My Favourite Pictures of the Year

Time to pick out my favourite pictures of the year. This isn't just about the quality of the image, but of the significance and what it means to me.

Number 5 - East Mainland, Orkney. This has been my laptop background since June. I absolutely loved going to Orkney, such a quiet place and I met some interesting people!

Number 4 - A Self-Timed photo from Skalavik, Iceland when I was there in August. A picture of me in my natural environment; waterproofs covered in mud, spade in hand, out in the open. Over the horizon is the Denmark Strait and Greenland. Proof that I was carrying an extra pound or two then as well!

Number 3 - Iceland again, this time making sure I wasn't getting caught driving on the wrong side of the road again! Marker pen and masking tape to the inside of the 4x4!

Number 2 - A piece of burnt stone, around 2/5 of a mm in size, from the fishing site on the shores of Kinloch Hourn, Scotland. Proof that the occupants of this site were using it for an industrial purpose. This was a site I worked on in 2007 but done the labwork for early this year. 2008 was the year I finally got my head round micromorphology!
Number 1 - Murrayfield, 8th March 2008. I got a phonecall a few days before saying I got tickets for the Calcutta Cup, so off I went with Lindsey. I was hungover from the night before, but to go from the low of a hangover to the sheer joy of beating your oldest, fiercest rivals has to be one of the best feelings I've ever had. It took days to wipe the smile off my face!

Make a Boring Picture Interesting...

 

This image is a soil profile which has been branded Skalavik 1 (there are four Skalavik trenches in total but this is the deepest!). From the bottom, around 1.4 metres of material has accumulated. Near the bottom you may observe the tiniest of black flecks; these are charcoal which have been dated to around the 11th century AD. This means that around 900 years ago, someone was standing at this very spot burning birchwood for a fire at this very location, an isolated peninsula in northwest Iceland. I'd find it hugely strange if someone was going through my waste in 900 years time to see how I lived my life. The silver tins are Kubiena tins to allow for microscopic analysis of the soils. By looking at these I can tell if he was farming, fishing or doing anything else when he or she happened to be burning charcoal on that particular day. It may still be boring, but it's interesting to me! Welcome to the world of geoarchaeology.

A Favourite Picture

 

Today has been spent trying out new things on the internet, upgrading some programmes and installing new ones. Picasa, the image programme from Google is one of my favourites, so I thought I'd use the Blogger function to share this photo taken in Iceland in 2004 a little north of Husavik. It was taken using a bog-standard APS camera and the digitised negatives were on my laptop. I reckon it is one of the nicest views I've ever caught on camera, however if I find any more they'll get uploaded too.

How Is That Song Catchy?

I've actually realised that a considerable number of my favourite songs in my iTunes are remixes or samples of an original from time immemorial. It begs the question that if people are subconsciously familiar with a sing will they like it even more the next time around? A lot of these secondary releases tend to be from artists we never hear of again. Anyone ever heard of Modjo since they released the enormous summer 2000 hit 'Lady', a sample from 'Soup For One' a lesser-known effort from disco specialists Chic. Uniting Nations 'Out of Touch' takes from Hall and Oates track of the same name.

The ones below are a favourite pairing, released in 2005. The original is Shine a Little Love by the Electric Light Orchestra, a high tempo pop ditty but never as big as other ELO efforts such as Mr. Blue Sky and Don't Bring Me Down.



The dance remix is one of the better tunes from a cluster which were released in winter 2004/2005. Hitting the UK charts in February 2005 and peaking at number 6, Shine by Lovefreeks adds itself to the list asking where are they now? It wouldn't be a Saturday if this didn't pop its head up on MTV Dance before we all headed out!

You Have To See It To Believe It

I seen this advert a while back and have re-discovered it! It is the VisitScotland Perfect Day commercial, showing the beauty of the north-west of Scotland. It looks gorgeous on TV but a million times better in real life. Sandy beaches, open fires, peace, serenity and so much more, making me determined to experience some more of this when the summer arrives and the thesis is finished!



It is a well-made commercial, targeting the 25-40 professional city couple wanting a weekend away. Look for the little inclusions, such as the cinema in London at the opening showing Local Hero and Whisky Galore, two of the most recognisably Scottish films ever made. The song is the Fisherman's Blues by the Waterboys.

