Trivial Bits.

To accompany the Staffordshire Hoard display (see recent post,) the City Museum and Art Gallery commissioned a local sculptor to create a 9ft statue of a Saxon warrior which now stands in the museum foyer. I have to say that it is pretty powerful, but I have a doubt:

Our 6th century soldier is equipped with an array of weapons, including a long bow slung across his back. I was led to believe that the longbow was introduced to the English by the Welsh somewhere around the 14^th century. Enlightenment would be welcomed.

And another thing…

Staffordshire was in Mercia, and Mercia was an Anglian kingdom, and yet they will insist on referring to the people of the area as Saxons. Whatever justification might be made on the basis of generic convention, it’s still the sort of thing that drives a pedant like me to a state of moderate irritation. It shouldn't.

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There was a hover fly today taking a strangely persistent interest in my electric drill.

‘It’s an electric drill,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

Having been so informed, it flew away.

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I saw a comment left on a YouTube track tonight, referring to the fact that a model must have been used for the face of some fantasy character. ‘They must have used somebody’s continence,’ it said.

Did I have to post a reply which said ‘Thank God they didn’t use her incontinence?’

I did.