The Lair of the White Worm

Over the preceding weeks I have infiltrated a family grouping of primates who call York their territory. Like Jane Goodall and the chimpanzees at Gombe after gaining the trust of the group I have been allowed unprecedented access to their daily rituals and have made several observations that will only help to advance scientific knowledge. It took many days of offerings to the group in order to secure my standing as part of their social order. Mostly my activities consisted of clearing the rudimentary implements they were using to eat with after meal times. A few times I had to wrestle these out of the control of the patriarch of the group whom I came to name 'Tim'. This led to a couple of unpleasant scenes but learning quickly not to back down or show fear, or indeed, one's back, I demonstrated my willingness to blend into the group hierarchy. I also made an input to the rudimentary system of barter that the group employed. This consisted of several sheets of paper with a nominal monetary fee written on them. Their lack of understanding of modern finances helped in giving gravitas to this offering.

In my tribe we call this 'money'

My observations, there in the depths of the lost valley of Huntington, broke the group into two distinct sub-stratas. There was the patriarch, 'Tim' whom I have already mentioned, and the matriarch, whom I came to call 'Cath'. The tribe used no names when I arrived and these monikers were taken from my faithful hunting dogs I had left back at home. There were many resemblances between the great apes and my dogs, not just physical, either. I noticed as the weeks wore on that the patriarch liked to believe he was in charge of the territory. He would strut around the group's territorial boundaries, pounding his chest and claiming to be the best at everything. This behaviour was quickly cowed upon the arrival home of the matriarch. It was she that did the lion's share of the hunting, literally bringing home the bacon whilst the patriarch sat contemplating his navel. The matriarch was definitely the dominant of the group despite the patriarch's protestations and displays of vulgar power. The patriarch's behaviour is placated by the use of food. There are days dominated by various meal types, as they have no calenders of their own Tuesday is known as 'burger day', Thursday has become 'curry night'. The patriarch knows what to expect on these days and is greatly upset if anything happens to change this routine. These observations scratch little of the group's dynamics and further investigation is warranted to reveal more of the secrets of the group.

Is it sea bass night?

On Thursday Wincey's kid was ill so he took the day off. On the site a revolution occurred. We cleaned the cabin. It was a cultural revolution, literally sweeping out the old to bring in the new. Despite Wincey reneging on allowing us to clean it when he was around we took the initiative and spent the first forty five minutes of the day getting it to a state that was fit for human habitation. Previously the place had been caked in mud and crisp wrappers. The only area I had to eat my lunch from was a triangle of table that was no bigger than an envelope surrounded by rotting wooden artefacts yet to be removed to the laboratory facilities. Even this table was caked in two inches of mud. It is a wonder that none of us had yet caught cholera or at the very least dysentery. After we cleared all the unnecessary tools and equipment and placed them in the large lock up next door, we were able to reach our seats without having to step over shovels, mattock and hoes. The cabin suddenly seemed to take on massive dimensions, we hadn't seen the back wall for years. I could sit on my chair without having to put my knees on my neighbour's lap. The light and space really put the zap on our collective heads.

Hello! Hello! Is anyone else in here?

I travelled down to Birmingham last night to go to the middle day of the Supersonic Festival along with Rhys, Dave and Linzi. The reason we'd all paid £35 for a day ticket? Godflesh were playing again. No doubt you'll remember I saw them in France at Hellfest. Well, despite that being their 'only European date' they decided that the money was enough of a draw and played their hometown of Brum. Of the other bands playing that night I'd only heard of Melt Banana before. Best by far was the psychedelic group Gnod. They were like Neu! and Amon Duul II high on a lethal combination of crack, steroids and PCP fighting in a disused multi story car park. There was an Italian band called Ovo who were 'interesting', Stinky Wizzleteat who were 'shit' and Melt Banana who were 'bat shit crazy Japs'. But how were Godflesh? Fucking amazing. Unlike at France where they took twenty minutes of their set to tune up, they got straight down played some of their best songs, including Like Rats, Christbait Rising, Streetcleaner, Tiny Tears, Avalanche Master Song, Weak Flesh, Spite, Crush My Soul and Slateman. I great night despite Dave and Linzi getting into two different fights and taking two and a half hours to get home having got lost on the M6.

