celebration rather than an individual focus, and that would be quite an achievement.

00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:39.000
Wouldn't it? And he's also talking about should Espion, the listener.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:40.000
Forgive me, David, I'm not entirely sure what S.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:48.000
Means. I don't know if S. Means something to you, Rachel, in terms of the whole Lgbtq plus terminology.

00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:50.000
Hmm! I think it's it's quite difficult.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:58.000
The terminology, isn't it, to get the terminology correct?

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:02.000
And there's always different kind of aances out there, you know, people suggesting that different things should be added on.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:13.000
And yeah, it's just a yeah. I suppose it's an interesting, interesting thing to to keep in consideration.

00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:14.000
Yeah, keep. Yeah, I think I think we've still not got it right. You know.

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:24.000
I think it's gonna keep evolving, I suppose.

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:32.000
Yeah, no. Here's the suggestion for S, for straight.

00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:35.000
Interesting.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:36.000
Hmm!

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:40.000
It very interesting, isn't it and as you see, it keeps evolving and moving, moving on, doesn't it?

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Hmm!

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:45.000
Okay.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:48.000
Okay, I actually think that's all of our questions. I think oh, now, here's another quick question that's just literally hot off the press.

00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:53.000
Now this is from Liz, was the depiction of a androgeny confined to Lgbtq.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:56:06.000
Plus artists? Or was it part of art? Aesthetics such as art, nouveau?

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:25.000
Hmm! I think in different, in different times, I mean, I was talking about glo just then, I think in the early twentieth century when she started addressing a man in the trousers and with the short hair and stuff, and it I think her vision was quite radical but I think it was kind

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:37.000
of in fashion at the time. I think there was a fashion for particularly upper class and upper middle class women to dress in that way, to have that kind of androgeny.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:45.000
So I think, in some cases not necessarily part of See Lgbtq.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:52.000
Plus identity. I think, just yeah, maybe fashion and trends.

00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:55.000
What kind of part of it, as well in different?

00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.000
A different time scales in different cultures. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:04.000
Okay, right? Well, thanks very much for that. Rachel.

00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:13.000
I hope everybody find that interesting. I certainly did. Now, what I'll do is I will launch our usual pool.