The Wikipedia Game

The Wikipedia Game, it doesn't really exist, but I made it up anyway.

I read an article on the BBC site all about Wikipedia and how much you can learn in an hour (always assuming the facts are correct and I know that isn't always the case).  It was interesting to me more for the apparently random path taken by moving from link to link.  The author of the article contrived, and I use the word deliberately, to end up back where he started.  I don't have an hour to spend on this, or do I?  I'll see how far I can get and if I can manage a round trip.

Archimedes

I started with Archimedes.  The article started with Aristotle but I didn't want to start in the place so I chose Archimedes, the only other ancient Greek I know starting with A.  I was tempted to follow Eureka, because that was the one story I'd heard of Archimedes, but I was lead away when my eye lighted on Archimedes' Screw.  I was.

Archimedes' Screw

 has a multitude of uses, any one of which I would happily have followed.  They are used in sewage plants because they are able to deal with varying amounts of water with [shudder] varying amounts of solids.  One was used to help stabilise the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Other versions are used to replace windmills in the Netherlands where they drain the polders at Kinderdijk.

Kinderdijk

I know the Kinderdijk, I've gone along that canal and seen the row of windmills.  It's now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.  Kinderdijk has two legends associated with it.  One is that it was named Kinderdijk (Children's dike) because during the flood of 1421 a wooden cradle was found floating in it.  The cradle contained a cat and a sleeping baby.  The other legend is that of the boy who stopped a leak in the dike by putting stopping it with his finger.  This legend was a story within the story Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates. 

Hans Brinker

A book written first published in 1865 and has since become a children's classic.  In 1865 it became an immediate best-seller and outsold all but Charles Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend".  (thankfully, because I was beginning to wonder how to leave the Netherlands)

Our Mutual Friend

Not one of the Dicken's novels that I know.  Apparently the theme of rebirth and renewal is symbolised by two near drownings in the River Thames.

The Thames

The Thames is the longest river in England but in the UK the Severn is longer.  The length of the Thames is debatable.  Some say it rises at Thames Head while others say it rises at Seven Springs.  Thames Head sounds logical but it's only a seasonal spring.  One of the places the river passes through is Cricklade.

Cricklade

One of the thitry fortresses built around Wessex by Alfred.  Its position was chosen because it's the place where the Thames is crossed by the Roman road Ermin Street.

Ermin Street

Ermin Street (running from Silchester to Gloucester) is not the same as Ermine Street. Oh.

Ermine Street

Ermine Street, running from London to York, was one of the major Roman roads in Britain.

Roman roads

There were laws to specify the making of roads (8 feet when straight and 16 feet when curved).  The roads varied from layered, paved roads to simple corduroy roads.

Corduroy roads

I had never heard of this name but I do know the alternative name, log roads.  One of the earliest examples was found in Glastonbury, in England.

Glastonbury

Many myths and legends are connected with Glastonbury: King Arthur, Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail.  The town was dominated for 700 years by one of the most important abbeys in England, Glastonbury Abbey.

Glastonbury Abbey

A very rich and powerful abbey that during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, had all its valuables stripped.  Many abbeys were sold off or leased but, although this happened to much of its property, Glastonbury Abbey itself fell into ruins.  The line "Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang" is thought by many to refer to Glastonbury.  The line comes from one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Shakespeare

Among the many poems and plays written by Shakespeare was the play, Julius Caesar.  Julius Caesar was based on an earlier translation of Plutarch's "Parallel Lives".

Parallel Lives

Plutarch, himself Greek but a Roman citizen, wrote a series of paired biographies, consisting of one Greek and one Roman in each pair: "Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans".  One of these biographies was of Marcus Claudius Marcellus.  In this story Plutarch suggests that Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier.

YES!  The full circle.

Dickens' "English Watering Place"

Charles Dickens was very well travelled.  He lived in and visited an impressive array of places but for a number of years he took his summer holidays in Broadstairs, a small town on the south-east coast of England.  He even wrote a short story about it, called "Our English Watering Place".  It was here too that he wrote "David Copperfield" while staying in Fort House.