D'yer Mak'er

 After a week spent in a cage in the back of Logan Josh's garage I managed to escape his evil clutches and made my way back to Rotherham. Whereupon I was immediately ordered to get ready as we would be 'leaving in five minutes'. I was not in the best of moods to take this news on board as I was wet from working in the rain all afternoon. Wincey is of the opinion that there are several types of rain. One of which is 'the rain that doesn't get you wet'. Scratch that, he thinks that all types of rain is the 'rain that doesn't get you wet'. It would have to be weather akin to the storm that moves across Saturn's surface for him to allow us to go into the cabin to do 'Paperwork'. Speaking of the cabin, a fucking rat has taken residence in it. It was probably initially attracted by Berny's musk and has elected to stay due to all the cheese that falls of him. This is quite a concern, (the rat, not cheese falling off Berny, we're all used to that now) not only from a Health and Safety point of view but also from a infectious disease point of view. Now we are all at risk from Weil's Disease (which Barry doesn't believe exists, but that's another story) what with the rat(s) running all over the biscuits and pissing on them. I voiced my concerns about the state of cleanliness in the cabin on Wednesday and was roundly dismissed out of hand by Wincey. Barry then brought up the bone of contention again on Thursday, offering to spend an hour cleaning the cabin (not such a Samaritan act as you may initially think, he was just getting out of working in the shit pit with Berny) this request was also passed over until Friday when Wincey relented and said he would let us clean the cabin when it pissed it down later in the day (what a treat!!), it did but he didn't. The cabin stayed filthy, the rat remained and we worked through the rain.

'Time to go back out'

I had also just sat for two hours in the car on what should have been an hour long drive from York. As ever when it rains everybody on the road seems to loose their driving abilities and crawls along road at 13mph. On the Motorway. During rush hour. So I sat and listened to two Dead Kennedys albums in the time that it would normally take to drive the ten  minutes from Asda roundabout. So, no, gentle reader, I was not in the 'correct' state of mind upon arriving and being ushered into the awaiting carriage. The reason for the 'leaving in five minutes'? It was my cousin Sara and her husband Shaun's wedding anniversary.They had been married a year previously in Jamaica and wanted to recreate the magic of the moment by going to Huddersfield.

Bless

The venue was a Jamaican restaurant in Huddersfield and all the usual suspects were there. Sara and Shaun (obviously), Mr and Mrs Cat, Vicky, Neil and Lou, Auntie Chris, mother, Elaine, Janette, and a few others whom I'd not met before. Before we'd even hit the road there was copious amounts of drinking, the minibus stopped at Co-Op to pick up more drink and Scotch Eggs whilst Rotherham's finest champagne was being handed out like it was going out of fashion. Needless to say there was plenty of bellowing as the bus winded its way to the heart of Huddersfield. As though we hadn't had enough drink already the party was quickly herded into what must be the worst bar I've ever been in and I've been out drinking in Llanenlli. It would appear that an evening's drink in Huddersfield is not complete without a go on the boxing machine. Young men each take turns to proudly step up to the mark and smack a punch bag as hard as they can to the exultation or derision of their peers. These new found skills are used upon the visages of unsuspecting members of the public outside a nightclub later in the evening.

I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody...

Drinks were drunk, the restaurant was reached and my extended family began the ritual of making a show of themselves. Typical large group meal really, everyone orders something, instantly forgets what it is they've ordered and the ones with the fish allergies end up with the prawns, the vegetarians end up with steak and the veggie-phobes get a plate of peas. We scoffed until appetites were sated, we drank til we were silly and we shouted until the rest of the customers left the restaurant. The bill was duly brought and debated over harder than the Treaty of Versailles. A personal note here. This is something I fucking hate. Whenever I go out for a meal with a large group the bill is always broken down to its component parts and dissected into individual pennies 'I had the fish starter and a Jerky Chicken main along with two glasses of wine and three bottle of beer, so I owe exactly £23.41. Here's the exact change.' There is the argument that if you split the bill equally someone may end up paying more for someone else to drink some more wine or whatever, but so fucking what? It's usually down to pennies, unless of course all you had was a starter and no drinks and everyone else had a five course banquet with the finest wines known to man. But when does that ever happen? Most people's individual bills are roundabout the same cost and who wants to be the richest person in the graveyard? Then the poor minibus driver had to drive us the hour back with repeated requests for piss stops, fag breaks and to clear up sick. Saturday was ruined by a hangover.

