A warm greeting to TT supporters in the UK from a fellow enthusiast Down Under. Good news: it has taken me 3 years of lobbying the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to finally see it pick up the series from C4I and broadcast it nationally. This happened for the first time just over a week ago. It now seems surreal to finally be able to sit down at home and enjoy the series, whereas previously I could only rely on the website. Our local archaeology community were well-aware of the popularity for archaeology and history TT has generated in the UK, and were very happy with its broadcast commencing here.
"Why should Australians give their attention to this program and what relevance does it have to them?", I mused recently. Well, apart from it's own merits of presentation and structure, many Australians - ranging from recent immigrants to those dating back to colonisation - have their heritage planted firmly in the UK. There IS a connection and that's what excites me and keeps my motivation high. I'd be interested if Steve is able to guage any hits for the site from .au domains, as a result of the broadcast commencing here.
Take care and looking forward to reading more posts from all of you who are wonderfully "close to the action".
G'day Mikey! Yes - well done on your perseverance in persuading ABC to screen the shows.
Oh dear - I just had a mental image of what an Australian version of Time Team might look like, and the figure of Steve Irwin waving his hands about and excitedly explaining the difference between Bronze Age and Iron Age came to mind... well, maybe not.
Seriously, I hope the programmes are well-received and gain worthwhile audience ratings.
It seems that they've picked up the series from 2003. But that's OK because over the past 12 months ABC TV has featured other recent works with Tony as presenter (Fact or Fiction, Britain's Real Monarch) so at least his face will familiar to Australian screens.
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Originally posted by Tetricus: Good on ya' Moo
Does this mean they'll be showing it right from the beginning ?
Thanks Jean, it's great to be here. I did try to settle on a more conventional handle BTW, but "Michael" and "Mike" were already taken. Next came a nickname given to me by a work colleague, whom I accused of being udderly ridiculous. But he was intent on milking it for all it was worth. Ce la vie.
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Originally posted by Jean Manco: Welcome to the forum Mikey Moo and congratulations on bending the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to your will. I hope TT is a hit Down Under.
I agree Bruce...NOT! Mr.Irwin can keep his particular brand of enthusiasm to himself (and to his fans in the US!). And if it comes to pass that Phil and Mick start their sentences with "Crikey!", accompanied with wild gesticulations, I'll be more than a little miffed! I'm crossing my fingers, too, that other Australians will "get" what TT is on about and see the relevance to their own heritage.
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Originally posted by Bruce: G'day Mikey! Yes - well done on your perseverance in persuading ABC to screen the shows.
Oh dear - I just had a mental image of what an Australian version of Time Team might look like, and the figure of Steve Irwin waving his hands about and excitedly explaining the difference between Bronze Age and Iron Age came to mind... well, maybe not.
Seriously, I hope the programmes are well-received and gain worthwhile audience ratings.
Yes...you're quite correct and the same thought had also crossed my mind. The challenge, as I see it, would be getting the format and approach correct. I think it would be difficult to do a 3 day "evaluation dig" (quoting Mick) and expect to uncover a similar density of finds and patterns of settlement that are available in Britain. My understanding (and my definition may be wrong if any academics would care to correct me) is that prior to the First Fleet in 1770 these people were living neolithic tribes, many of whom were nomadic. But our indigenous Australians do have a rich culture spanning back millenia. Allowing some of their story to be told on such an inspirational stage as TT would be both a fantastic achievement and perhaps another step toward healing the decimation that colonisation brought with it. "Reconciliation", as we call it here, has a long way to go to correct the injustices of the past. Perhaps it could be a TT Special - a "Big Dig Down Under"! I'd be interested to see how geophys performs under some of our soil conditions. There is a lot of archaeology to be had though. Hold that thought!
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Originally posted by staticgirl: It would be great if Time Team had a spin off in Australia. There's 50,000 years of human settlement there.
I Have just found this site & would like to thank u Mikey Aussie to Aussie can't wait till Tuesday nights I very much enjoy the show but have been wondering what happens to the dig at the end of the 3 days is it left a hole in the ground or filled in or does another team continue the dig? Just one other thing I can't get this out of my head "Baldrick your breath is like the wind from Satan's bottom" I just love that line.
Great to have you along! Strewth...any more of us and it'll be like Earl's Court (ONLY KIDDING FOLKS!)
I'm really pleased you enjoy the program. "Auntie" [local parlance: ABC] was incredibly slow to warm to it but I eventually got there...someone actually sat down, previewed it and thought it "had merit". Ha!
