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+--- Thread: RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure (/showthread.php?tid=4841)
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - RedEarth - 27th March 2013
Blimey, the bitterness just oozes out of this thread don't it! I'm wondering if I can bottle it and sell it as a cocktail ingredient.
Poor Time Team, we will probably never see the like again, and I certainly think that is a bad thing.
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - Gilraen - 28th March 2013
RedEarth Wrote:Blimey, the bitterness just oozes out of this thread don't it! I'm wondering if I can bottle it and sell it as a cocktail ingredient.
Poor Time Team, we will probably never see the like again, and I certainly think that is a bad thing.
Hear, hear.
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - BAJR - 28th March 2013
More so when you see what replaces it. Though to be fair... the glory days were gone... it needed a boost it was like watching a prize fighter of the past stagger into the ring one time too many.
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - Dinosaur - 28th March 2013
Maybe we'll get something with tidy trowelling? :face-stir:
TT wasn't setting a good example to the youngsters
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - Kel - 28th March 2013
It still made ordinary people like my parents, believe that British archaeology - as in the muddy unglamorous scratching around in a rainy trench for a Bronze Age ditch and some broken Iron Age pottery, not just the sundrenched scrubbed Roman ruins and pretty mosaics documentary type - was worthwhile and should be supported. It kept archaeology as a profession and discipline, in the public eye and at the edge of the public consciousness. It's a huge loss.
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - pdurdin - 28th March 2013
Dinosaur Wrote:Maybe we'll get something with tidy trowelling? :face-stir:This is a very lazy accusation. I've yet to meet any archaeologist, amateur or professional, who considered Time Team's messy trenches a good example to follow. It isn't something that appears in every episode either, by any means -- I recall Phil talking about the importance of a tidy trench in at least one episode. Even first time diggers (youngsters and oldsters) know that it's an entertainment program, not the be-all and end-all of archaeological practice.
TT wasn't setting a good example to the youngsters
If you come across people who aren't excavating in a good fashion, the blame most likely lies with whoever instructed them; or they're just being slack.
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - RedEarth - 28th March 2013
Dinosaur Wrote:Maybe we'll get something with tidy trowelling? :face-stir:
TT wasn't setting a good example to the youngsters
No doubt your works is always immaculate and infallible, you do seem to have an over abundance of self-belief. What, pray tell, does set a good example on TV? I'd rather have time team than the sort of rubbish we get as an alternative: atmospheric music, a bearded and moodily back-lit professor wandering meaningfully round Stonehenge, received but tedious wisdom poured from on high by experts. Give me a break!
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - Wax - 29th March 2013
I would watch a fly on the wall (reality TV) programme following a community excavation led by professionals. All the tensions and personality clashes along with the developing confidence as new skills are gained and put into practice. The management disasters and the pulling back of the project from the brink of collapse. The final bonding together of the team to achieve its goals. Add a bit of decent archaeology what's not to like?
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - Dinosaur - 29th March 2013
RedEarth Wrote:No doubt your works is always immaculate and infallible, you do seem to have an over abundance of self-belief. What, pray tell, does set a good example on TV? I'd rather have time team than the sort of rubbish we get as an alternative: atmospheric music, a bearded and moodily back-lit professor wandering meaningfully round Stonehenge, received but tedious wisdom poured from on high by experts. Give me a break!
Thought that'd get a reaction }
:face-approve: Yes, actually, I do in fact attempt to do stuff neatly where possible, we get few enough useable site photos as it is, I'm convinced most diggers have never read (or more to the point looked at the photos in) a decent publication report, or their site recording (paperwork/drawn/photographic) wouldn't be so far off the mark. Many of them these days (exceptions are becoming a pleasant surprise) seem to be horrified at the suggestion of maybe getting some scissors and tidying up the grass at the top of that section they're about to photo. And I'm afraid spray-trowelling shouldn't be tolerated from anyone, however senior! Although I did notice on one of the recent batch of TT that everyone had been issued with a shiny new trowel for some reason - nothing like handicapping people from the outset! And on one (I think the same) episode, they showed repeated shots of someone trowelling the **** over the top of a glazed floor tile - err, maybe a damp sponge would have been more to the point?
Not seen any recent TT/Wessex reports (other than the Binchester one, which was ok if a bit thin), but have had occasion to use some of the older ones - one in particular still rests in the relevent HER with a great sheaf of correspondence making it quite clear that it was never accepted -having wanted to locate one of their trenches accurately from it (and failing!) I could see why...luckily it had been backfilled so badly you could (can) still trace it on the ground... you'd have thought with their budget they could have afforded a couple of tons of topsoil to level the thing up properly? - although I have to hold my hand up to a recent 2x2m trial trench in a croquet lawn that had mysteriously sunk by 2" over the following 12 months (was flush when we returfed it, honest)- oops! - apparently it made games lots more interesting
...cue the flack... :face-stir:
Don't get me wrong though, I also think TT is a great loss, and shudder to think what we'll get next :face-crying:
More Pub Dig please Redexile :face-approve:
RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure - kevin wooldridge - 29th March 2013
I am one of those people that don't often get a chance to catch Time Team 'live' so to speak, but catch it occasionally on More 4 or the History Channel. One recent episode I did see was set in a pub and had the main characters of the series recounting their favourite episode over the years. What surprised me was that none suggested the TimeTeam in London (Gresham Street), or in Canterbury (Westgate) or at Ely as their fave. Which was quite surprising cos they were the only 3 episodes I recall that showed archaeology as it really is, warts and all....kind of did make me think, for a moment or two, that TT was at the end of the day a giant ego-trip for many of the participants.....
I do regret the demise of TT, not so much for what they did, but for what they could have done with a little more forethought and maybe a closer relationship with the nitty-gritty of our working lives....