TIA BABY!! PART TWO (Pt3)

That twisted maniac Herr Doktor Clay whined that I wasn't talking enough about the archaeology at Engaruka in the previous posts. Now, I assume that most of you reading this are not archaeologists, neither are you interested in archaeology. If you are, you're not right in the fucking head. But for the benefit of the poor buffoons that have a slight interest in Heritage Intervention and to stop Dr. Clay ringing me in the middle of the night, screaming down the phone and hanging up, I will give you a brief summary of the archaeological shizzle that went down at Engaruka.

Fucked

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, the Engaruka site was situated on the edge of the modern village of Engaruka, what a coincidence, imagine that! The fucking mind boggles! The actual archaeological site covers an area of over nine kilometers (that's over five miles in old money) from the base of the escarpments of the Engaruka valley. Think about that. Go on. Yeah, it's big isn't it? Although we had such a big team of archaeologists we had little hope of more than scratching the surface of the site. Even with Posh Bastard opening random holes all over the place, usually just before a meal break, there is still massive amounts left to do. Mind you, it's probably going to be difficult getting tools to site in the future since we buckled the chassis of one Landrover and fucked the shock housing of the other.

Fucked

Anyhoo. There was two main area that we worked on. One was on the flat part of the valley and consisted of stone built circles and field systems. HOW FUCKING EXCITING IS THAT? Field systems!! Holy fucking shit! Let's have a street party! The people of the past farmed in FIELDS!!! Just like us! They're almost the fucking same as us. Except they're dead and we're alive and we have stuff like tractors and combine harvesters and massive barns with massive chickens hidden away in. But except for that, people of the olden days are exactly the same. Peas in a pod. Because of this, I took on the task of excavating one of the stone circles. I figured no one these days has stone circles but people use fields all the time. We're tripping over fields there's so many of them. All across Britain Town Halls have to be regularly cleaned of field droppings, but stone circles? Name one person you know who owns a stone circle. You can't. You know why you can't? Because no one has them today. There is no greater symbol of the enigma of the ancient past than a stone built circle. It's like the dim and distant past rising from the grave and belting you round the head with a full round house kick from down memory lane. Tackling a stone built circle is the equivalent of recieving a full Nelson from a bygone age.

Fucked

So we decided as a collective that Kirk should get the easy archaeology of the field systems and Ted and I would tackle the elusive stone circles. I was joined by my hand picked team of savvy go-getters in attempting to answer the riddles of the ancients. Over the course of the excavations we suffered as Ted and Kirk stole all the tools and left me and my team with only rudimentary implements to excavate with. Undeterred we fucked a great big hole in the centre of the circle. We fucked everything out of it.

Fucked

We fucked so much out of it apparently we fucked all the evidence for any kind of occupation out of it as well. We found NOTHING in the quarter section we fucked out. Not a single fucking piece of pottery, not a single bead, not one tiny iota of testament that people had been anywhere near these stone circles. Earlier excavations on similar structures in the recent past at Engaruka had yielded so much pottery that it had to be air lifted off the site in shipping containers by Chinooks. At least that's what Posh Bastard told me. Engaruka has it's own type of pottery. It is unique to the site. It was not made on site and was most likely traded in to the area. It appears who ever was making the stuff was making it for the people of Engaruka specifically. A case of: 'Those daft cunts down at Engaruka like lines and dots all over their pots, so we'd best put a load all over them, but don't get them mixed up with the good stuff we sell to that other village.' But the circle I was working in had not a scrap of this stuff. There was only two conclusions to leap to, either they weren't living in the circles and they were being used as some kind of cattle corral OR they were the cleanest Iron Age folk in all of Africa, carefully picking up every thing they dropped. Sweeping up everyday and tidying the place constantly. Every day was a spring clean for them. I prefer the latter theory.

