Two very full days

[andygates]

It was fantastic to see stripey_mouse   and some more of the Bristol crowd again at the weekend, particularly when wrapped in quite that much dodgy cider and very loud music.  The Hatchet was true to form and gave us a floorshow (I swear, if Mattel produced Crackwhore Barbie, that girl would be the basis), a fight ("Are you lookin' at my Crackwhore Barbie?"), some bellowed Sisters lyrics and a very, very sore neck. 

Fade through a 3am finish and a 7am start, waking wedged inbetween a bike and a board.  Mmm, the romance of life on the road.

On to Newport to have a go at track racing. 

Steeply banked wooden velodrome, but this is something that's Just Plain Cool and which I've got on my winter list, so the hangover has to get stowed in a bag somewhere.  Thank the gods I know fixie already... and that we had a really superb coach.  Still, I had to sit out a round while the green evil sloshed and churned, so I had a chance to get some photos and a little movie.  And man, that was a hell of a lot of fun!  (ravenbait

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Comments

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

So, what was the conclusion about stone circles...i completely forgot to ask!

(Crackwhore Barbi - very appropriate!!!!!)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I think it was yes, they will have served as general social networking locations - rather like market squares - and that over time the usage may have become encrusted with ritual *but* we have to remember that the ritual/prosaic division is a modern viewpoint.

You don't make bread *and* propitiate the baking gods, you feed the baking gods honey or your bread doesn't rise. So to speak.

And then with Stonehenge there's that whole trilithon phase on top of all that, which still strikes me as a radical repurposing to change the site from an inclusive to an exclusive one. Open low stones contain people - the same way a car park contains chavs having a burnout - the relatively small, walled structure of the trilithons divides the inner people from outer people and sets up all sorts of other dynamics (I'd suggest a power-elite but that's me projecting).

[gedhrel.livejournal.com]

I thought they were for neolithic horizontal bungee.

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

ummm...yup, you could have a point there!!!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

With velcro targets (made from dire wolf or somesuch) strung between the arches for that bungee fly game?

I'm convinced.

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

Had I known you were having a 'serious' discussion.....That's pretty much what the current thinking is...!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

How does the phrase go? "Each generation gets the Stonehenge it deserves"

We've got Stonehenge as MySpace. Heh.

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

It's kinda sweet theory...but not very practical.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Roundhouse postholes show up on geophys - thats how some of the woodhenges are being found, right? Hard to tell what a woodhenge would have looked like above the ground level, and I do like the idea that there was a more elaborate, semi-temporary structure. Kinda like a seasonal thing, all boards and coloured fabric and maybe even a roof. ;)

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

You havent heard of Woodhenge then? Surely not.

It's very close to Stone Henge, and they have got pillars representing where the wooden posts would have been.

I think they have a done lots of modeling, and decided that it couldnt have had a roof.

There are excavations going on there at the moment. I think they may have found another one,really close to Stone Henge, which they think was The henge to go visit before they made a posh stone one.

About the geophys....yes, post holes do show up, but not when you have a couple of meters worth of prehistoric hill slope on top of it...which is what has happened around Wood Henge....

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It's all coming back to me now!

[stripey-mouse.livejournal.com]

Are there any photos of you going round, and round, and round, and round......(and turning green) fnar fnar!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Alas no, my chunderhead was firmly behind the lens! Anyway I look daft on the bike, every photo makes me look like Leon from Blade Runner recieving another Voight-Kampf empathy test!

Okay, I got better legs than Leon ;)