CaaC (John)

Russia searches for Napoleon's gold A Russian historian has come up with a new theory about the legend that the French Emperor Napoleon hid wagonloads of stolen treasure during his disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812. Viacheslav Ryzhkov says treasure-hunters have been looking in the wrong place for 200 years and told his local Rabochy Put newspaper that they should turn their attention to his home town of Rudnya, near the border with Belarus. There have been persistent rumours for over 200 years that Napoleon's defeated Grande Armée made off with 80 tonnes of gold and other valuables that his soldiers had looted in Moscow and buried it en route back to France when the going got too tough. No trace of it has ever been found, but Philippe de Ségur, a member of Napoleon's staff, said the treasure was dumped in Lake Semlevo in Smolensk Region. The site appeared credible, as the French army abandoned large amounts of arms and ammunition nearby. Various Russian officials, archaeologists and treasure-hunters have searched the lake since the 1830s, to no avail. But other historians think General de Ségur's account was an attempt to divert attention from the treasure's real resting place, and have suggested the River Berezina in Belarus as a likely site. A Franco-Belarusian expedition in 2012 found nothing. Viacheslav Ryzhkov's theory made it to the Russian national media in the New Year, attracted as it was by his colourful account of what might have happened. 'Decoy convoy' He believes Napoleon sent a decoy convoy to trick Russian spies into thinking the loot was in Lake Semlevo, while the emperor himself and the real treasure slipped away south towards Rudnya and the nearby Lake Bolshaya Rutavech. There he had a causeway built into the middle of the lake, and the gold and jewels carefully hidden in a mound of silt at the bottom. In support of his theory, Mr Ryzhkov cites local accounts of the causeway, which gradually eroded after 1812, and a 1989 analysis that showed unusually high concentrations of silver ion in the water. Reporters have seized in particular on his claim that "with the right equipment and specialists, the treasure can be salvaged from the mound on the lake bed". Not everyone is convinced. Professional treasure-hunter Vladimir Poryvayev is the Russia media's go-to expert on Napoleon's gold, having spent years on its trail, and his verdict is crushing. "This is fiction. For centuries historians and archivists have documented Napoleon's daily progress on the Russian campaign... It is completely improbable that he could abandon his army and take off with a 'gold train' of 400 horse-drawn carts," he told the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid. 'Pure fantasy' As for the lake causeway theory, Mr Poryvayev is equally dismissive: "It took a few hundred French cavalrymen just a matter of days to build an impressive dam in the freezing late autumn, then construct an 'underwater crypt' for tonnes of treasure? Did they have scuba gear? It's pure fantasy." The treasure-hunter asked when Mr Ryzhkov was going to provide some documentary evidence for his theory beyond silver ion levels, given that Lake Semlevo also has high concentrations as a result of the natural soil conditions in Smolensk Region. Another consideration is that Bolshaya Rutavech, along with five other lakes in the same system, has enjoyed special environmental protection since 1975. Motorboats are banned, and even anglers have to stick to the shore, so a major excavation of the lake bed would cause an uproar. Vladimir Poryvayev says people come to him with novel ideas about the location of the gold several times a year, although not all the theories are as eye-catching as the Rudnya decoy. But he isn't a complete sceptic and told the paper that Napoleon's treasure might well exist. "When it's found, it will most likely be by accident," he concluded. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-46745792

Israelis find rare Roman fish sauce factory Israeli archaeologists have discovered the well-preserved remains of a 2,000-year-old factory for making garum, the fabled fish sauce that the Romans took with them on all their journeys of conquest. The Israel Antiquities Authority came across the small cetaria, or factory for making the prized sauce, while inspecting the site of a planned sports park on the outskirts of the southern city of Ashkelon, Israel's Kan public broadcaster reports. The dig was funded by the local authorities, and young people and school children from the Ashkelon area came to help out. It is one of the very few garum factories found in the eastern Mediterranean, despite the Romans' long presence in the area and the premium they put on the pungent fermented sauce. Most surviving examples are to be found in the Iberian Peninsula and southern Italy. "We have something really unusual here," Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Dr Tali Erickson-Gini told The Times of Israel, as the Romans added garum to almost all their dishes to give them a salty savoury kick. "It's said that making garum produced such a stench that cetaria were located some distance from the towns they served, and in this case, the factory is about two kilometres from ancient Ashkelon," Dr Tali Erickson-Gini said, according to Kan. Although the garum factory was gradually abandoned after the Romans left, later rulers found the site was also suitable for cultivating grapes. In the fifth century CE, a local Byzantine monastery made a living from producing wine there, and the remains of three winepresses have also been discovered at the site. Anyone curious to see what a garum factory looked like is welcome to visit on the afternoon of 22 December, when the Israel Antiquities Authority will open the site to the public free of charge. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-50825512

