This week’s is a very short post, with some surprising news. That news is: on 25th November this year, on the Smithsonian Channel, at 8 pm (the site says ‘All times ET/PT’, and I admit I don’t understand how it can be both), there will be shown a program called ‘Viking Murder Mystery’, and I have good reason to believe I’m in it, though you’ll be thankful to hear, neither as Viking nor as perpetrator. I’m not visible in the previews, either, but there are some at that link to whet your appetite. If you’re not in the USA, it will be shown on the UK’s Channel 5 in Spring 2020, no firm dates yet. I should tell you more, probably, but then it wouldn’t be very mysterious, would it? So do tune in, and if you like, tell me here how it was; I haven’t seen it yet, and won’t be able to till the UK airing…
P. S. once it has aired on both sides of the Atlantic, I will post about the topic and how I wound up being involved.
A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe 
My father’s family came from a village the name of which suggests it was the seat of a Norse “thing” i.e. legal/political assembly.
We Vikings will keep a close eye on you, JJ. I’ll just pop out and sharpen my battle-axe.
Many thanks! But I don’t think anyone’s coming back to settle this particular score, it is a genuinely cold case. Had you ever seen this site, by the way?
“(the site says ‘All times ET/PT’, and I admit I don’t understand how it can be both)”
They’ll stagger the cable feed to each time zone ranging from -5 through -8 hrs UTC.
Oh, yeah, it’s cable, I’d not taken that in. That means you can do something like that, I suppose. I’m too used to old-fashioned broadcast media! Thankyou. Also, good to see you!
I’ve been happily lurking and enjoying your successes.
Oh, well, thankyou! But consider the source, obviously; only the successes get reported here :-)
The “Thing” site carries a map with an arrow pointing into the Irish Sea so presumably it intends reference to the Isle of Man.
But, good Lord, it labels it United Kingdom. What a constitutional affront!
Yes, if you hover a mouse over the marker it identifies it as a Man site. As for the UK, well, who knows how much longer that particular affront can endure!
I’ve only just discovered the Smithsonian. What i must have missed!
It occurs to me, JJ, that I should compliment you on doing proper history.
There should be a Campaign for Real History. If I may define it by what it isn’t, it isn’t more ruddy books about the Nazis.
Well, thankyou! I try!
People write books on the Nazis because people buy books about the Nazis, of course, and because people want to study the Nazis so people are hired to teach them. It’s not that I don’t understand our society’s horrified fascination with how that particularly ugly manifestation of the human condition rose and fell, but I would tend to agree with you that there are other times and places from which, by now, we might learn more, even about ourselves, than by continually reassuring ourselves that we can’t become the Nazis by inattention.
It was Alan Coren who said that to make money one should write about Nazis, cats, or golf. Hence the cover of his book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golfing-Cats-Coronet-Books-Coren/dp/0340209984
I’ll wager you can sell more books by writing about Nazis than you can cats or golf, though! Are there such things as big names in the world of cat books? Would I just not know? Even on strike, I’m not sure I’m pursuing these questions…
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