It is presented by the late Terry Jones, who of course was part of Monty Python but later became a wonderful writer and documentary maker.
I love Terry, not just because of the way he presents but also because he reminds me a lot of my dad.
This episode is about the history of cities, how people adapted to living in them and what we can learn from our ancestors.
A few highlights;
I love hearing about how we have skyscrapers today and then having them compared to the centuries old towers of Italy and Yemen.
Terry also speaks of the Roman apartment blocks, we recently chatted about them here on Twitter.
There's mention of one of these towers having 8th floors!
Most documentaries and movies only show us the villas and pretty side of Roman life, Terry shows us one of the apartment blocks and reminds us that most people lived like that!
Wait what, an ox fell from the 4th floor?!
Terry tells us the story of Nero fiddling as Rome burned is totally untrue, yay Terry, fighting fake history!
Archimedes screw, the reason most of my country is no longer sea!
Concrete is quite old, the Pantheon's dome (2nd century AD) is still one of the largest in the world!
It is a myth that the recipe for concrete was lost after the Roman era btw, sorry Terry, got to correct you there.
The technology of making specific types of concrete was lost, but regular old concrete/cement remained in use during the middle ages.
The Taxi-meter, also 2000 years old!
Terry reminds us that although Gutenberg was responsible for a revolution in printing, he did not invent the technique of printing with moveable type, we have the Chinese to thank for that.
Another ancient invention; fast food, the snack-bar... and the hamburger!
Street lighting... yep also around since ancient times!
Ephesus, Antioch & Rome had their own street lighting.
And here, a portable gas light!
It's a lovely documentary to watch, quite funny and educational.
Full of little facts you can use to impress your friends with.
And as Terry concludes; "we're no cleverer than our ancestors".
So enjoy it, Magellantv has made it available for free for me to share with you, go check it out, enjoy;
Let me know what you think, you can see it here for free: magellantv.com/series/ancient…
A few days ago I complained about a Guardian article using a bad photo from a film in an article about Joan Clarke, a Bletchley Park code breaker, but... something much worse might have happened...
I don't think this photo they used is of Joan...
@TeaKayB pointed this out to me and I was stunned, surely not, that would be extraordinary sloppy.
So I looked into it, of course.
For starters the image they used is flipped, here's the full picture as it should look:
Time to look at another photo album in my collection, a tiny one this time with one picture on each page, showing us the adventures of some Dutch girl scouts in the early 1930s.
This Friday the game 'Manor Lord' is coming out, it's a medieval city builder that I've made a modest contribution to as a historical consultant and beta tester for.
I've been very excited about it for a long time and I'm not the only one, it's creating quite a buzz and has ended up on a lot of wishlists.
What I love about it most is that it tries to depict the middle ages in an accurate way, behind the scenes historians, experts & history addicts have been debating the tiniest details.
I think the result is one of the most historically accurate medieval games I've ever played.
#Manorlords
So let's have a sneak peek at it shall we?
First, here's an official video:
Before you start you set up your profile and design your own family crest, look familiar?
This bit alone is SUCH fun, you can fiddle and play with this editor for ages till you get exactly what you want and then you'll see it on the banners in the game!
SUCH FUN!
Sigh.
An account with half a million followers just tweeted that long debunked 'life in the 1500s' nonsense, 2.2 million people have seen it.
So here we go again...