Today was work interspersed with liberal amounts of tea, cookies, and naps. Naps are a wonderful thing (and cats are very helpful with napping, always giving a perfect example of how it's done).

Who, me? As if I'd ever take an extra nap. Ever.

With the US release of The Middle Ages Unlocked coming up, Gillian and I will do another blog tour, so the past days have included writing for this. The first posts are already sent off to their hosts. We got a few more interviews this time around, which is lovely - we really did enjoy answering the questions! Watch this space for the tour announcements.

I also stumbled across a website called biblehub when writing one of my posts - you might be interested about what the Bible has to say about spinning, too. I wouldn't necessarily believe all the things the Standard Bible Encyclopaedia has to say, though!

Meanwhile, as a remainder of our last blog tour and to get you into the mood for the next one, here's a post about medieval textiles at the History Vault.

If you read German, here's a highly amusing post about the replacement for a lost knife. (If you don't read German, the piccies are still nice to look at, in case you enjoy looking at medieval knife reconstructions.)

Time for a few links for your reading delectation!

Maney's  Journal of the Month is Costume, the journal of the Costume Society. Which means they are offering 50 articles for free access until the end of this month. Most (if not all of them) are post-medieval and modern in focus.

Not enough reading? Not early enough? How about some Egyptian stuff? A 2010 conference at the Egypt centre had quite a few textile-related topics. The conference papers have now been published in book form, and there's also a streaming archive on this website so you can download the individual presentations in podcast form.

Not medieval enough? Go over to historyextra, where Gillian and I co-wrote an article about 7 weird and wonderful medieval facts in celebration of the Beast's publication.

You have surely been waiting for the exciting things to announce that I hinted at a bit ago... and I can finally reveal the news!

Do you remember that I posted about the blogtour we were planning a while ago, to celebrate (and promote) "The Middle Ages Unlocked"? Well, as things you plan tend to, it has shifted from the traditional blog tour we had envisioned. While there's still a blog or two in our list (such as Elizabeth Chadwick's blog), most of our pieces will appear on sites that are not typical blogs, or in some cases not blogs at all.

I'm very, very excited about this, and finally it's time to share.

Living the History: Guest post "Reconstructing medieval garments"

Gillian has also posted three posts on The History Girls, related to The Middle Ages Unlocked:

The History Girls: The Problem with Medieval Medicine
Historical Sources for Historical Fiction
On History and Medieval Cosmetics 

We're also having a series (a whole series, wheeee!) of six posts on medievalists.net:


In the near future, we'll also have some more posts to tell you about, also in exciting places... so stay tuned!

There've been questions about the radio interview that Gillian and I will be doing on Friday. (Yay radio interview!) In case you missed the first announcement, here it is again:

...totally excited about being on a radio show on Friday, together with Gillian. We'll be interviewed about our book "The Middle Ages Unlocked", and the really cool thing? It's a radio station that is also sending via the internet. It's the afternoon show in Talk Radio Europe, and we'll be on air this Friday, 10 July, somewhere between 14:15 and 15:00.

Tune in if you'd like to hear us talk about the book - there might be a fun fact or two for you to hear about...

 

And now for the questions.

What's that in Greenwich time? 

Ah, yes, the joy of time zone differences.
Here's a little table of the times we'll be on:

UTC/GMT (Time Zone)    Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 12:15 UTC 

Nuremberg (Germany)    Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 14:15 UTC+2 hrs  
Sydney (Australia, NSW)Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 22:15 UTC+10 hrs 
London (England)       Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 13:15 UTC+1 hr

Malaga (Spain)         Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 14:15 UTC+2 hrs 
Los Angeles (U.S.A.)   Friday, 10. Juli 2015, 05:15 UTC-7 hrs  

Gillian will be in Sydney, I will be in Erlangen, the radio station is based in Malaga, Spain, and our host is, if I got it correct, British. So we'll be a very international bit of the show!

Will the interview be in English?


Although I would really like to hear Gillian attempt to speak German one day, and the station is based in Spain - yes, it will be in English. You'll get to hear my slightly weird accent, and Gillian has promised to practise British English in the hours before the interview so she's not too Australian-sounding.

Will it be downloadable if we can't hear it live? 

Yes, it will! Talk Radio Europe offers all their original shows to listen to again for seven days after the shows ran. It's their "Listen On Demand" offer.

So. Tune in, or download later - and we hope you'll enjoy our radio interview!

Things I did today: Take a walk. Restore some friends' website from a hacker attack (thankfully, that was quite easy). Scratch the mosquito bite of doom on my left calf. Cuddle the cat. Write emails. And...

... be totally excited about being on a radio show on Friday, together with Gillian. We'll be interviewed about our book "The Middle Ages Unlocked", and the really cool thing? It's a radio station that is also sending via the internet. It's the afternoon show in Talk Radio Europe, and we'll be on air this Friday, 10 July, somewhere between 14:15 and 15:00.

Tune in if you'd like to hear us talk about the book - there might be a fun fact or two for you to hear about...

First and foremost - our first Beast Blogtour piece is out! It is posted on the new blog at the Amberley Publishing website, where Gillian and I talk about how we got involved with studying the Middle Ages.

Then there's several Calls for Papers out:

The EXAR conference (experimental archaeology) at the Saalburg, October 1-4. (CfP is running until 15. July; please note that while it may look bi-lingual, to my knowledge these last years the conference was mostly German papers, posters, and talks, and I would not recommend going there unless you have some German language skills. If you understand German, though - I've had some absolutely lovely times at EXAR conferences!)

If you prefer warm Spain to cool Germany, there's the international meeting Technical Knowledge in Europe, September 17-19 2015.
It will review the key historiographical subjects regarding artistic and industrial technology in the Late Middle Ages and the first century of the Modern Period. One of the meeting’s core targets is to highlight the variety of methods with which the issue can be approached, from the study of the written record to archaeological investigation; and from the examination of technical recipes to the scientific analysis of works of art and archaeological materials. Find more information at their website. CfP is open until June 30.

Not a conference, also German, but still maybe interesting: Nobilitas has resurrected their "Akademie" - a weekend of papers, presentations and discussion for Living History people, taking place November 6-8. You can find out more about it on their website.


Some archaeology now, maybe? There's been a find of a viking-age grave with blacksmithing tools (German article here, unfortunately without links.)

Or some book-shopping? I have just learned this morning about http://www.eurobuch.com/,  a site to search for books (and compare book prices).