Caution: Actual Archaeology Content

This last weekend me, two colleagues, and some intrepid volunteers went to carry out some geophysical and topographical survey on a prehistoric site up near Lockerbie. It didn't start well, when I realised that my tiny Toyota Yaris didn't fit the Bartington magnetometer in his less-than-capacious boot. Cue a traumatic evening trip to Halfords to purchase roof bars. The next morning we realised that jute twine probably wasn't the best method of attachment for a three hour journey, and that four people, their luggage, Barty, the resistance meter, and the DGPS and tripod would be a bit of a squeeze. Still, to give everyone their dues, we got it all in, and Rolf (Yaris) made it all the way to Lochbrow farm with minimal issues, bar a couple of hills.



Once there the weather was predictably dire, but we braved the cold and wet, and the beginnings of Hurricane Katia for the advancement of science.

The site was found via cropmarks by Kirsty as part of her PhD thesis, and also fell within an area predicted by Dot as likely to contain prehistoric activity. So, we dutifully attacked it with all the methods known to man, in the hope that the timber cursus we already knew about, and its context, would be elucidated somewhat. Luckily for us it was, along with a few surprises, both positive and negative, which we'll be writing up soon for your delectation.

Festival Fun

I've just got back from the Hydro Connect Festival in Argyll, in the grounds of Inverary Castle (not a bad venue!), and it was a pretty top weekend. My run down of events was:

Friday:

• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: a bit disappointing, I'd expected better...
• The Breeders: as good as I could have possibly hoped! They played loads of The Amps and old Breeders stuff as well as the new tracks

• Sparks: good fun and utterly mental, though I wish they'd played more of the really early stuff. Ron Mael rocks!

Saturday:

• Firstly some disappointment as Joan as Policewoman was cancelled...
• Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (random rants about being "from the United States of Fuckin' Americarr" (several times) annoyed me, and was accompanied by some fairly tepid music. Disappointing...
• The Levellers: despite not being even remotely trendy to like them, they put on a great show and much dancing was to be had.
  
• Friendly Fires: we didn't know what to expect and were pleasantly surprised.
• Black Lips: we were promised nudity, on-stage vomiting, and biting heads off live animals (maybe I made that last one up), none of which were delivered.
• Glasvegas: the music press claim that their album is "of national importance". I disagree.
• Grinderman: Nick Cave was awesome on stage. "Honey Bee let's fly to Mars. Bzzz bzzz bzzz!"

• Gomez: they played the "Bring It On Album" from start to finish for its 10 year anniversary. Brilliant!
• Gossip: I'd already seen them in a small gig and they were ace, but it just didn't work well at a Festival and I got bored... we then tried to go see Bloc Party and missed them :o(

Sunday:

• Young Knives: Pretty good! Again we didn't know what to expect but we really enjoyed them.
• Santogold: Not quite my cup of tea but some catchy tunes and the most awesome backing dancers I've ever seen!
• Elbow: Guy Garvey had some nice banter and the new tracks were good, but I'd already seen them earlier this year so nothing new here...
• The Coral: a nice mix of old and new that got us dancing about.
• And the pièce de resistance... Franz Ferdinand: Absolutely brilliant show, the new tracks are ace and they played plenty of the popular tracks. I danced my socks off whilst lusting after Alex Kapranos.

All in all a pretty good weekend, though it has higlighted my need for a better camera :o)



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