If you simply can’t bear the idea of waiting a whole week until National Geographic airs its Voynich half-episode of “Ancient X-Files” in the UK, then you now have the option of watching the French dubbed version (courtesy of DailyMotion). Fast forward the time-slider to 22:00 to see a whole load of Venetian & Milanese Averlino Voynich theory stuff, including Francesco da Mosto doing his delightful historian thing. Love that guy.
I should perhaps also add that if you can’t find the UK airing of the same episode in your various TV channel guides, it may be (a) because it’s listed under “Sodom and Gomorrah” (which occupies the first half of the show), and (b) because the half with me in is listed as focusing on the “Voyinch Manuscript” *sigh*. Perhaps I spent last week at the Livva Mongradone in Crasfati, too, and never realised it. Oh well!
PS: my behind-the-scenes page is here, if you somehow managed to miss that.
Sorry Nick – that was my cousin, a longdistance typist for thetv columns. I’ll have a wrod with him.
You walked more than you were allowed to talk, maybe on your next show – an hour-long doco? Also, next time pls have a glassblower replicate one of the more complex containers. It would make great viewing, and you could add a commentary.
One question: were those hospital pipes lead?
from now on, dyslexia is to be known as tcs – transposition cipher syndrome.
Wonder if it’s on the NHS?
Diane: they certainly filmed enough for an hour’s documentary. 🙂 And they also (at my suggestion) got some quotes from some glassblowers for replicating the glassware apparently depicted in the VMs, but it should be no surprise that the programme budget wouldn’t run to actually commissioning one! 😉
Diane: the pipes embedded in the walls were just out of reach, but did look exactly like terracotta, not lead.
Nick, I’m so sorry that NatGeoChannel has deteriorated so badly in its credibility ratings (here in the US, anyway). I have been a reader of National Geographic Magazines since I was a small child of 4 years old. I was tickled pink to see most of their offerings of Egypt’s pyramid shaft explorations and the dna studies/scans of Tutankhamen and his relatives. Fascinating!
BUT:
The Shroud: Has, in recent times (last 10 years) been identified as a relic of the torture and burning of the last leader of the Templar knights. Nevermind what the “expert” hired by the Vatican had to say about the Shroud. Definitely disregard the offerings of Bernie Scwartz on his website “Shroud.com”. Nonsense!
DO read:
“Second Messiah” by Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight — and especially their description of the metabolic stress that occurs with torture victims. This appears in their appendix of their book.
I too, would like to see Neapolitan glassblowing (in action) — partly to see if the techniques are similar in Naples and Venice. Also to see if those “apothecary jars” may have been segmented, and meant to hold a certain measured amount of a substance in one segment and a measured amount of liquid in the other segment. Twist the two segments together and shake ’em!
Daquiri anyone?
Regardless of their use, they are pictured as beautiful!
%^
re pipes: the ones which appeared in the documentary appeared to be crushed, and then welded. Odd if they’re terracotta. Oh well.
This note, Nick, is for your readers:
An English language version of the Nat.Geo documentary is now available on YouTube.