20 Hilarious Predictions About the Year 2020 Made Long Ago SLIDES - 1/21 This is the best one 7. We’ll eat candy made of underwear. Waldemar Kaempffert, a New York Times science editor, had lots of opinions about how different the world would become by 2020, especially when it came to our diets. All food, “even soup and milk,” would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks. It would never take anyone “more than half an hour to prepare … an elaborate meal of several courses.” And thanks to advances in culinary technology, it would be possible to take ordinary objects like old paper and, yes, “rayon underwear,” and bring them to “chemical factories to be converted into candy.” Sounds… delicious.

DNA from Stone Age woman obtained 6,000 years on This is the face of a woman who lived 6,000 years ago in Scandinavia. Thanks to the tooth marks she left in ancient "chewing gum", scientists were able to obtain DNA, which they used to decipher her genetic code. This is the first time an entire ancient human genome has been extracted from anything other than human bone, said the researchers. She likely had dark skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes. Dr Hannes Schroeder from the University of Copenhagen said the "chewing gum" - actually tar from a tree - is a very valuable source of ancient DNA, especially for time periods where we have no human remains. "It is amazing to have gotten a complete ancient human genome from anything other than bone,'' he said. What do we know about her? The woman's entire genetic code, or genome, was decoded and used to work out what she might have looked like. She was genetically more closely related to hunter-gatherers from mainland Europe than to those who lived in central Scandinavia at the time, and, like them, had dark skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes. She was likely descended from a population of settlers that moved up from western Europe after the glaciers retreated. How did she live? Other traces of DNA gave clues to life at Syltholm on Lolland, an island of Denmark in the Baltic Sea. The DNA signatures of hazelnut and mallard duck were identified, showing these were part of the diet at the time. "It is the biggest Stone Age site in Denmark and the archaeological finds suggest that the people who occupied the site were heavily exploiting wild resources well into the Neolithic, which is the period when farming and domesticated animals were first introduced into southern Scandinavia," said Theis Jensen from the University of Copenhagen. The researchers also extracted DNA from microbes trapped in the "chewing gum". They found pathogens that cause glandular fever and pneumonia, as well as many other viruses and bacteria that are naturally present in the mouth but don't cause disease. Where did the DNA come from? The DNA was stuck in a black-brown lump of birch pitch, produced by heating birch bark, which was used at that time to glue together stone tools. The presences of tooth marks suggest the substance was chewed, perhaps to make it more malleable, or possibly to relieve toothache or other ailments. What does the information tell us? The researchers said the information preserved in this way offers a snapshot of people's lives, providing information on ancestry, livelihood and health. DNA extracted from the chewing gum also gives an insight into how human pathogens have evolved over the years. "To be able to recover these types of ancient pathogen genomes from material like this is quite exciting because we can study how they evolved and how they are different to strains that are present nowadays," Dr Schroeder told the BBC. "And that tells us something about how they have spread and how they evolved." The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50809586