Fucked

The circles threw up more questions than they answered and in the end we'd have been better if we'd left them well alone. There was the whole riddle of the doorways and why a load of stones had been fucked about at the entrance like some kind of ankle breaker and 'unwelcome mat', if you will. But before I had a mental breakdown considering the eternal mysteries of our forebears I was moved up the hill. Above the valley sat the hills and on these hills sat terraces and on these terraces sat house platforms and on these house platforms sat... Oh fuck off. This is not a nursery rhyme. The hill was the ace in the hole for Posh Bastard. It was the place where the people of Engaruka lived and loved, laughed and cried, dreamed their dreams. It was going to make Daryl a rich man. If only he could work out the sequence in which the terraces were built. If he could unfurl the intricate patterns of confusion that were the embodiment of the terraces he would be revered in the archaeological world as a God, no longer a mere mortal but the living incarnation of archaeological science. He could retire on his discovery and live a life on a Bahamian island surrounded by dusky maidens surrendering to his every whim. There was one snag, he had Ted, Kirk and I in charge. He was completely fucked.

Fucked

The terrace structures are unique in African archaeology. They consist of a sequence of platforms backed by stone built walls, often ten feet high. It's the African equivalent of Stonehenge. What we did to them was the equivalent of taking a JCB piped with a breaker to Stonehenge and turning it from an attractive stone feature into a pile of aggregate. Oh yes, we fucked holes through those walls, we blasted chasms into the side of that hill. We were like Belzoni burying into the Pyramids at Giza. Did we answer any research questions? I've no idea but it sure was fun pulling the walls to bits. I think Posh Bastard had some idea of what was going on with the sequence of building, but you'll have to wait until the ultra-exciting report is published sometime in 2054 to find out the answers.

Fucked

OK, I think I've bored you enough with the exciting world of archaeology that I inhabit. The next post about Africa will be about the FUN things we did. I forgot to put these on the previous posts but here are links to the pictures from my Facefuck account:

Album One
Album Two
Album Three

Listen In Awe As You Hear Him... Scratch At The Door...

In this edition, like all the best glossy magazines, I present a photo montage of last week as seen through the eyes of the camera. It will shock and appall you, it will surprise and repel you. You will be weaker for having witnessed it. You will be dehumanized. No longer will you be allowed to sit on a jury. A trail of weeping wrecks of humanity shall follow in its wake. Sit back and gasp with horror as you witness life as a modern field archaeologist...

Berny arrives in the morning with his worldly possessions...

And immediately has his breakfast...

A professional approach is the key word in the work of a field archaeologist...

A little bit of gentle persuasion gets the motor going...

'Stop taking fuckin' photos of me, let a man paddle shit in peace.'

In other site related news, I have been staying on Logan Josh and his wife's reservation for the past week. Not that I've seen much of the house having being locked in the garage for the duration. They tell me it's something to do with the cats not being spayed and that they may give me some cat related illness. That I can accept, but why they have to confiscate my car keys, steal my shoes and chain me up to the wall is beyond me.

'Get up shit bag, it's time to go to work...'

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiim, can you paaaaaaaaaass me that penciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil?

Before I continue with the African blogs I'm going to tell you what I've been up to this week. well, first and foremost I managed to get myself a wee job. It's back again with Onsite and it's also back at Heslington East. I feel as as though I'll be drawn back to this place for the rest of my life. Long story short, I sent Nick an email asking for work and got a call off him on Tuesday, saying 'Are you doing anything now? No? Then get in your car and come to work.' I told him I couldn't possibly do anything until Wednesday as I had some high powered navel gazing to finish that afternoon. But Wednesday duly arrived and I plowed the car through the heaviest rain the North of England has witnessed since records began.

The joy of field archaeology...

Wincey was back in charge, at the helm of the sinking ship, just where he should be. Berny was also there, along with Sam from York Uni. As the rain whipped our skin to shreds Wincey put me in the filthiest stinking punishment trench that he could find. The rain fell, the wind howled, I whined, but I wasn't let out of the hole. Water was running over the top of my boots and the sucking sand was threatening the drag me under. I asked G-Funk what it was that I'd done wrong and all he did was laugh. Then to top off the misery Sir Stanners showed up in his gilded carriage. Immediately upon arrival he dined on an osprey sandwich, sat in the warmth and dry of the cabin and began his evil machinations against humanity. Logan Josh and I have worked out his cruel plan. When he fills in forms his writing is so big that the letters can be seen from outer space. There can only be one explanation for this: Stanners is a drone of the Martians and is passing on Earth's secrets to his overlords whilst pretending to make archaeological records. He is identifying targets for their imminent attack and pinpointing weaknesses in our defences. The man is nothing more than a species traitor!