Broadstairs.  Broad stairs.  A small seaside town, very popular in Victorian times, which started as a very small fishing village known by the Anglo-Saxon name of Bradstow, a broad place, possibly referring to the wide bay.  The stairs came later when steps from the shore led up to the village, as it was then, at the top of the cliff.

The bay, one of seven in the Broadstairs area, was renamed Viking Bay in 1949 to commemorate the Viking invasion of 449 AD.  You can see how the sand has been banked up to protect against expected high tides and rough seas during the winter. 

The house overlooking the bay is the one in which Dickens spent most of his Broadstairs holidays.  In those days it was called Fort House, and was much smaller. It was only later that it was renamed Bleak House by someone who had thought the house was the basis for the book of the same name.  Then for a time it was a museum but in 2005 it was sold as a private house.

If you look carefully or click on the picture for a closer view, you can see wind turbines on the horizon.  These are part of the largest operational offshore wind farm in the world, completed last autumn.

There is an arch, York Arch, on the road from the town approaching the pier.  A plaque beside it states:

York Gate - about the time of Henry VIII a small wooden pier appears to have been built here, for the safety of the fishing craft, probably by the Culmer family who fortified the gate or way leading down to the seashore by an arched portal, defended by a portcullis and strong gates to prevent inhabitants from being plundered by the sudden incursions of privateers.  These gates have for many years been gone and as the stonework was fast decaying, it was repaired and beautifued by Lord Hennikerwhen Sir John Henniker.  Above the arch is the following inscription:

York Gate July 17 1811
Built by George Culmer AD 1540
Repaired by Sir John Henniker Bart 1795

In fact the inscription reads "York Gate July 1797".

Also on the same road is the Palace Cinema, the tiniest cinema I've ever seen.  Their website, though, insists that they aren't the smallest in Britain so it sounds as if it may be a sore point. All the same, I feel sure the House Full notice is often used.  To the left is the gateway into the Pavilion once the site of a shipyard owned by the George Culmer who built York Gate.  Shipbuilding was important in Broadstairs until the 19th century.

And because shipbuilding was important, so too was having a lifeboat, especially because of the notorious Goodwin Sands nearby.  The plaques on the wall of the lifeboat station list all the rescues made.  The two figureheads are from ships that presumably weren't rescued. 

A view of the bay from the farther end shows more beach huts and a sole family braving the winter chill.  You would need to enlarge the picture to see them, at the end nearest the lift from the beach to the road above the cliff.  That lift functions only in the summer time.

On that road above the bay you can find Dickens House.  It is the house where the inspiration for Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield lived.  It's now a museum preserving the character of the house and displaying Victoriana and Dickens memorabilia.

A little further along the same road is the Charles Dickens pub, while nearer the centre of town is the Barnaby Rudge.  Every other building or path has a name associated with Dickens.

Every year there is a Dickens Festival here in June, and another in Rochester.  Dickens is big business in the south east of England.  Now, I'm told, there is even a Dickens World, a theme park of sorts.  I visited Broadstairs in November because I found the crowd in July too much, and that was without any festival.  I do wonder how far they can go before attracting people in is counter-productive.

Out of season, though, it's a lovely place.

The return

Christmas Day this year dawned gloomy and damp, and stayed that way.  Just as we had to leave after Christmas the sun came out over the Mediterranean Sea.  It looked beautiful but it was cold.  This time last year we were sitting out of doors to eat in the sun but that was probably just as unusual. 

So I wasn't surprised to see snow on the mountains as we drove away.  I was more surprised as we drove along the Via Domitia (as the signs on the A9 kept saying) to be showered with clumps of snow from passing cars.  Clearly there was a lot of snow not far away.

The Via Domitia was a Roman road which ran from Italy across the south of France to Spain.  It was built in 118 BC on the orders of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus who thankfully lent it only one of his names.  It was an ancient road even before this, and supposedly was followed by Heracles and Hannibal.  In places it passed very close to the coast but I'm not convinced it followed the same route as the modern A9. It would be an interesting detour at some future date.

Back at home now and the weather has turned extremely and unseasonably mild.  What will it throw at us next, I wonder?