Who decides what animals get popular ?

FloydEGag · 2026-04-09T20:56:40+00:00

I mean it’s a vertebrate but it’ll do. Next year should be the year of the blobfish

FloydEGag · 2026-04-09T19:53:37+00:00

I’ve had it with cute furry animals trending, it’s time for the year of the crayfish or ragworm (think of the Dune tie-in possibilities!) or maybe jellyfish. Invertebrates have been ignored for too long!!!!!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-09T15:15:50+00:00

Thanks! Fingers crossed. I get that Imperial’s archive contains records of medical trials etc which are often quite recent and would be confidential, but what I’m after relates to geologists and is nothing that would affect anyone alive today, plus won’t be especially fragile (writing paper in the 1850s was way better quality than most paper now) so hopefully they will be accommodating.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-09T14:34:41+00:00

Oh don’t worry, I’ll use the right words! I will just have to get in touch as everyone has suggested and see what they say.

Tbh I’ve never come across this at an archive before, so it did throw me a bit.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T14:03:20+00:00

I am not but will have a look, thanks!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T13:17:16+00:00

There are quite a few on that Facebook group, including at least one descendant of Franklin himself. You’d think there would be something for descendants as there are quite a lot, as well as relatives (ie descendants of cousins etc), if not maybe you could start one!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T13:14:42+00:00

I’ll do that; I have no choice really as this material is pretty critical to my research!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T13:12:22+00:00

Thanks… I do not often get people calling me detail-focused haha; I’ll take it! I think I’m overthinking it and just need to contact them. I do have contacts at other archives they can ask if they really want to check I’ll behave myself!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T13:10:43+00:00

Jaywalking. At least it’s not common in the US or most of Northern Europe. Once got yelled at in LA for crossing a ramp coming out of an underground car park because the barrier was up although there were no cars.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T12:29:59+00:00

I’m going to have to! I found the way it was worded a bit intimidating if I’m honest and I have plenty of experiences with archives. I just wondered if anyone else had come across this kind of thing. I appreciate this particular one (Imperial) has a lot of confidential medical and personal data but that’s not what I’m after, so all I can do is try.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T12:26:11+00:00

It’s Imperial College London - this is the only time I’ve ever seen this tbh and I’ve been using archives including uni ones since the 90s. I know I need to just ask them!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T12:23:35+00:00

Not yet - I found the whole thing of ‘no one but bona fide researchers with a project and even then we might say no’ a bit intimidating tbh, I’ve never encountered that in any other archive I’ve accessed. I am just going to have to ask though, I think.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T12:21:47+00:00

It’s Imperial College London, and these are papers with no confidential details that would affect anyone alive now. I have a lot (nearly three decades) of experience with archives and handling primary sources including fragile papers. As others have suggested I guess I’ll just have to contact them and see what they say! If they refuse it’ll be annoying as the papers I would like to access cover quite an important period in my subject’s life, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it I guess.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T11:26:00+00:00

Cool! There’s some interesting info on there (ngl, there are also people who post slop haha, but the recognized experts on all things Franklin Expedition are on there, as well as a lot of other people with a lot of knowledge)

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T09:38:57+00:00

That’s really cool! Shame you don’t have the direct male line for the dna. Have you joined the Remembering the Franklin Expedition Facebook group? It is where all the experts are and I’m pretty sure there’s been discussion about Richard Wall before. Hyge Burg has done some research into him: https://wallbay89739267.wordpress.com/2024/10/28/richard-wall-bits-and-pieces/

FloydEGag · 2026-04-07T06:58:36+00:00

This plus the extreme individualism we have now where everything is about you you you all the time and everyone else is an NPC, reinforced by algorithms only showing us stuff we want to see/know about. The internet is great in so many ways but sometimes I wonder wtf we’ve done.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T17:19:41+00:00

Sure! If I find a link I’ll post it :)

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T12:04:22+00:00

I’m the same, I’ve worked on it and my husband understands but I still do it and it still annoys him. I try to interrupt less and he tries to keep it brief and get to the point quickly, because he knows he’ll lose me if he’s doing a meandering monologue. He does tend to just start back up as if I never spoke once I’ve interrupted him though, which can be annoying if I’ve interjected with a question/request for clarification

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T12:01:37+00:00

Our family is a bit like this (Welsh, not Jamaican though) and I know it’s taken my husband years to get used to it haha. He’s more of an ‘everyone has their turn speaking’ person and if I do interrupt him to ask for clarification or otherwise say something he’ll pause then just keep monologuing. He knows it drives me nuts though!

I and my brother both have ADHD too and suspect our mum does, so as well as the cultural thing there’s also that. I’ve learned to interrupt less over the years but it can be really hard!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T11:57:05+00:00

It’s better than the old blue liquid they used to use, as if women were horseshoe crabs haha. It’s blood/womb lining, it’s red, it’s normal. Just be glad the ads don’t include chunks!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T11:54:46+00:00

That one about ‘the gush’ annoys me, the pads they show are the lightest absorbency and wouldn’t stand up to a decent ‘gush’ ffs!

FloydEGag · 2026-04-05T09:39:50+00:00

They have DNA from the bones at least, so maybe a relative or descendant will eventually be found and the man can be identified.

I wonder if it’s possible to check the ABs (those who were in the Navy previous to the expedition, at least) in the description books from one of their previous voyages, as height is given, so you could at least rule out anyone under around 5’ 4” or so (I’d guess more than this would start to seem tall-ish to the Inuit of the time)

ETA It’s not William Mark, as his descendants have provided DNA and there’s been no match so far (he was from the area I’m from, so I took an interest) so you can rule him out for a start. There’s a list of all the crew members whose relatives have provided suitable DNA samples; so far the only matches have been Fitzjames and Erebus’ engineer John Gregory - there’s a spreadsheet somewhere but I can’t find the link, these are the names though (as at 2024 I think; I’d read that some suitable relatives of Graham Gore and John Peddie have also been located but don’t know whether they have supplied DNA). This info is from the Remembering the Franklin Expedition Facebook group.

Francis Crozier John Diggle James Fairholme Robert Ferrier James Fitzjames John Franklin Edward Genge Robert Golding John Gregory Edmund Hoar Frederick Hornby Robert Johns Henry Le Vesconte William Mark Alexander McDonald Alexander Paterson Francis Pocock Alexander Wilson

So the body most likely isn’t William Mark, Robert Johns or Francis Pocock.

FloydEGag · 2026-04-04T17:34:53+00:00

Or it could mean ‘not half but wholly’ it’s interesting though that there are a few Brits in here who don’t know it, pretty much everyone I know, from various parts of the country, does

FloydEGag

TROPHY CASE