'We have a new message from Drone Number Seven, he says we should target the one called Wincey...'

Speaking of Josh, he showed up along with Barry Onions on Thursday. The pair of them swanned about and lorded it over everyone else as though they knew what they were doing. They just succeeded in sliding about in the mud and banging into each other until Barry was cowed into bailing the ditches out:

Work, you cunt.

Friday was another day of rain of Biblical proportions. Wincey wasn't on site, he was in the office, being downloaded for his back log of eight years worth of site work. Since he never records everything we reckon he must somehow keep it all digitally stored in his head, this information is then downloaded when his 64bit memory is full. Every so often he needs a reboot as well. We (Logan, Berny, Sam and I) sat in the cabin taking a well deserved chance of him not being around second guessing everything: 'So that ditch is nearly finished is it?' 'I have no idea Graham, I've only just started taking the top fills out, I don't have x-ray vision. If I did, this job would be a whole load easier.' We sat around until two o'clock when the call came through from the Eagle's Nest to begin the retreat.

'Graham, I think the site might be slightly unworkable...'

Over the weekend, I got the chance to see Shrine of the Monkey. They played in SNAFU and were fucking excellent, mostly for the stage antics of the lead guitarist/vocalist. I have not seen such guitar faces since Hendrix and they guy's soloing was fucking class. The fella had a fucking box to stand on when he was fret wanking. It reminded me of something Hrappi said when we took Sudoku to the stage in Reykjavik: 'Always play as though you're playing to a stadium crowd.' I've seen nothing like it for a long time.

LET'S FUCKING ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!!!

TIA BABY!! PART TWO (Pt2)

When I sat in Montgomery Hall in Wath-Upon-Dearne listening to Martin giving an introductory lecture for his Archaeology night class on a rainy night in 1996 little did I imagine that I'd end up working on the side of  mountain in East Africa. Mind you, I never thought I'd end up having to work in Wales either, but for the Grace of God I did. But East Africa is far more interesting than Wales and I'm here to tell you about that, not the land of leaks. As I said in the last entry, we'd hit the road from Nairobbery towards the Tanzanian border and Engaruka. The plan was to travel straight to the site in a day, but as with all the best laid plans, we took two days to get there. An unscheduled stop at the large town of Arusha, just over the border of Kenya and Tanzania, was in order. Arusha serves as the jump off point for most of the Northern Tanzanian Safari parks. This translates as millions of touts trying to sell you a trip to stare at the Lions or a Sunday afternoon walk up Kilimanjaro. We only spent a night in Arusha so the touting wasn't such a big problem, this time. No sir, we were off to Engaruka and nothing would stop us!

Fuck off Arusha!! We don't need your batiks or Muzungu T-Shirts!

How does one get to Engaruka, I hear you cry. Well, it's pretty simple, you take the road out of Arusha, follow the metalled road out to Mtu wa Mbu (the name translates as 'River of Mosquitoes'; probably not the best advertisement for a town in a Malaria hot spot...), go through the town and then on the left you'll see a dirt track. Follow that, unless the rains have washed away all traces of the road, for about 2 hours. Make sure you have a four wheel drive as a Toyota Yaris may not be able to cope with all the rocks the size of a house, soft sand, crevices, and giraffes that you'll undoubtedly meet along the way. Calling out the AA is not really an option: 'Yeah, we're stuck in some soft sand on the road to Engaruka. Where abouts? Erm, well there's some scrub land around us. There's some massive mountains in the distance. There was three giraffes but they've moved now. There's some kids waving and asking for money. Can you get our position from that?'

Turn left at the giraffes...

So after two hours of bouncing around like a tennis ball in a washing machine in the back of the Landrover because Posh Bastard refused to slow down, we arrived at the edge of Engaruka village. Daryl then refused to pay the $10 entry fee that the village council were charging for tourists. He was well within his rights since the barrier was not recognised by the Antiquities Authorities and was a local cash raising initiative, but I still feared we'd all be speared by Masai spears in the dead of the night. After a Mexican stand off that lasted for what seemed like ages we were allowed into the village and found our way to the campsite that would be our accommodation for the next six weeks. It was dark by the time we arrived and we had to set up in the pitch black but somehow we managed not to put the tents up upside down.

