Grymm

Boiling cider? But but but but that gets rid of the alcohol! Can't y'just steep the thingies rather than boiling them in lovely zider....fancy me a pint or two now mmmmmm Addlestones, perfect after a warm cloudless day. starts at 6% abv but it's still working so can get to 10%+...think thats 12% to 20% in US terms

There is also a compound for browning metal...essentially giving it a controlled rusting then stopping the oxidization so you end up with an even brown.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha NO! Well, yes and no, yes to HCP and the kitchens but no to the part of 'MM's team', see PM.

Well done Ed, I'd come see but as bloody usual I'll be slaving away over roast beef in the Palace again!

Units are far too organised for us on here, we’re more of an anarco-sydicalist commune. We take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week……but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting…

Sheela-Na-Gig and I fancy mounting a cannon to fire through the figureheads...erm orafice. If you don't know what I mean do an image search for the name

Legend goes that they tried to ban it but El Papa asked to try some before he could decide and it was sooooooooooooooooo good he refused, mind you same legend is told about coffee in lent. Sides it's only Papists that have to do the lent thing, CofE/Anglicans it's purely voluntary after1538/9 when No8 gets rid of all lenten strictures.

Crows Nest, telescopes are big, delicatr, expensive and not very useful 'til Mr Dolland sorts out the chromatic aberration problems in the 1750's. Careening or copper bottoming?

Jahannes Cabal the Necromancer, got it from thr library yesterday on a whim, I liked the cover, and I've not been able to put it down =o)

The idea that captains could perform marriages onboard was invented as a plot device for a novel so you'd be continuing a noble tradition =o)

Looks like a variant of bowls but using a post rather n a jack, closest to the post gets the points. I've seen a muddyevil version were they are bowling at a feather stuck in the ground.

Don't forget lent don't count on Sundays =o)

But is at it's best splatted over a full English of back bacon, sausage, black pudding, fried egg, baked beans, 'shrooms, grilled tomatos and a fried slice or spread on toast and topped with grilled cheese or with a Cornish Pasty or mixed with mushy peas to go with y'fish n chips Paella is a fantastic one pot dish (Anything that saves on washing up is good) cook it and serve it in the same dish and if you jiggle the meat/fish/chicken/chorizo/shellfish around to even it up you can all pitch in and eat from the communal pot too. Like Cassoulet in France every regeion of Spain have their own paella variant. The family fav is chorizo, chicken and prawns with red & yellow peppers, peas small diced carrot and half veg half chicken stock with a good pinch of saffron (Dry it, grind it to powder and mix with your stock to make it go further and more evenly) finished with a scattering of smoked paprika. But if it's me and my eldest boy it's a seafood frenzy with mussels, smoked fish, monkfish, oysters and crevettes....+ lobster or crayfish if I can get it cheap enough. Luckily the American Signal Cray has been declared a pest in UK rivers so we get they wee buggers for free =o)

I eat my peas with honey I've done it all my life It makes the peas taste funny But it keeps them on the knife The broad ended knives are designed to be eaten from but remember to eat off the blunt side =o)

Possible, the pistol was originally fitted with a snaphaunce lock, guns using that lock start around 1550 and mostly die out by the early 1700s so Woopert wood've had access. I've see an all iron axe matchlock in t'Doges Palace museum dated to the mid 17thC and Tower Armouries have some of Henry VIII's bang toys like a 3 barrelled gun/gurt big f*%k off spikey mace combo

'S missing it's lock mech but ar y'roit 'er do look odd. You'd have to reprime between each shot and hope that there was no 'flash over' to the other chambers when you did fire It's in the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, fantastic and odd wee place tucked behind and accessed via the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. It's arranged by typology not chronology so all the firemaking devices are one cabinet all the opium/hash pipes and betel nut tools are in another, there's all the archers braces in one yddayaddayadda The upper gallery is the weapons and armour section with some fantasticly freaky stuff like macrame armour with puffer fish helmets there's a small but facinating firearms section......worth a visit if you're in Oxford and can tear y'self away from the multitude of bookshops and pubs =o)

How about a 1709 8shot pistol?

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/homepage Handy place to search for images I hit advanced search and banged 17** (* is a wildcard) and got This lot

Careful with some of those links to other Russian sites, I got attacked but my virus software stamped on it before it did any damage.

The epaulette as we would know it today, I think, is introduced mid to late 18thC, earlier officery types wore, as a rank marking, a shoulder knot of silk ribbons or coloured/metallic cords often tipped with an aiglet There are some but they are small on here http://warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com/search/label/Uniform%20Plates Thought I'd hit the motherload with these http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/zoekresultaten/pagina/1/Tekening/%28Tekening%29%20AND%20%28isPartOf%20any%20%22KONB06%22%20%29 but the Dutch Ensigns don't wear knots.....bugger! It could be knotted or stitched round a button sewn onto the shoulder, might be worth finding a War of Spanish Succession group, http://www.guerradesuccessio.cat/00inici.html This chap looks like he has a button near the neck and a single cord running down to the knot which could be attached to another button or sewn to the shoulder/arm seam. Above image from this site http://www.peter.petrobrigada.ru/index_e.htm Their links page might be worth checking out

Okay mini rant here and it's not directed at you chap BUT this film offends me on sooooooo many levels, as a historian and as someone that cares about my Scots heritage are just for starters Close I could put up with, artistic licence I understand but FFS blue painted loons in skirts and hero harness? The blue paint is pure fantasy, the kilts are nigh on 300odd yrs out ( Think of PotC then give them uzis, combat trousers and Elizabethan ruffs and you'd still be closer to period the the pile of excrement that is brayfart) the sharpened tree trunks are utter bollocks and if you are going write a story that ignores the history why bother with........... ..GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ...and breathe....never mind. Biggest prob that people like me who are involved in education and the heritage industry have with bum-gravy like this is yet more hollywood crap to try and get out of peoples heads when trying to do pukka history presentations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cjeOKxnVB8 Calm now, I've had an effigy of gibson in his Conan.....sorry Wallace kit burnt =o) to appease the Gods =o)

Too many to mention but some of the above plus (and apologies for duplicates) Not a film but Black Adder the Third series =o) PMSL Plunkett and McClain...Buggers with style daaaaaaaaaaarling! Dangerous Liasons Tom Jones (Albert Finney 1963ish) The Libertine. Brotherhood of the Wolf My Left Moccasin...sorry, that should read Last of the Mohicans Rob Roy Amadeus Pefume The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Yellowbeard A Cock and Bull Story (a film about a film of Tristram Shandy) Polanski's 'The Pyrates' Wicked Lady Cutthroat Island Love the look of Barry Lydon but I've never managed to stay awake all the way through.......... and I do think Brayfart is a great big steaming pile of pooh and is an offense to all things Scottish. Gibson, what a twat!

Are you implying that the young lady needs her bottom scraping? 'Ow do Miss =o)

Oh has anyone tried Kass' shop for lace? http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/notions.php?c=188&w=24&r=Y

Fantastic book on 18thC whitework, bit pricey at the moment though. See if your library can get it for you and photocopy the Islamic fundamentalist (shi-ite) out of it. Embroidered with White: The 18th Century Fashion for Dresden Lace and Other Whiteworked Accessories Heather Toomer (A search for Ms Toomer should also turn up her other books on antique lace, Antique Lace: Identifying Types and Techniques and European Laces: An Introduction, you could pester your library for these too =o) ISBN-10: 0954273028 ISBN-13: 9780954273026 Korisios, that 18th Century Embroidery Techniques book is on it's way to you as we speak..type aaaah you get the idea.