Archive for November, 2009
I’m very grateful to Neil, Angie and Jasmine for alerting me to the news that a 45 minute documentary has been made, which investigates the likelihood of Jesus having once visited Britain. There are a number of points of interest here, as reported in the Telegraph and in the Daily Mail, so I’ll just go through them briefly.
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Lucy
11:21 pm
My beautiful, beautiful niece Lucy, someone whom I loved and admired very much. Lucy was an archaeologist, she was kind to animals, she had a great sense of humour, she was wonderful with children…and now she’s gone, taken away from all those who loved her by the scourge of cancer.
For far longer than I care to think of, Lucy displayed a degree of bravery that I find hard to grasp, and I will miss her terribly.
May 5th, 1979 – November 23rd 2009.
The young lady in the photograph above is Angeline Gardiner, the daughter of my friend Phil Gardiner. The photograph was taken while Phil was filming a documentary about Lewis Carroll, who is of course famous for having written Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
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Celebration of the Lizard
2:16 am
When I first set up Eternal Idol, I intended it to be a repository of original information on Stonehenge; thus it has remained, by and large, despite a few meanderings into broadly related territory, while it’s also survived being shut down in its infancy, it has prospered despite being ransacked in a furtive fashion one night by an embittered ex-associate and it’s been directly responsible for the publication of my book “The Missing Years of Jesus.”
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In Praise of Darkness
11:05 pm
No, this post isn’t concerned with any belief I have that Stonehenge was occasionally infested with malevolent supernatural entities in previous times, but with the far more straightforward matter of an absence of light.
I’ve just seen a fascinating BBC feature on a ‘dark sky park’ in Scotland, which naturally brought to mind some of the locations I’ve been lucky enough to visit over the years that were relatively unpolluted by modern light.
In his ‘Stonehenge, Neolithic Man and the Cosmos’, the late Professor John North wrote at length about the interest our ancestors had in the stars and in the night sky. It’s one thing to read about this, but quite another to be fortunate enough to be able to contemplate the heavens on a dark, clear night, and I’m obviously not the only one to be entranced by this mind-numbing spectacle.
Post Scriptum: As far as astronomy and astronomers are concerned, I’ve long been in awe of the great Sir Patrick Moore, but my opinion of him went up into the ionosphere after watching this clip.
There are a number of aspects of Stonehenge that I find baffling, but one thing that confuses me more and more is the Reburial Issue, specifically the argument concerning the return of the ancestors to Aubrey Hole 7. 
Earlier today, on Friday 13th, I was very pleased to hear from the author Geoff Holder, who has written numerous books investigating the mysterious aspects of certain regions of Britain.
Geoff’s latest book is entitled 101 Things To Do With A Stone Circle and it’s received numerous positive reviews, including this one from Heritage Key, while there’s another by Chris Catling in Current Archaeology 237, December 2009.
Geoff wrote to tell me that Eternal Idol has received a favourable mention in his latest book in Chapter 35, entitled “Pytheas, Pythagoras and Pretannia”, so I was very pleased to hear this. I’m assuming that this mention concerns the mystery of the City of Apollo to which Pytheas referred in his now-lost writings, so regardless of the conclusions that Geoff draws, it’s wonderful that this particular ancient mystery is receiving greater airplay.
I was interested to see Geoff’s site, where I learned that he solicits information about the regions he investigates, so if he’s spoken highly of Eternal Idol, I assume that at least one good reason for this is the information that’s accumulated here as a result of others writing in with observations, quotes, links, references, personal experiences and all the other material that continues to engross me. Such information often doesn’t find a home elsewhere, so rather than lose it or be unaware of its existence, I’m more than happy for any to write in with anything that’s remotely relevant.
Looking at the extensive titles that Geoff’s responsible for, I’m sure that they contain all manner of gems and I’m looking forward to reading them. For my part, I’ve often immersed myself in books of this kind that don’t find their way onto the recommended reading lists of academic theses, but which invariably have a cornucopia of treasures in their pages.
With that in mind, we’re lucky to have dedicated people like Geoff collecting fascinating stories and information on unusual events and places, so I wish him all the very best of luck.
Friday the Thirteenth…
9:38 pm
Remembrance
1:52 am
I’ve always revered the ancestors who built Stonehenge, but today is a day when we remember the dead of far more recent times, regardless of our views on the nature of the conflicts they died in.
I’m not frightened of many things, but I was absolutely astonished when I read of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who had defused 64 explosive devices on one five-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.
I simply cannot conceive of that level of bravery, so it is little wonder that his widow proudly Christina said of her husband “There is no other man above him” and I for one wouldn’t argue with her.
Bluestonehenge Predicted
2:06 amOnce again, I’m grateful to Juris Ozols, this time for bringing the prescient paragraphs on page 111 of Rodney Castelden’s 1987 book “The Stonehenge People” to my attention.
I’m not sure that I can add to this in a meaningful way, other than to reaffirm my belief that some thing or some things of importance remain to be discovered to the northwest of Stonehenge. I’m certain that if any further laser scanning of Stonehenge is undertaken, then more prehistoric engravings will come to light, but I could continue in this vein for a long time.
And I still can’t understand why, after all these years, I’ve never dreamed of Stonehenge.
