RIP Time Team, you were a national treasure

[Dinosaur]

Hasn't it already been done?

Ok, maybe not show them everything, should save a bit for ourselves?

[Dinosaur]

EEEEk that is one scary onesie . Just how do they work when you need the porta loo?

Could probably go without for weeks wearing one of those

[Steven]

Hi
Did I mishear or did Francis Pryor say that TT were the biggest funders of archaeology since the financial crash stoped development, and that TT were therefore the only people who could be invited to carry out work on highly significant sites on behalf of EH and NT?

[Wax]

I think TT are not in the real world if any of them think they have been the biggest funders of archaeology since the down turn. There are still some very big infra structure projects going on not to mention the Environment Agency tackling various flood control projects that have archaeology built in. In my neck of the woods there are a quite a few community funded projects with cash from the HLF and even local authorities. There is also the Penine Watershed Project. Some of these projects are on a much bigger scale than anything TT ever did.

[pdurdin]

What Francis Pryor said was that when the financial crash happened, TT were suddenly ONE OF the biggest funders of archaeological projects that year.

[Dinosaur]

I suspect some of the utilities companies would have an issue with that - their not-insubstantial input into archaeological funding was entirely unaffected by the crash, they just tend to cost it on a project-by-project basis so as to 'lose' it in overheads and not to upset their shareholders...actually I've done work for a regional operator who liked to keep jobs small-scale/long so that it never crossed a certain level of outlay in one month and upset their own national head-office...

...anyway, how much of TT's budget actually went on the archaeology? Precious little when I've been involved, certainly not on stuff like paying the diggers (as opposed to celebs posing with a shovel). Hope GSB were sending them big bills }

[barkingdigger]

What Francis Pryor said was that when the financial crash happened, TT were suddenly ONE OF the biggest funders of archaeological projects that year.

Far be it from me to defend the Evil Empire, but I'm sure English Heritage's Commissions Programme put a lot more cash into British archaeology in 2008/9 than Time Team! Sure, their production budget might have exceeded the nearly £5m EH spent, but precious little of it would have gone on the dozen or so three-day furtles they carried out that year... (But I bet the canteen and hotel budget for those episodes would have bailed out the Cypriot crisis!)

[pdurdin]

I don't know anything about it, I was just clarifying what Francis Pryor said.

We now return to your regularly scheduled Time Team Bashing.

[Dinosaur]

Does FP actually grubby his hands with 'commercial' archaeology? (as opposed to making money from books and tv)

[Gilraen]

Does FP actually grubby his hands with 'commercial' archaeology? (as opposed to making money from books and tv)

He got his hands dirty when he helped us out on one of our sites back in the late '90s. Good for him making money from his career - he's probably done his time in the trenches.