Channel 4: Tony Robinson Vs. The DaVinci Code!!!

even better than this picture of him?

http://www.unofficialtonyrobinsonwebsite.co.uk/images/oliver%20photo%202.jpg

Unfortunately, I think it'll hang too heavily on the DVC, which is only a romance fiction potboiler dressed up in HBHG. Hopefully they'll get some decent work done to dispel the rubbish about the giant complex under Rosslyn Chapel.

The best thing I ever saw on television, and never saw again was The Dirt Detective investigating the mysterious goings on at Rosslyn Chapel. But he disappeared as mysteriously as he arrived.

The Templar museum there is cool though.

anyway, from the preview i read about it, it seems like Tony Robinson spends 2 hours disproving every single one of those conspiracy theories..

Can't wait till the weekend, when I can watch it (hopes that the video machine works)

It's quite surprising how small the chapel itself is though, particularly when you see how much is crammed into it. There's hours and hours of looking at stone in there.

(Templars in Scotland, I take it you're aware of the Templars At Bannockburn stories)

Yes, yes, yes, I've read all the stories, it's one of the mainstays of the Freemasons/Templars Links conspiracy. But I thought it was just a conspiracty nonsense, and that all the Templar symbolism at Rosslyn Chapel actually dated from when the Templars were still perfectly legal.

I do want to look at all the stone, it sounds utterly rich in symbolism. I wonder if I could get to Scotland without having to be exposed to any relations.

But then again, the best conspiracy theories are the ones that *are* actually mixed with a grain of truth.

I thought it was GRATE!!! and became very excitable to the point where The Spy had to tell me to shut up and stop shouting at the television because I was dropping spoilers left and right.

OK, it was all obvious to me, and I would shout out "Yes, but what about the MEROVINGIANS..." or something ten minutes before they brought it up.

But still, I thought it was mostly entertaining, and quite factually complete. No stone left unturned, even if some things were addressed in a quite superficial way. The only thing I'm quite disappointed was that they brought up the "fact" that that Grail appeared for the first time in Chretien De Troyes (sp?) which is true, that's the first time that it appeared in literature - but left out that the original source of the Grail was actually in the same Welsh mythology that provided much of the rest of the padding for the Arthurian saga - that it was derived from a Celtic myth of a fabulous Cauldron Of Plenty or cornucopia.

Apart from that... FREEMASONS!!! TEMPLARS!!! CATHARS!!! SINCLAIRS!!!!! AND TONY ROBINSON BEGGING FOR TIME TEAM TO BE ALLOWED TO DIG UP ROSSLYN CHAPEL!!!

Tony: Please can we dig it up? I know a really good team...
Lord Sinclair: No, I don't think so. You'll come in here with backhoes and things.
Tony: No we don't. We never use a backhoe... oh wait, yes we do sometimes.

(OK, it wasn't like a Max Headroom sample, really. But it should have been.)

Margaret Starbird and yer man Baignet came out of it particularly badly, I thought.

However, yes, I was irritated by the preponderance of concentration on DVC, but of course that's the hook they used to get people to watch it, so I guess they had to.

Starbird came off like a daft bint, but what do you expect with a name like that?

"Of course the Kirkwall Scroll isn't what people claim it is. It's got the Arms Of The Grand Lodge Of Antients in the middle, for starters, and they weren't formed till 1751."

The main reason why the Rosslyn trust will never, ever allow anyone to do any digs in the chapel itself is that it will immediately expose the whole thing as rubbish. With endoscopes, you can always say "oh, well, we must have dug the hole in *just* the wrong place.

zappi - I'm sure there has been at least one documentary on that sort of thing. I might just be imagining it, though.

I mean, next week is the ENGLISH CIVIL WARS, Cavaliers vs. Roundheads: FITE!!! like they've been reading our threads on ILX about what we want to see programs about.

x-post, sorry I forgot the English term for "backhoe" but you know what I mean. And I agree. The mystery will always be better than any Time Team programme, no matter how good. Plus, Sinclair has heard the T-T song and knows that it's just about getting the Channel 4 staff a payrise.

Be prepared for disappointment at how little actual text there is.

ON THE WHAT?!?!? ON THE WHAT?!?!? Lips? Cheek? Ass? Toenails? What are we talking about here?

Heh, I said 'stairs'.

And Tony Robinson referencing his other show: a wink to the Time Team audience who he knew he would be carry with him into watching this. He could have gone further and mentioned Blackadder...

Tony to Lord Sinclair: "I have a cunning pla-an my Lord, we could excavate under the chapel..."
Lord Sinclair: "No, I don't think so"
Tony: "oh, why not? We've got a JCB and everything"
Lord Sinclair: "Because gouging great clumps of earth out from under an ancient chapel with a JCB is the stupidist idea since 'Stupid' Scotty McStupid entered the Sanest Man in Britain contest.

(Given that I've never watched Sesame Street, I probably wouldn't understand it anyway)

I dunno but i would love to hear it

Tony Robinson is the sort of child/viewer/everyman wandering about a world of Proper Archeologists and Experts (grown ups and monsters) asking the sort of questions that we would ask, if we were there.

I think I'd forgotten my badges but yes, I seem to recall some trouser rollage.

((If I have one of my trousers rolled up, it's usually because I've been bike riding! Maybe there's a secret bicyclist conspiracy going on...))

(((Do Bicyclists believe in Bicyclism?)))