Did anyone see where I put that tent peg?

Over the next couple of days we met Israel, the guardian of the site and local wide boy. Over the period we were working in Engaruka Israel managed to shift his entire family into the service of Daryl. He guided, his wife cooked, when she wasn't available, his brother took over, some young lad who must have had familial connections ran around clearing plates after dinner and I'm fairly sure it was Israel's older relative who owned the camp site. On arrival, Israel took myself, Kirk, Ted, Benson and Johnpius around to have a look at the archaeology. We stumbled upon some Masai lads who gave us some of their soup, made from tree bark and dung by the taste of it. They were the warrior caste, called Moran. Basically, all the men of the village between eighteen and thirty years old leave and live together out in the wild, eating roots and berries, killing lions and generally training to be warriors. It's a pretty good system as it gives the Masai an ever present warrior army and separates the testosterone fuelled youngsters from the elders and the rest of the village,  therefore cutting down on power struggles between young and old. It got me thinking, we have a similar set young lads in the UK, between 18 and 30 who also spend their time out in pubs, drinking and fighting. Except over here we call them Morons.

Drink this soup or we'll fucking stab you...

After a couple of days of flouncing around the site looking at the archaeology we were joined by the Kenyan student; Grace, Mary, Linda, John Junior and Steve Ugali, along with Charles the Tanzanian antiquities representative who had more testosterone than the entire male staff of English Heritage combined. Later we were joined by the Tanzanian students and we began working. My team consisted of John Junior, Irene, Catherine, Edith and Linda. As you will notice, I was surrounded by birds for the first few weeks and women being women, they were obsessed with soap operas. The particular soap they were obsessed with was Shades of Sin, a Latin American show that was screened across East Africa. This filtered it's way onto site through osmosis and we were all renamed after characters in the soap. I was Papushka, Catherine was renamed Mamushka and John Junior became Paco. These names stuck for the duration of the excavation. What else can I say about the students? They were great overall, very funny, friendly, hardworking and very polite. None of them complained like the whining York students when they had to climb up a fucking mountain everyday in a Death March led by that Posh Bastard Daryl. Oh no, the students at Heslington East whined when they had to get out of bed to get to work for half past nine. How would they have coped if they had to have got out of bed to be on site at 7.00am after walking for nearly an hour up hill to do a full days work.

No shirkers here...

I'll take a break here to talk about the food on site. Given that it was a student excavation run on a tight budget the food was expected to be quite bad. 'Quite bad' would do it too much justice. Let's say 'downright fucking terrible'. Each and every meal, Lunch and dinner, was made up of beans along with cabbage (at least I think it was cabbage...). To bulk out this culinary combination we were provided with rice for dinner and for lunch, Ugali. Now for those that don't know, Ugali is an African specialty. I had had it before in South Africa, where it is called Mielie pap. I tried it in one of those moments that tourists have: 'let's try what the locals eat, it can't be that bad!' It wasn't at the time, but then I only had it for one meal. After six weeks of forcing this glutinous slop down just in order to get something in my belly after a full day's work I'd rather eat a bowl of my own shit and vomit than another plate of Ugali. You think I'm kidding? At least shit and vomit would taste of something. Ugali has literally no taste, even sticking my dusty fingers into it improved things. It was great for dieting, I'd work a full day, walk back down the mountain starving hungry, see the Ugali waiting for us and instantly loose my appetite.

 Bleurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

OK that's enough shit for this part, I'll return to Africa soon with tales of what we did on our days off and my holidays through Zanzibar...

We Sent Them To Dig In This?

I'm just going to tell you about Belgium before I continue with East Africa, if you don't like it, use your telephone to call someone that fucking cares. Cos I certainly don't. The Belgian archaeologists of the Institute for the Archaeological Heritage of the Flemish Community (IAP) are working on various sites throughout Belgium in order to assess the preservation of the underground archaeology of the Western Front. The areas affected during the war are under scrutiny to be put on the World Heritage List by 2014. This being the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Great War, you thick cunt. Do try to keep up. Marc Dewilde of the IAP asked Dr David Kenyon to assemble a highly professional team of some of the most experienced Great War archaeologists that Britain has to offer. He did, but they were busy, so instead he had to ask Danny Boy (Douche) and me to help him dig out rusty German beastliness. It mainly comes down to the fact that Douche and I have pissed away every opportunity for any kind of proper career and at any one time either of us are not working or are in such vocational circumstances that we can take time off at the drop of a hat. I got the call whilst languishing like a sweating sun burnt sow in Zanzibar and this is how I found myself on Friday night lost on the outskirts of Hitchen ringing Douche to find out where he lived.

