Southern Beech

This gallery contains 45 photos.

The Southern Beech supplies the segue for a series of Southern surprises.

Nippur and The Great Trench

This gallery contains 30 photos.

The extraordinary excavation of Nippur at the end of the 19th century provided extraordinary evidence that the Fall of Babylon [officially 539 BC] coincided with the transformation of cuneiform into Arabic letters at the Arabian Horizon [637 CE].

Nippur and The Glass Road

This gallery contains 24 photos.

Can glass bead holes be used to string people along?

The Orion Fly-By

This gallery contains 25 photos.

The iconography associated with the Orion constellation is [quite literally] an open book but it’s pictorial narrative depends upon the pages being correctly sequenced.

Seeing Sirius

This gallery contains 21 photos.

When the brightness of Sirius suggests it’s only 362.45 AU distant [instead of the officially mandated 8.6 light years] then it’s worth taking a second look.

Ditrianum: Major Earthquake Warning

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Forecasting WHEN a major earthquake will strike is one step closer to predicting WHERE it will strike.

Indian Salt: Wallace Line

This gallery contains 26 photos.

The official Story of Sugar deploys an armada of Austronesians to transport sugar cane across the Wallace Line.

Indian Salt: Kingdom of Funan

This gallery contains 26 photos.

The modern version of the Sugar Cane Story forgets about the fragmentation of Greater India and the destruction of the Kingdom of Funan.

Indian Salt: The Elephant Bird

This gallery contains 21 photos.

The story of sugar contains some terrifically tall stories.

Gunnar Goes North

This gallery contains 22 photos.

Metal detectors unearth pots of gold and the occasional can of worms.

Parallax Postscript

This gallery contains 32 photos.

Many astronomers seem to identify with Marvin the Paranoid Android who claimed he possessed a “brain the size of a planet”.

The Fuckwit Song

This gallery contains 2 photos.

“Save Australia” from grandstanding politicians.

Parallax Perspective

This gallery contains 28 photos.

Solving the Stellar Parallax Clusterfuck suggests Gamma Draconis is about 10,850 AU distant and that Sirius is [only] about 360 AU away.

Parallax Proxy

This gallery contains 21 photos.

The fourth step towards solving the puzzle of the Stellar Parallax Clusterfuck involves comparing parallax distances with an established distance proxy.

Michael Rectenwald: Springtime for Snowflakes

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Michael Rectenwald discovered his fall from grace was a learning opportunity.

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Tired of tinsel?

Parallax Patterns

This gallery contains 30 photos.

The third step towards solving the puzzle of the Stellar Parallax Clusterfuck involves assembling the pieces of the puzzle to see the fudge hit the fan.

Parallax Problems

This gallery contains 35 photos.

The second step towards solving the puzzle of the Stellar Parallax Clusterfuck involves trying to discover which pieces of the puzzle are mangled or missing.

Parallax Prelude

This gallery contains 27 photos.

The first step towards solving the puzzle of the Stellar Parallax Clusterfuck is to open the box and familiarise yourself with the individual pieces of the puzzle.

Lies, Damn Lies and Climate Statistics

This gallery contains 7 photos.

1959 was a good year for B Movies and flying skeletons.

Tom Luongo: Flying Monkeys

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Once upon a time Hollywood produced cheap B Movies because they helped to make the Main Features look like dazzling works of art.

The Marne Money Manufactory

This gallery contains 26 photos.

This paper was read before the Numismatic Society on 22nd November 1838.

Bristol-Mendip Hoard of 1866

This gallery contains 41 photos.

Somerset silver stashes lead to sequencing surprises and solid gold.

Cretinous Cretaceous

This gallery contains 20 photos.

Geologists aren’t genetically goofy – they just collect cretinous concepts.

Jeff Taylor: In The Final Analysis

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Something very curious might be happening in the United Kingdom. Have the electorate finally learnt: YOU can only get what YOU want if YOU vote for it!

Wealth Redistribution Through Climate Activism

This gallery contains 2 photos.

2019 has been a very educational year for Carl Benjamin.

TOTO and the PHOTS

This gallery contains 13 photos.

It’s often said that fact is stranger than fiction.

Ravenna Revealed: Curious Clues

This gallery contains 62 photos.

The mosaics of San Giovanni Evangelista provide some very curious clues.

Ravenna Revealed

This gallery contains 22 photos.

Serendipity serves up some surprises.

Three Flavours of 700 Year Old Fudge

This gallery contains 18 photos.

The last 2,000 years have been punctuated by three catastrophic horizons that have spawned three different versions of history.

Dennis Rawlins: Olbers’ Magic Square of Sky

This gallery contains 12 photos.

Heinrich Olbers is best remembered for discovering Pallas and Vesta.

1212 Children’s Crusade

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Time to settle down boys and girls.

The Dodwell Dead End

This gallery contains 37 photos.

The Aleppo Test provides some painfully penetrating perspectives.

Alaskan Muck: Sol Invictus

This gallery contains 33 photos.

Buckle-up for a bumpy ride managing your cognitive dissonance as the Alaskan Muck series ends with a bang as the Solar Parallax and Sol Invictus fall into place.

Alaskan Muck: Prime Suspects

This gallery contains 41 photos.

In the blame game the prime suspects are usually eliminated [one-by-one] from the investigation until a neatly packaged single actor scenario is revealed such as “Miss Scarlett” in the “Conservatory” with the “Dagger”.