Tunes of the Year

As 2008 comes to a close, it's time to compile a list of the top tunes of this year. First up, MGMT - Kids. An anthem of the highest quality, its electro sound and funky bass are sublime



Next up is Freemasons - When You Touch Me featuring Katherine Ellis. Easily one of the best commercial dance records of the year and i'm still loving it months after release.



Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor. A steady play on a Sunday, a great follow-up to Over and Over.



Duffy - Mercy. If this song hadn't been so overplayed, then it would be an absolute classic. It reminds me of Scotland beating England at the rugby but I think this is due to them both taking place in the spring. Superb voice, great sound, very retro. The video is the American version.



Dizzee Rascal featuring Calvin Harris - Dance Wiv Me. A floor filler, now a tad overplayed, but it is a perfect mix of dance and grime. Summertime personified!



Some more videos will follow before the year is out!

Blood blood blood!

Tuesday 2nd December, 2008. 12.36pm. Crush Hall, Pathfoot, University of Stirling. This was the time and place I signed up to give blood for the very first time. Within the hour, the (just under a) pint was out, no pain involved and (so far) no side effects! I got to lie down for half an hour and read a journal on economic organisation in pre-modern Iceland!

Why hadn't I given blood before? I don't really know, but it may stem from the numerous injections I received as a youth from the dentist, massive needles into the gum, as uncomfortable as you can imagine. Incidentally, the crack and removal of perfectly healthy teeth didn't bother me. When I was working in Viewforth for Forth Valley GIS, I went to the mobile donation unit but only because I wanted a prolonged lunch break, but they were full. After seeing the leaflet yesterday, I decided there was nothing stopping me. I didn't need to travel far, i'm not really bothered about needles now and apparently the biscuit choice has moved from the 20th century digestives to shortbread, Tunnock's Teacakes and Special K bars.

I've done it, and i'll be going back to donate again in the future. Don't listen to the wifie on the advert saying "I'm talking to you", don't do it because the advert on the telly says so, do it because if I can donate blood, anyone can. Who knows, it might be you who gets operated on, or knows of a premature birth needing three teaspoonfuls.

Iceland, Commercial Fishing and Radiocarbon Dating

The results are back and now I should theoretically be able to get my research analysed and published. But before I divulge in sharing my results with the wider world, no doubt a practice which is frowned upon by the academic community, it's best to shape up the 'research question'. What am I looking for, what can I expect and what will it tell me.

Step One - Chronology. There's no real point in analysing soils and sediments as part of a stratigraphy in an interdisciplinary study if you cannot integrate them into a chronological framework. For this you need to pick the best dating technique, weighing up cost and accuracy.

The cheapest is tephrochronology, the analysis of volcanic ejecta. Each eruption is like a fingerprint, individual and unique in its composition and they can be cross-referenced with contemporary sources and laminated ice-cores. If you dig a hole and the layer of tephra is there, you theoretically have a date! Iceland, a volcanic island is perfect, however Vestfirdir (my study area) is not a volcanically active region, so that's out!

Next up is OSL Dating (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) and costs around £500 a pop. I'm not going to pretend I know the finer points of it, but I do understand quartz particles retain an age of the last time they were exposed to light. Iceland isn't abundant in quartz so that's that out!

The last one, and chosen method is radiocarbon dating. I was first aware of this technique when I visited the island of Ulva with my folks on holiday when it was used to date waste in a cave belonging to the parents of explorer David Livingstone. The cost is around £200 a pop, and it calculated the age based on the breakdown of carbon on the basis of its half life.

So what should I expect from my findings? Well i'm interested in how and when commercial fishing developed. Was it immediately after Landnam, the first settlement of Iceland or a few centuries after? Was this a natural evolution, from small scale to international export over hundreds of years, or were they exporting from a very early age implying that the technique was developed in Norway and transferred overseas. There should be little gap in the chronology between the original settled farm and the outlying specialist fishing station if this is true.

Findings are currently being analysed and i'll post again when the interpretations have been submitted to a journal!