You wanted the best, you got us instead...

We had the usual car swapping leap frogging journey to the ferry (I drive to Luton then Douche drives us both to Sevenoaks then Kaptain Kenyon drives us all to Belgium with Kenny Loggins, Survivor and Cher as a soundtrack) and ended up at the accommodation in Ypres. We really landed on our feet with the place where we were staying (It was called Le Chat Noir which we anglicised to the Black Shit) it was clean, comfortable, two seconds away from the main square in Ypres, had satellite TV, a barbecue, a fully working kitchen, swimming pool, ball room, aga, space rocket launch pad, discotheque, firing range and tank proving ground with a fully stocked garage of armoured fighting vehicles. OK, fair enough, it had every thing up to the kitchen, but it was a really good place. The only problem was we had to sleep Das Boot style in the same room but at least we didn't have to share beds.

The Black Shit, what a great place!

Douche was up to his usual tricks, he had forgotten to bring his toothpaste and tooth brush from home. Whilst on the ferry the fucking idiot could only afford to buy one or the other, so in his glorious ignorance he chose the paste. Rather than buying a brush and using someone else's toothpaste he ended up not cleaning his teeth for three days until we went to a Belgian supermarket where he could buy a brush. His forgetfulness didn't end there, on Monday at work he forgot his lunch, on Tuesday he forgot his coffee. He'd finally got it right by Wednesday. Not only did I have that to put up with, but Kaptain Kenyon continually droned on about his working as historical advisor on the new Steven Spielberg movie 'Warhorse'. He made it sound like he was rewriting the script as he went along. It was either luvvie talk about lunching with 'Steve' (as his friends call him) or he was wittering on about his ideas for a time travelling movie involving Roman Dodecahedrons. The idea is that a mad scientist in the future has sent an object back in time in order to prove time travel can exist, an object so ambiguous and puzzling its purpose cannot be fathomed by modern archaeologists, but would be known by the mad scientist to be from their time. The whole idea was a load of shit and didn't even involve a single Delorian.

Dr. Kenyon, archaeologist, film writer and wanna-be-time traveller

So I had to put up with this crap for a week, not only that but I had relentless abuse about my beard. I'd not had chance to trim it since getting back from Africa and admittedly it's got a little out of hand. I think there may be as of yet undiscovered rain forest tribes living in there and it's strong enough to hold a spoon in place, but there was no need for the continual torrent of psychological torment that I had to put up with. It was an abuse of KK's position of power and jealousy on both of their parts as they can only grow wispy bum fluff.

The beard is big, but the beard is pissed...

Apart from that, we had some great trenches, we were looking at mostly German front line systems. We worked on two sites, Palingbeek and later, Sanctuary Wood. As ever in Belgium, the wood preservation was excellent. Douche had a brilliant little slot across a communication trench with wooden planking on the base at Palingbeek. Also at Palingbeek we found in situ wooden hurdling (the Germans used a lot of wood in the trench wall constructions), something we've all seen in photographs but never in the ground.

I've got wood, BOOM BOOM!

Sanctuary Wood was also excellent from an archaeological point of view. There was a certain amount of difficulty in actually seeing the features in the ground, but we cleaned up and I located two trenches of sizable depth. Absolutely packed full with cartridges and a sock. Santuary Wood had a further touch. We were digging within spitting distance of the Canadian Memorial on Hill 62 and every so often we would hear, drifting through the woods, the sounds of bagpipes at various ceremonies being held on the memorial. There is something haunting about the thought of the violence that the place had witnessed compared to the tranquility that it currently holds.

Then...

...now

But as ever, as soon as it had started it was all over and before I knew it I was standing in the square in Ypres eating Belgian waffles waiting for Franky and his van so we could sign off the sites and return to the UK. I don't know when I'll be back in Belgium again and the time between jobs is never short enough.

 

Belgium = Om Nom Nom