Museum of Archaeology

The Museum of Archaeology in Southampton is a very nice little museum.  

It is not, as the name might imply, a museum about the scientific study we call archaeology.  There is a small introduction to how archaeology works as you enter the museum, showing a cross-section of ground with various examples of litter from different eras in chronological order, with modern rubbish – some crisp packets – right at the top.  But that’s pretty much as far as it goes in that direction.  You’d probably be better off watching Channel 4’s Time Team if you wanted to get more of a flavour of actual archaeology, albeit it artificially compressed into an unrealistic timespan with ridiculously optimistic goals.  

The museum is actually a museum about archaeology that’s been done in and around Southampton.

It is somewhat disconcerting that the first room you come across is filled with various items from archaeological digs plus labels and pens for visitors to write their own interpretation of what the items are.  I want to know what some learned experts think these things are, not some bored eight year-old idiots on a rare day trip out of their prison who are being brought up to think that it’s fine to make crap up instead of learning deeply about a subject and a skill that you really care about.  Sure, it’s vital to have an imagination, but for crap’s sake, we all have one already.  It’s innate.  That isn’t something you need to teach.  What needs to be taught is that it’s important to end up doing something you love.  For a few kids that will turn out to be archaeology.  But the vast majority of a class would be far better off following their own interests in other areas instead of having arbitrarily chosen subjects rammed down their throat to ensure that they never enjoy those subjects ever again.  

There are exhibits about the Roman period in what was then called Clausentum, the Saxon period in what was then called Hamwic, and the Medieval period in what was then called… er… well probably Southampton by then.  

Hamwic just means home village.  The name changed into Hamtun, meaning home town, and eventually into the one we use today, Southampton, which literally just means south home town.  This is brilliant, that stretching back into time (okay, not that far, admittedly) us humans could come up with practical, boring, logically consistent place names!  It gives me a warm glow.  Maybe we’re not all doomed.  But if it were left to humans today to name places, given what I saw in that first room in the museum, it’s very probable that we’d end up with some drivel like pinkhoneymoondropflower from people who had been taught that it’s fine to make crap up and not develop practical skills or thinking.  So maybe we are still doomed.  

But what I’ll really take away with me, from this lovely tiny museum, is a brand new name for something.  A name which is inspired by my visit and which so very nearly makes sense. 

No longer shall I waste my breath uttering three syllables when two is sufficient.  

No longer will I say “ham sandwich”.  

From now on, I give you… “hamwich”.

Hamwich: the perfect abbreviation for countless ham-sandwich-eating and ham-sandwich-serving people the world over.  And people who order in ham sandwiches to their shop.  And people who are going to a shop to buy a sandwich for someone else but they’re not sure what to get and so ring them on their mobile to inform them of the choices available.  And possibly a cashier on a checkout who alerts a customer to the fact that their ham sandwich has been slightly opened, so would they like another member of staff to go and get a replacement ham sandwich that is properly, hygienically sealed.

M&S inconsistency

Marks and Spencer make some very good food, e.g. a truly superb packet of biscuits called ‘Organic Honey and Oat Cookies’, or their outstanding ‘All Butter Fudge’ which is to be found at one of the checkouts.  

But what on Earth possessed them to make their range of expensive pizzas smell and taste of vomit?  

I’m not 100% sure, but I think the main offender is the provolone cheese they use.  This seems to have become a problem sometime in the last year or so, and yet nothing has been done about it.  Can I really be the only customer who does not want their fancy pizza to smell and taste of vomit?  Is there actually a big demand for that just-vomited feeling combined with loss of money, but without the hassle of actually vomiting and flushing cash down the toilet, and I never knew?  

Or is it just that no one else has bothered to write to M&S to complain either?

Perhaps I’ll never know.

Mathematics is beautiful

Change

The other week I had to make a train journey.  I had booked in advance and had seat reservations.  I arrived at the station in plenty of time, although my train was ten minutes late.  I boarded the train, noticing a lot of noise emanating from the coach my seat reservation was in.  It sounded like the whole carriage of passengers was tunelessly shouting a song.  When I entered the packed carriage I saw about half a dozen white men in their 20s or 30s, all wearing similar football shirts, and it became apparent that they were responsible for the cacophany.  Other passengers – far and away the majority – had a range of expressions on their faces.  Some looked annoyed.  A lot were smiling, somewhat indulgently.  A few seemed a bit scared and worried.  I looked around for my seat number, and with a crushing sense of doom, realised my seat was right in the middle of these men.  At this point, the men noticed my presence.  All their Christmases had come at once, for here, daring to get on their train, walk in front of them and sit down next to them, was a ginger-haired female.  They were so overcome with excitement at this situation that three or four of them started up with different songs, chants and general jeering at the same time on a topic obviously close to their hearts: ginger-haired women.  The whole carriage was serenaded with repulsive, insulting, offensive shit on the subject for about ten minutes, before the attention of these moronic, idiotic, repugnant specimens of the human species turned onto something else, and started singing songs about that instead.  

A few years ago, this would have felt like one of the worst things that could happen to me – public humiliation because of the way I happen to look.  And for a nanosecond, I did start to feel that way.  But now it was immediately replaced by rational thought: these men are being revolting.  I am not going to feel embarrassed by this.  They are the embarrassments.  They are so obviously pig-ignorant, hurtful, plain stupid bullies, that it would be clear to anyone who I would respect the opinion of that they were in the wrong and I had nothing to feel ashamed of.  This was my seat and I was damn well going to sit in it and read my quantum mechanics book, and they could shove it up their hopefully haemorrhoid-ridden arses.  

As chance would have it, also getting on the train and with a seat booked in the same coach was an older woman who I only slightly knew.  We exchanged greetings, or tried to above the shouting.  She went off to find her seat, and I to put my luggage away.  I noticed there was an empty seat next to hers, so I moved my stuff and went to sit with her, towards the opposite end of the carriage.  

Yes, I do now have the backbone to sit in the middle of some bastards, but here was a better offer.  We chatted for the next hour and a half over the din, and it was genuinely lovely to get to know her.  She is in her seventies and has had a very interesting life, and we shared some common ground.