Pompeii and circumstance

"On the plus side, it'll help the paint dry quicker..."

Finger firmly on the pulse of what’s happening as always, here’s some important breaking news from 79 AD.

Historians, archaeologists and others of an all-things-ancient leaning have long believed that the Vesuvius eruption, which wiped out nearby Roman city Pompeii, took place on the 24th of August.

Being so specific about something that happened a very long time ago is impressive stuff – they weren’t using our current calendar system at that point, and probably didn’t even have pictures of cats above the months either.

The level of certainty was thanks to swanky lawyer and author Pliny the Younger, who penned (or, probably, quilled) the details in a letter to Roman historian and senator, Tacitus, covering the death his uncle, Pliny the Elder.

PtE bravely sailed towards the erupting volcano to rescue people in danger but never returned, whilst PtY watched the devastation from the safety of the other side of the bay.

It was 20 years before he sent the details, though. And we don’t have the originals, only translations and copies made in the almost-two-centuries since. So... scope for an error there, then.

There’s long been a doubt about the catastrophe in Italy taking place in August, as evidence of autumnal fruits and heating braziers found in the ruins suggested a later date. I never get my brazier out before late September, so that makes sense.

New excavations have now thrown up something rather remarkable. You know when you scrawl something on the wall in your house, on a floorboard, or the back of some plasterboard when doing DIY, then cover it up with your work? Someone did that in Pompeii... on the 17th of October 79 AD.

Clearly, they’d be mightily annoyed to know they only had 16 days before it got buried under tonnes of ash, but hopefully they got to enjoy their decorating during the brief calm before the firestorm.

It would seem that a charcoal scrawl by a workman on a wall has potentially discredited the mighty Pliny. I can sympathise – I recently sent flowers for a 90-year-old Aunt’s birthday, then got a polite phone call to say it was her 89th. I only had my poor grasp of maths and the year she was born to contend with. Pliny had to cope with changes in calendars, mistranslations and having ‘the Younger’ for a surname.

It does make you think though. What if Christmas is actually in February? When exactly is my birthday? And what happened in Hastings in 1067?

This post first appeared as my 'A wry look at the week' column, in The Mail, on Friday the 19th of October 2018. Both the print and the online version on their website re-titled it as "It's time to praise Pliny and his crew". Not sure how they came up with that, but that wasn't really the point of what I wrote!

Some weeks I really struggle to get fired up by anything enough to want to write about it. For some reason, I spotted this news story and an hour later it was written. Just occasionally, it is that easy.

(CD A-Z: Still in the compilations section, this time a tidy 3 CD set - Blank & Jones Present So80s. Bit of Ultravox at the moment. Splendid.)

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Unstable Stables: Throw away the key

It’s comforting to know that there is one less threat to the people of Cumbria this week, following the conviction of white supremacist, Ethan Stables. The 20 year old from Barrow had planned to attack the town’s New Empire pub in June 2017, in the midst of a gay pride event. Despite social media posts saying he was “going to war” and planning to “slaughter”, online searches about how to make bombs and chemical poisons, and expressing hatred of Muslims, Jews and gay people, he claimed his online comments were merely to impress far-right friends. Fortunately, following Facebook posts about his intentions, the police were tipped off and armed officers intercepted him as he headed towards the pub. His aim was to kill anyone he found, with a machete. In a bizarre slip-up, Stables had erroneously added an innocent woman to his neo-Nazi Facebook group. When he vented his outrage at the Furness LGBT support group’s event, the shocked woman contacted the authorities. He’ll have ple...

Is it foggy? No.

When I get put in charge (which is bound to happen soon), I'm going to introduce a whole raft of new laws, for I shall be a just and fair ruler. I'm quite liking the title of 'Most Marvellous Emperor Of Sensible Regulations And Bountiful Lovingness Not To Mention Exceedingly Handsome', but it might be a bit long. On that basis, I'll settle for the more informal 'He Who Is Smashing' from my loyal subjects. Anyway, I digress. I do that sometimes - had you noticed? Here, then, is the first law that will introduced: grumpyf1 law No.1 - Turn your fog lights off, you complete git. Don't get me wrong; If it genuinely is foggy, fog lights are quite handy. The reason for introduction of this law is because 96% of the time (based on my own in-depth research) it isn't foggy when some utter cockwomble blinds you. This has always been a bit of a problem but in the last couple of years it seems to have escalated out of control, possibly because of the...

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