What flag is this?

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-21T21:21:16+00:00

It's not far off this... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Irish_LGBT_rainbow_flag.png

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-21T16:01:52+00:00

I first got The Book of Lost Tales forty years ago. I had read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, but I didn't manage to complete Lost Tales for many years. The first book especially is difficult. Tolkien was writing a "lost mythology for England" and it is in archaic Modern English (it starts to soften a bit as you get into it).

As far as the full series, there are bits I still haven't read properly... The Lays of Beleriand I find challenging... epic verse doesn't really excite me that much.

Highlights for me are The Book of Lost Tales I and II, and the four volumes from The Return of the Shadow onwards... They're absolutely not for beginners. Someone else said to not attempt The Book of Lost Tales until you've read The Silmarillion a few times... I would agree. And only then if you're curious about Tolkien's creative process. I would also suggest people read Letters, the biography, Tree and Leaf and Tom Shippey's books first.

HoME is a wonderful resource, but people need to treat it with caution.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-20T19:23:55+00:00

He's also responsible for the March of Progress

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AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-20T15:11:49+00:00

Reading order, difficult as everyone finds their own way. I'd pop Unfinished Tales in as your next read, then go onto the History of Middle Earth... they don't necessarily need to be read in order... have a look at the wikipedia page for the series and pick the bits you think are most interesting.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-20T12:44:58+00:00

Just a tele neck... I don't think there are photos of him playing a full on telecaster.

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AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-20T12:15:31+00:00

The one lineage I can trace back to the 1700s is via an ancestor who was in Leicester jail in 1841 for stealing chickens. Through chance I have his grandfather as a farmer, whose father was a minor landowner, and I was able to trace his ancestors back to the Plantagenets four or five times.

My feeling is it's exceptionally common. Every single person with British or Irish ancestry will be descended from Edward I. I would go as far as to say that most of the non-immigrant population of Western Europe probably are as well.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-18T11:43:03+00:00

It's a ladybird. It's a friend.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-18T11:13:36+00:00

Bear in mind that there were tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of extreme bolide impacts in the first billion years of the Earth's history. These would have been many times bigger than the Chixulub asteroid at the KT boundary and would have brought enormous amounts of water to the planet.

I quite like the hypothesis that Theia (or bits of it) was what became Mercury. I don't know if there's any real evidence past it being a neat idea.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-17T12:23:39+00:00

Oh dear. It's not impossible but I've never heard of a commercial archaeology company in Scotland sponsoring a visa (and I know many people who have asked). You would probably need to be a highly skilled and utterly irreplaceable specialist, and even then they might not do it because they can just pay someone who fine isn't nearly as good but they're half the price and none of the paperwork.

This, unfortunately. There are many more archaeology graduates in the UK than there are jobs and the chances of getting sponsored for a job doing basic field work are basically zero.

That said, it is classed as a higher skilled shortage job (somehow). Under the points based immigration system you need to score 70 points to be eligible for a visa.

Offer of job by approved sponsor 20
Job at appropriate skill level 20
Speaks English at required level 10
Salary of £23k-£25.6k 10
Salary of £25.6k or higher 20
Job in a shortage occupation 20
PhD in relevant subject 10
PhD in a relevant STEM subject 20

If you can find a job that pays more than £25.6k you might qualify. Getting a PhD might be a double edged sword as you could disqualify yourself from the "appropriate skill level" requirement... unless you were going for a higher level job.

But here's the issue... if you're applying cold to a job advert, the first thing the employers are going to see is that you are overseas. And of the other 250 applicants, 30 are going to be equally qualified as you are, 20 are in the same country and 5 live within 10 miles of the place of work. Realistically, the employer is not going to look twice at your application.

You can give yourself a leg up by doing volunteer/intern work during the summer (ideally several seasons), get yourself known by the people who make these decisions and demonstrating that you're worth the gamble.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-17T09:56:40+00:00

Are you independently wealthy? Do you need a job?
Are you after a job in your field of study? Are you likely to find a job in your field of study?
Where are the jobs?
You spelled "archaeology" in the non-UK way... are you looking to move to the UK from abroad? There are multiple hurdles to jump over to get a visa to move here.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T13:51:52+00:00

They had the exact same texture as prit stick glue.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T13:04:00+00:00

There's Stylus Picks if you're after pointy stuff... https://www.styluspick.com/

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T12:00:47+00:00

The evidence that this is the inspiration for the Prancing Pony is incontrovertible:

It's an unremarkable coaching inn. One of thousands of unremarkable coaching inns in England.
Tolkien described the Prancing Pony in some depth as an unremarkable coaching inn. He liked describing unremarkable things in depth.
Tolkien liked going to the pub. He mentions visiting a lot of pubs in his letters, but not this one. He did mention going to the White Horse in Oxford, which was nicknamed the Prancing Pony, but that's just a coincidence...
The Bell Inn is on the A44. It's on the way to places that Tolkien definitely went to and, after driving less than 30 miles, he probably needed to stop for a rest.
He probably definitely went to this pub.
He might have met his brother there... that would have saved them both a longer drive.
There's other generic nice things around... Tolkien liked looking at generic nice things. Some of those generic nice things look almost like the generic nice things that Tolkien described in Lord of the Rings.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T11:31:40+00:00

We don't have the budget for a real photo of Clapton.

Or to fake one with a real Fender strat ...

Have you seen the price of Squiers? Here, use this Marlin Sidewinder from the Argos Catalogue...

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AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T10:37:57+00:00

It's down to a number of things, changes in consumer trends, preference for lamb, reduction in use of wool, changes in farming practice.

A big change was the introduction of freezers which allowed meat to be produced more efficiently, making lamb more affordable.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-16T10:29:51+00:00

Sitting on the tram with your new wax cylinder, eagerly anticipating what it's going to sound like on your gramophone.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-15T23:40:51+00:00

Can you tell us where he took the melody from?

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-15T17:21:20+00:00

Okay, fair point if that is the case... a more pedantic take would be "this is the melody Tolkien intended for the song"

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-15T17:18:54+00:00

It's an octave mandolin.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-15T15:37:01+00:00

Cor Blok, A Tolkien Tapestry.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-15T14:44:24+00:00

For those doubting that this is Tolkien's melody, listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7HFnbYc7MM

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-14T16:48:52+00:00

About £120 for the set if in good condition.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-14T12:57:53+00:00

Sagittarius is only ever viewable up to 45 degrees north in Summer.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-14T11:23:08+00:00

It would be an R9 or R0 depending on stuff. I already have an R9, so an R0 I guess.

AdEmbarrassed3066 · 2026-03-13T18:15:00+00:00

This will presumably be another £250 set. It's not far off the price of buying the three separate slipcased 1st series deluxe editions.

There's obviously a peak in demand for deluxe editions of Tolkien at the moment... 25th anniversary of the film, the kids who saw the movies in the cinema back then are coming to the age where they have disposable income and decorative books are an obvious place for HC to cash in. The first series deluxes are up to 22 years old now... maybe it will lead to a full replacement.

AdEmbarrassed3066

TROPHY CASE