The wrong end of the stick!

Hello readers, Ben here,

This weeks entry is slightly lacking I'm afraid. Its mostly my fault. You see I have been struggling the last couple of days with a henious flu that is most probably, a derivative of the black plague. Don't fear, I shall solider on. Fortunately, thanks to the poor state of English Pharmacy laws I was able to buy all of the drugs a man in my position could want from a seventeen year old at the supermarket. He assured me that I could take these tablets all week and that they would fix my flu.

As such, we only managed a day trip to Colchester. Colchester is about one hours train trip north east of London and is the oldest city in Britian. (Thanks to Pete from my school for recommending it to us!)

RACHAEL DISCOVERS EVIDENCE RELATING TO THE POOR STATE OF THE BRITISH EDUCATION SYSTEM.



The best thing to see in Colchester is of course the castle. As we entered the grounds somebody approached us to be in a short film, it was for the 'Alpha' course. For those of you who don't know what the 'Alpha' course is, its like a discussion based study for people who want to learn more about christianity. Anyway so we got filmed answering questions and they are going to show it in their church.

COLCHESTER CASTLE (See the film crew in the front)


Apparently my hair looked something like this during the filming so we may have been edited out of the final cut. They were smiling a lot during the filming.

BEN'S HAIR AND COLCHESTER CASTLE


The best thing was that you could do a tour and go under the castle. For those of you who dont know, most of the people who conquered Britian (we have learned) were flat out lazy and instead of picking a nice new place to bulid a building would just stick their one on top of the last guys one. In this case the Norman Castle was built out of an old roman temple, the walls of the castle are made from the old temple ruins, so when you go underneath you can see the Roman foundations. We also got to go to the top of the castle. Our friendly guide, 'Dick', showed us the medievil toilet (there is a theme developing here). He told us that these toilets were often drafty because they were just holes that went straight down to the moat. So to stop the draft they would use straw to fill the gap temporarily and then do their buisness. (There was no paper so sometimes moss was used to....well you know, and the moss was put down the toilet as well) Then they would use a stick to push the stuff down the hole. So we get the saying...The wrong end of the stick. Its now obvious which end you dont want.

BEN DOES NOT LET THE AGEIST SIGN "THESE PROPS ARE DESIGNED FOR CHILDREN" STOP HIM!


THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM


St Botolph's Priory (Norman church ruins)


St Botolph's Priory (WITH WEIRD WHITE SMUDGE. DODGEY LENSE OR IS IT A GHOST? OOOOOO!)


So ends the entry. We hope that you are all doing well. We miss everybody. Send us an email if you haven't already.

Love Ben and Rach

PS - I have a Q that needs an A. Q - "Why are ruins so much more charming and interesting than buildings that are still all together?" A - I await your response.