A day out in Sussex yesterday yielded a significant discovery:

The Battle of Hastings did not take place in Hastings. In fact it was in Battle.

This raises a number of questions I will need to seek the answers to in Battle, such as:

1) Why does Hasting claim all the credit?
2) Why is isn't it the Battle of Battle?
3) Was this the first battle, and thus is the source of the phrase?

Another question is how come William the Conq hung around the area for so long, giving Harold the chance to get back from Stamford Bridge (the problem being finding people to go south of the river, I guess). Which leads us to:

5) How did Harold know to go to Battle?
6) Did someone send a message to Fulham Broadway?
7) Would he know that Battle was the sort of place to go to have a battle (if he had the word)?
8) Was this the Anglo-Norman equivalent of "See you after school"?

I've never worked out how the beacons work. They lit them to signal the arrival of the Armada. Then lit them to celebrate victory. Is this like porch lights which come on to welcom friends but deter intruders? What if the firend is intruding?

Next: Thermos Flasks. How do they know how hot their contents need to be?
faustus: (culture)
( Mar. 31st, 2008 02:35 pm)
Cinema PlaqueI've noticed recently - the few times I've been able to look up and not get a face full of rain - that Debenhams has an interesting range of frontages, which may be worth a panorama or two. Today I spotted a plaque which I don't recall seeing before, and which has clearly been there for a decade. Given the first commercial showing of films were in France in 1895 (leaving Wordsworth Donisthorpe to one side) November 1896 as the first public film screening strikes me as pretty damned early. More research needed - and a better photo.

I got home to a mailing from the BFI. I was a member in about 2001, but never used it then, and I've subscribed to Sight and Sound for a decade (and not read that for... five years?). What has always struck me is the BFI's reluctance to tell you what's being screened at the NFT, the LFF and LLGBFF aside - and even those is a battle. Whilst I've seen leaflets for the NT and RSC outside the M25, even north of the River Trent, the NFT is on a need to know, give us yer money now, basis.

For a month or so I've seen adverts on buses, drawing attention to its existence, and wondered if that heralded a new visibility. Yes, there is a website, but I find a pamphlet with a diary onnapage much more tempting then buggering about with poorly laid out PDFs. I supposed it's possible that Roger gave them my home address when he booked my ticket for Polymath - but I doubt it.
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