Just received in an email from Visit Wiltshire:

“The Vikings in Wiltshire”

An event tonight near Marlborough. Actually at Alton Barnes, point zero of the Crop Circling Universe.

Their promotion blurb:

Andrew Reynolds is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and Editor of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. He has long had an active interest in the Anglo-Saxon and medieval archaeology of our area and gave a fascinating talk at Stanton St Bernard last year on the Wansdyke. Together with Joshua Pollard, Andrew published Avebury: The Biography of a Landscape in 2002.

On 20 November he will tell us about what is known of “The Vikings in Wiltshire”. Written evidence shows that the Vikings ravaged Wiltshire in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, with a number of key battles fought within the county boundary. Despite being relatively well documented, archaeological evidence for a Scandinavian presence is limited and thus this lecture will draw upon documents, place-names and archaeology to examine the range and depth of Viking impacts on this part of Anglo-Saxon Wessex.

Does the TME team have a position on this?
Should I attend the event as the official TME heckler?

Go dressed as a Viking and tell them Resistance is Futile. And Where's the Loot?

So, was the mead (or sack) any good?

Sadly, Daddy Taxi duties took precedence.
I'll have to wait for the next time they pass through.

Over in the other place (our lords) are considering Taiwanaku. With its high, raised terraces, and massive hydraulic engineering, we can speculate that orthodoxy has underestimated the vast population and the cities that the area was previously supporting. Of course this sort of specialisation/dependence on hydraulic engineering comes with a risk....

By the time the conquistadors arrived the locals already had suffered destruction and massive population loss....

It was very little to deal with guns and germs......

In the House of Lords?
Does that make us the Commons?