The Story of That Famous Female Physician From Ancient Egypt Is Actually Wrong Merit Ptah. In recent decades, the name of this ancient Egyptian doctor said to have lived nearly 5,000 years ago, has become a figurehead of women in science, technology, maths, and engineering (STEM). She is credited as being the "first woman known by name in the history of science". But there's a bit of a problem - Merit Ptah probably didn't exist. Not as described, at any rate. New historical research has traced the legend of Merit Ptah to its origins and discovered that a lot of the details got mixed up in the 80 years since her name first surfaced in 1938. In fact, according to medical historian Jakub Kwiecinski of the University of Colorado Anschutz, the entire legend of this ancient Egyptian doctor is almost completely wrong. "Merit Ptah was everywhere. In online posts about women in STEM, in computer games, in popular history books, there's even a crater on Venus named after her," Kwiecinski said. "And yet, with all these mentions, there was no proof that she really existed. It soon became clear that there had been no ancient Egyptian woman physician called Merit Ptah." The legend of Merit Ptah - a name meaning "beloved of the god Ptah" - started with early 20th century Canadian feminist and doctor Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead. In 1938, she published a book titled A History of Women in Medicine: From the Earliest of Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. In this book, on page 16, Campbell Hurd-Mead described an ancient Egyptian female physician. "The first woman doctor of 'the old kingdom' in the fifth dynasty, or about 2730 BC, practised during the reign of a queen Neferirika-ra. Her son was a high priest at whose tomb is a tablet describing his mother as the 'Chief Physician'," Campbell Hurd-Mead wrote. And, "in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is the picture of a woman named Merit Ptah, the mother of a high priest, who is calling her 'the Chief Physician,' although neither her costume nor her bearing indicates her medical profession or her importance." In addition to the fact that the Valley of the Kings wasn't in use until over 1,000 years later - from 1539 BCE to 1075 BCE - there are currently no records of any physician named Merit Ptah in the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, female or otherwise, Kwiecinski found. "Merit Ptah as a name existed in the Old Kingdom, but does not appear in any of the collated lists of ancient Egyptian healers - not even as one of the 'legendary' or 'controversial' cases," he said. "She is also absent from the list of Old Kingdom women administrators. No Old Kingdom tombs are present in the Valley of the Kings, where the story places Merit Ptah's son, and only a handful of such tombs exist in the larger area, the Theban Necropolis." That does not mean there were no female doctors recorded in ancient Egypt, however. In fact, that's where it seems the mix-up occurred. Because there was an Old Kingdom female doctor who seems to pretty closely match the details of Campbell Hurd-Mead's Merit Ptah. In fact, it's almost exactly the same in everything but the name. Her name was Peseshet, and we know about her because she is described in the tomb of Akhethotep - her son, a royal official and overseer of priests, who lived during the Fifth Dynasty around 2400 BCE and was buried in an elaborate tomb in the necropolis of Saqqara. A false door described both Akhethotep's mother and father. His father was a royal official named Ptahhotep, meaning "Peace of the god Ptah". His mother was Peseshet, and she was named as "Overseer of Woman Physicians." A book briefly mentioning Peseshet (but leaving her nameless) was found in Campbell Hurd-Mead's personal library. Kwiecinski suggests that Campbell Hurd-Mead confused Peseshet with the wife of the vizier Ramose, who lived around 1350 and was buried in the Valley of the Kings. Her name was Merit Ptah. "Unfortunately, Hurd-Mead in her own book accidentally mixed up the name of the ancient healer, as well as the date when she lived, and the location of the tomb," Kwiecinski said. "And so, from a misunderstood case of an authentic Egyptian woman healer, Peseshet, a seemingly earlier Merit Ptah, 'the first woman physician', was born." But this confusion shouldn't detract from the fact that women were working as physicians in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago, nor the importance of what Merit Ptah represents. "While Merit Ptah is not an authentic ancient Egyptian character and not a good symbolic founding figure, she is a real symbol of the collective effort to write women back into history," Kwiecinski wrote in his paper. "She is a genuine hero of the modern feminist struggle." The research has been published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/the-story-of-that-famous-female-physician-from-ancient-egypt-is-actually-wrong/ar-BBY5ikC

Sell the bum, more interested in dancing than playing football, injury my arse, he more than likely got pissed as a newt and has a hangover.

I worked with a guy years ago down South, he always portrayed himself as the loving father who doted over his two kiddies (boy & girl), if he visited us he would have them sitting on his knee and saying if anybody did his children any harm he would kill them. Anyway, I moved back to Scotland with the wife and our kids and two years later I rang the old boss up asking if there was any work in his place as I was looking for some work and he said there was and then he said did you hear about Dave B***** who was working here when I was there and I said no, what about him, well apparently he was in nick as his daughter when she was 10 years old he started to sexually molest her. Apparently he would leave his wife sitting downstairs and nip upstairs and molest her in bed he did this from when she was 10 years old up until she was 13 and she then told him she did not want to do it anymore, then the bastard only tried to pay her so he could sexually abuse her, he came unstuck when his daughter told her school pal who told her teacher and she notified the police who arrested him. That bastard only ended up doing 3 years nick and turned all religious reading a bible and whatnot as if the lord had cleansed his soul and forgave him, lucky me or the wife never bumped into him when we moved back down South otherwise we would have kicked the shite out of him, the other thing that done me and the wife's head in was his wife forgave him!!!! Things like that can affect you in a funny way as our daughter at the time when she was 10 had very long hair and to help the wife out when our daughter was having a bath I would go in and wash her hair but after hearing about that bastard down South what he did to his daughter I would never go into the bathroom again while our daughter was having a bath.

