Thursday, 4 February 2010

Doctor Who filming at Stonehenge


On Tuesday night, February 2, Wiltshire's ancient stone monument was taken over by a film crew.....filming season five of BBC 1's Doctor Who.

Exclusive leak....
Turns out that when the moon lies above the stone circle and the sun is on the opposite side of the earth, the stone circle acts as a gateway to a parallel time and place. Standing in the centre of the circle can allow one to be at one with the entire universe but unfortunately induces runaway ageing and exposure to other more evil personalities bent upon conquest. Dr Who finds himself imprisoned within the stone circle of an advanced extra-galactic civilisation and is held as a hostage until dastardly demands are met. The clock is running and the Doctor is rapidly ageing towards infancy. A twist in the tale is the entity that is allowed into the modern Human world when the stone circle is activated. Sadly, the choices are harsh.....either allow the proposed McDonalds drive-through planned for the Avenue, the bowling alley, the souvenir shop and the vast visitor facilities or, the Doctor will be wearing nappies for the remainder of this series and the evil personality (a hybrid mutation of David Icke and Schliemann) will win executive control of English Heritage.

Doctor Who at Stonehenge
Despite it being a closed set...
Local fans, braved the rain hoping to catch a glimpse of the action: "I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was five, that's 35 years now, and this has been the first chance I've had to see it being filmed."


...plus returning professor River Song (Alex Kingston) have all been spotted on set - along with a brazier or two - the rumour is that the latest episodes including The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks will all be set 'some time in the past'.


With early filming reports claiming that the Doctor aka Matt Smith along with his sexy assistant Amy Pond played by Karen Gillan...

Monday, 1 February 2010

How a prehistoric sat nav stopped our ancestors getting lost in Britain


Ancient man had his own form of 'sat nav' that helped him find his way across Britain, according to new research.

The sophisticated geometric system was based on a stone circle markers.

Our ancestors were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments.

These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount.

Researcher Tom Brooks analysed 1,500 prehistoric monuments, including Stonehenge and Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, and found them all to be on a grid of isosceles triangles - those with two sides of equal length - each pointing to the next site.

He believes this proves there were keen mathematicians among the ancient Britons 5,000-6,000 years ago, at least two millennia before the Greeks who were supposed to have discovered geometry.
Many monuments are 250 miles or more away but GPS co-ordinates now show all are accurate to within 100 metres and provided a simple map for ancient Britons to follow.

Incredibly, the triangles still exist today as many medieval churches, abbeys and cathedrals were constructed on top of the original stone circle markers.

Historian and writer Tom Brooks, from Honiton, Devon, believes prehistoric men were 'highly intelligent surveyors and planners.'
He said: 'It is known that many, if not all, early churches, abbeys and cathedrals were constructed on ancient sites and this diagram illustrates that point.

'This ancient form of geometry permits the production of various patterns across our landscape linking prehistoric settlements and waymarks.

'Such is the mathematical precision that it is inconceivable that this work could have been carried out by the primitive indigenous culture we have always associated with such structures.

'Such patterns could only have been the work of highly intelligent surveyors and planners which throws into question all previous claims as to the origin of mathematics.

'All this suggests a culture existing in these islands in the past quite outside our expectation and experience today.'


Mr Brooks analysed 1,500 sites stretching from Norfolk to north Wales. These included standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps.

Each was built within eyeshot of the next. Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.

He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles 'triangles'.

Each triangle has two sides of the same length and 'point' to the next settlement.
Thus, anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.

Mr Brooks believes many of the Stone Age sites were created 5,000 years ago by an expanding population recovering from the trauma of the Ice Age.

Lower ground and valleys would have been reduced to bog and marshes, and people would have naturally sought higher ground to settle.

He said: 'The modern-day diagram links 13 churches within four counties of south-west England, ranges across 60 miles, and is a remarkably accurate arrangement of isosceles triangles projecting to varying compass points.

'The medieval system reaches from Derbyshire to Cambridgeshire, Sussex, Hampshire, Somerset and Wales, using only isosceles triangles accurate to within 100m over distances up to 250 miles.'
'Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks' is now on sale priced £13.90.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1240746/Prehistoric-sat-nav-set-ancestors-Britain.html#ixzz0eHHBmsJa

Thursday, 28 January 2010

Avebury and Stonehenge go live on Google

WOW 360-degree views of Stonehenge - click here

Avebury and Stonehenge can be explored with the click of a mouse from today as the National Trust's most famous sites have been added to Google's Street View mapping.

Over 20 historic locations across the UK - including castles, landscapes and country houses - have been scanned using a panoramic camera, bolted to the back of a tricycle, and added to Google's online mapping service.

Users can now take a 360-degree, ground-level tour of sites such as Corfe Castle in Dorset, Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, Lindisfarne Castle in Northumberland, and Plas Newydd in Wales.

Austen fans with a romantic sensibility can even take a virtual turn around Lyme Park in Cheshire - made famous by Colin Firth's emergence from its lake as Mr Darcy in the BBC's adaptation of Pride And Prejudice.

Google's Street View cyclists pedalled over 125 miles on the 18-stone trike, following marked routes around the National Trust sites to capture them from every angle.

Ed Parsons, technologist at Google, said: "We were delighted to be able to open up some of the UK's most famous landmarks to the rest of the world via the web."

However, he does not believe the online experience will discourage tourists from visiting the sites in person.

"It's a fun way to preview what to see and do on a day out," he said.

"Or whet your appetite for where to go next."

Google will continue to collect images from other National Trust sites throughout 2010, including UNESCO World Heritage Site the Giant's Causeway, in County Antrim.