passim in passing

Just a quick little snippet here to post a link to the Books Interview i gave to Times Higher. Thinking a lot about my reading habits as summer approaches (and interminable drives/flights to field and beyond), thought I'd leave this here as a reminder that there is more to the world than just academic writing... :)

oh HELLO. Welcome to whatever time zone this is (and you will have to work it out on your own because I sure as heck don't know). Finally back from what feels like a very epic bi-coastal tour of the States. Essentially, I seem to plan my travel the same way I bowl -- I start off in the middle, then kinda scatter to either side, totally missing the pins in the middle. All apologies to the pins in the middle!  But had a great time up and down the west coast, guerrilla signing books in independent bookstores, talking, driving, more talking, flying, again, with the talking... you get the idea. One of the major amusements was getting the chance to do interviews while I sounded more or less American again (thanks Mom for the accent coaching). I was totally thrilled to be interviewed in Science Magazine's Books podcast, which you can find here . I also got to do a fun, more long-form chat with Rachelle Saunders from Science for the People , which may be the most America...

Not so long ago, I got a backstage tour of the magical world of google... meatspace google. It is arguably much prettier than real google, which doesn't have a large section of a London routemaster stuck awkwardly in a corridor. AFAIK. Anyhow, it was very fun exploring what a global corporate empire might look like if it was allowed to wear whatever it wanted to school everyday (hint: there would be a Wall of Dogs). I also explored power posing, which was less successful. But the whole point was, of course, to talk to interesting people about interesting things, to which end I brought along an epic powerpoint and pretty much went through an entire undergrad course. In an hour. Available now, if you wish to hear and see what that sounds like. Bonus if you make it through to the end, when i get asked my favorite (off camera) / least favorite (on camera) question about whether I think civilisation is going the way of the buffalo.

Now out! I had such a terrific time recording this (thanks Max! thanks Ian!).  According to Captain Podcast Max S, our long and discursive sound check (I think we got through most of the neolithic) was perhaps the most informative yet recorded, a badge of honour I am sure. Though presumably not actually included on the recording... https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2017/mar/28/built-on-bones-the-history-of-humans-in-the-city-science-weekly-podcast You can also listen along on any of the usual suspects: Itunes , Soundcloud , etc I will also just mention that it was very surreal, the  experience of being totally isolated from outside media (ironically, because we were recording our own) while events in the outside world took a dramatic turn. I went into the studio to record the podcast  right as news started to filter through that 'something' had happened in Westminster; it wasn't until after the recording we realised that people had been killed so horribly. I...

So, a little while back I had a terrific time writing t his piece for History Today . I was given pretty free reign to charge around talking my second favourite subject (after teeth) -- TrowelBlazers . We had our big Raising Horizons launch coming up and we were all scrabbling away to bring the sheer awesomeness of Women Who Dig to a wider audience. However, in the excitement of telling the story about Hilda Petrie and her climb up Khufu and the time Margaret Murray won WWI (she put a hex on the Kaiser, you know), I got a bit distracted. Margaret Murray TrowelToon by Gabe Moshenska As a very kind reader of History Today pointed out, I'd gotten the details of the redoubtable Amelia Edwards's companion on her historic, and life-changing, trip down the Nile wrong. Amelia was the force behind Egyptology in the UK, cheerleading dashing youngsters like Flinders Petrie (just try imagining him without the beard. No, right?) and more critically, setting up the Egypt Exploration S...

As part of the long process of thinking about the book (especially now that people are reading it, and asking awkward questions like 'wait how do the genetics of pig domestication work again?') I've been doing some additional writing. This was a longer piece for Guardian Cities that I really enjoyed thinking about; I've now decided Annie Besant is one of my personal heroes. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/22/tale-four-skulls-what-can-bones-teach-about-cities She's been arrested* for everything you ought to be arrested for as a Victorian lady - feminism, reproductive rights, atheism, and anti-colonialism.  Besant was a rather prolific writer who turned her talent into a crusaders' sword -- she wrote passionately about injustice, and had a special feeling for those women who felt the hand of opprobrious society most heavily. In 1888, she wrote about a kind of 'white slavery' in London's East End , starting off a torrent of accusatio...

Properly pleased to see such a stellar review in that rather august instrument, The Times (register for free access), for Built on Bones! Tom Whipple has masterfully identified key draws of the book, primarily chattiness and Alan Rickman references.