Is this the oldest family photo taken at Stonehenge? English Heritage says it has unearthed what is believed to be the earliest family photo ever taken at Stonehenge. The charity had asked the public to send in pictures of the famous neolithic Wiltshire monument to mark 100 years of public ownership. Among the 1,000 plus snaps are some from 1875, which experts believe are the oldest family photos at Stonehenge. The oldest picture without a family dates from 1853. One picture shows the group sitting on the stones - which is now only allowed on special occasions - with a picnic rug and what appears to be a bottle of champagne. In another, some of them are in a horse-drawn carriage. "They're wearing fashionable outfits and hats," said English Heritage historian Susan Greaney. "Right up until the 1920s and '30s people did dress up for days out like this, in their Sunday best, suits and hats." The pictures will feature alongside more than 140 others, in the Your Stonehenge exhibition which runs from today to late August 2020 at Stonehenge. Also included will be more modern pictures, such as the snap by photographer Martin Parr of a couple kissing in front of the stones during the 2019 autumn equinox. He now wants to track down the pair. Ms Greaney said: "The exhibition shows how photography has changed - the rise of the selfie stick and the smartphone and how taking a photograph is a very different thing now. "The way that people pose - people's faces have got closer to the camera until they are taking a picture of themselves more than they are of Stonehenge." Of the possibility of finding an older family photograph, she said: "It would be quite nice if somebody comes forward and says 'We've got an earlier one'." https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/is-this-the-oldest-family-photo-taken-at-stonehenge/ar-BBY4cNa

Cheers bud, as @Bluewolf said to tag @nudge as she likes a bit of the Tom Cruise.

That's me up nice and early getting ready for the visit to the local cemetery so the wife and big sis can lay some flowers on family graves for Christmas, the same as every year this time around so we are lucky as the weather has held out and it's not to bad outside, last year it was cold & rainy, we will be doing the same new-year, our son is dropping us off and bringing us back home, he has a taxi so there will be no cost plus we don't have to jump on 2 buses to get there which would take us around an hour & a half to get there and back again.

Went to a works Christmas party about 1969, it was snowing like fuck and I can't remember coming home, the wife said I staggered in the door about 23.00 hrs with my eye split open and the wrong coat on taken from the works party and to this day I can't remember how I got the split eye, I either fell over or got into a fight.

Celebration time then?

Top bloke, you should be happy with his track record. Manager Juventus UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1999 Milan Serie A: 2003–04 Coppa Italia: 2002–03 Supercoppa Italiana: 2004 UEFA Champions League: 2002–03, 2006–07 UEFA Super Cup: 2003, 2007 FIFA Club World Cup: 2007 Chelsea Premier League: 2009–10 FA Cup: 2009–10 FA Community Shield: 2009 Paris Saint-Germain Ligue 1: 2012–13 Real Madrid Copa del Rey: 2013–14 UEFA Champions League: 2013–14 UEFA Super Cup: 2014 FIFA Club World Cup: 2014 Bayern Munich Bundesliga: 2016–17 DFL-Supercup: 2016, 2017

Top Gun: Maverick - Official Trailer (2020) - Paramount Pictures

I can imagine you living next door to me, they would call you the 'Noisy Neighbour' and me the quiet one.

Then United won the quad in 99, European Cup, League, FA Cup and the International Continental Cup...cough, cough Oh, United won the League treble in 1998/99, 1999/2000, 2000/1

Bloody hell, I don't think I would like to be anywhere near these animals.

They all (Politicians) make promises before a General Election but they never keep them, once they are in power the majority of the promises are not put in the pending or out tray but are binned...yawn, a never-ending story.

Mesut Ozil: Arsenal distance club from midfielder's social media post Arsenal has distanced the club from midfielder Mesut Ozil's comments on the treatment of Uighur Muslims in China. Rights groups say about a million people - mostly from the Muslim Uighur community - are thought to have been detained without trial in high-security prison camps. China says they are being educated in "vocational training centres" to combat violent religious extremism. "Arsenal is always apolitical as an organisation," the London club said. "Following social media messages from Mesut Ozil on Friday, Arsenal Football Club must make it clear that these are Mesut's personal views." The Gunners' statement was published on Chinese social media site Weibo. In his post Ozil, who is a Muslim, called Uighurs "warriors who resist persecution" and criticised both China and the silence of Muslims in response. China has consistently denied mistreating Uighur Muslims in the country. Arsenal's statement received thousands of comments, many were critical or suggested it was not good enough. One commenter wrote "that's it?", while another responded with a picture of an Ozil shirt they had cut up. Some users also wrote posts with the hashtags "#Protesting against Ozil" and "#Ozil made inappropriate comments about China". In October, the US National Basketball Association suffered financial losses after an online comment from a team executive prompted a crisis in its relations with China. Houston Rockets' manager Daryl Morey had tweeted support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. As a result, Chinese firms suspended sponsorship and telecast deals.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEE...they say there is snow on the way tomorrow morning, that will do me.

Once a dickhead, always a dickhead, what has the dickhead done now to upset you?

Still waiting for @The Artful Dodger to tell us was it just a break or a sprain, we have all been giving our thoughts on the matter and have never heard from him what exactly it was?