Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

PS if anyone wants a picture of a tyre, email me, my van's just outside.

I'm not a tyre obsessive. Honest.

Yes, I am ripping into image/map that heads the latest update because it is totally relevant to what follows in that update; the fact that the text on the image/map cannot be read is simply gross incompetence on the part of whoever is responsible for these updates. Please note my use of words here whoever is responsible. If the person who posted the image/map is some exhausted archaeologist or engineer after a long day onsite he has my greatest sympathy; I do not understand however why that person is doing that work when it is patently obvious that someone with computer skills at English Heritage should be collating the information and putting it on their website promptly and professionally; that is not happening (re: also their Ask the Experts link) and until it does I make no apology for calling those responsible at English Heritage fools (I should have called them incompetent fools - that would have been more accurate ;-)

Why all the bile? It's just a website.

Anyway the English Heritage site looks OK to me. Is there something wrong with your browser? Try re-installing.

Nope, the reports are the responsibility of those on the ground. Some of the archaeologists are tasked with dealing with the public-facing stuff when they're not in the tunnel or whatever. This is probably best, in terms of getting the best information. It's also the only way that on-site visitors can find anything out. Likewise, "Ask The Experts" needs to be done by the archs, as they are the experts! However, this does mean that there will be technical issues, but those are being sorted out. The guys at head office (or some other EH office somewhere - I don't know) are the ones who deal with the actual stuff of putting things onto the web site and handling the technical stuff related to that.

And they are the people at whom the criticism is directed!

As was stated, this is not the job of a worn-out digger at the end of the
day, but the job of a civil servant in an office who is turning out sub-standard material.

If they were done by civil servants, do you think they'd be any better? The archaeologists asked to do the updates because they wanted to make sure they had the information in them. What exactly is the problem you have with the reports, other than the jpeg compression level of the diagram? If you're unhappy with the amount of information in there, what do you think is missing? Bear in mind that they can't write about stuff that's not there. Do you think that a status report really worth more time than the approximate day per week that they're spending writing these?

Well they are kind of...empty? I appreciate that they are largely removing 1969 infill, which should be clean, and I don't need a picture to know what a tyre looks like after 40 years in the ground, but for such a mammoth project I would have expected more info. If the archaeologists insisted on compiling the reports themselves then time should have been properly set aside to enable them to produce something worthy of publishing. Again, no blame on the guys on the ground, but yer man in Whitehall [or wherever] would probably have a week to work on it, and the saving of his time should have been available at Silbury.

I suppose we're blessed with instant-fix Time Team, with assumptions being made on the spot, but to have what appear to be two ditches and read no comment on them is frustrating. Nobody expects a carbon date, but an educated guess would be nice. It doesn't have to be conclusive, "It's a hill on a henge", but it would be nice to know the thoughts of those on the ground, rather than a sterile weekly report.

The image? Well that speaks for itself.

Time is set aside for the archaeologists to work on them, to the extent that they're allowed to fit their other work around it, and can go and spend a few hours writing up notes, talking to the other archs and engineers, taking and assembling photos, preparing the report and so forth.