I'm in Wodonga, Victoria...did you catch the review a couple of weeks back in Melbourne's The Age Green Guide? It was fantastic...the reviewer even "got" the magic of the show and concluded, saying with humour and warmth, that if she took a spoon to her veggie patch she might even find the remains of a Viking Long Boat! Hopefully more of us will tune in. Then ABC can damn-well go and get the 2004 and subsequent series. Well it is "our ABC" after all, and we do pay our 60c a day for it!
I'm also a big fan of Ben Elton's and Richard Curtis' comic genius. It's kind of fortuitous that with Tony's past work, Aussies have a familiar face to lead them into a rich and fascinating history.
Can you think of any local sites that might be worth considering for what the TT crew do?
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Originally posted by Dungogvolts: I Have just found this site & would like to thank u Mikey Aussie to Aussie can't wait till Tuesday nights I very much enjoy the show but have been wondering what happens to the dig at the end of the 3 days is it left a hole in the ground or filled in or does another team continue the dig? Just one other thing I can't get this out of my head "Baldrick your breath is like the wind from Satan's bottom" I just love that line.
Mikey, About a Australian version of the show I was thinking. If we go back any further than 200 years all we are going to find is shell fish mounds and stone flints ect, aren’t we?. Australia has a rich history but not all that old. I come from Newcastle & one thing comes to mind it's where white man first set foot in what is now Newcastle harbour. There is a plaque on a wall to point out the spot but we have reclaimed so much of the harbour one has to cross a two lane road then 4 tracks of railway another two lane road and about 50 or so meters of parkland before one see’s the harbour’s water all up close to two hundred meters from the original site. What I am getting at is I think we here in Australia have built over most of our heritage not like in Britain. That’s what I find so great about the show they can walk into a field and fine Roman coins 2000 years old. But still an Aussie version would be better than a lot of the other dribble on our tv's.
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Originally posted by Mikey Moo: Great to have you along! Strewth...any more of us and it'll be like Earl's Court (ONLY KIDDING FOLKS!)
I'm really pleased you enjoy the program. "Auntie" [local parlance: ABC] was incredibly slow to warm to it but I eventually got there...someone actually sat down, previewed it and thought it "had merit". Ha!
I'm in Wodonga, Victoria...did you catch the review a couple of weeks back in Melbourne's The Age Green Guide? It was fantastic...the reviewer even "got" the magic of the show and concluded, saying with humour and warmth, that if she took a spoon to her veggie patch she might even find the remains of a Viking Long Boat! Hopefully more of us will tune in. Then ABC can damn-well go and get the 2004 and subsequent series. Well it is "our ABC" after all, and we do pay our 60c a day for it!
I'm also a big fan of Ben Elton's and Richard Curtis' comic genius. It's kind of fortuitous that with Tony's past work, Aussies have a familiar face to lead them into a rich and fascinating history.
Can you think of any local sites that might be worth considering for what the TT crew do?
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Originally posted by Dungogvolts: I Have just found this site & would like to thank u Mikey Aussie to Aussie can't wait till Tuesday nights I very much enjoy the show but have been wondering what happens to the dig at the end of the 3 days is it left a hole in the ground or filled in or does another team continue the dig? Just one other thing I can't get this out of my head "Baldrick your breath is like the wind from Satan's bottom" I just love that line.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dungogvolts: Mikey, About a Australian version of the show I was thinking. If we go back any further than 200 years all we are going to find is shell fish mounds and stone flints ect, aren’t we?.
I'm not so sure about that. As you'll see with TT it has a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing in various specialist academics who can contribute to a story about life in a particular Age and location. I think the same could be said about finds here, which only make up one part of the story. I was blown away by the living history in the UK when I visited in '92 - it seems to be everywhere you turn your head. In Australia, the history is less obvious, and more widely spread over vast distances. And that our original inhabitants didn't have the agricultural practises of the neolithic people in the UK (my understanding), so they were nomadic and lived their lives over bigger areas. I reckon our archaeologists could tell us a tale or two, given that they've been working on these things for a while. I don't think we should ignore this aspect of the country's history. The challenge, as I mentioned above, is that the format would have to be right for the site, in order to provide accessibility to viewers, who may not have had a previous interest in history or heritage.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dungogvolts: Australia has a rich history but not all that old. I come from Newcastle & one thing comes to mind it's where white man first set foot in what is now Newcastle harbour. There is a plaque on a wall to point out the spot but we have reclaimed so much of the harbour one has to cross a two lane road then 4 tracks of railway another two lane road and about 50 or so meters of parkland before one see’s the harbour’s water all up close to two hundred meters from the original site. What I am getting at is I think we here in Australia have built over most of our heritage not like in Britain. That’s what I find so great about the show they can walk into a field and fine Roman coins 2000 years old. But still an Aussie version would be better than a lot of the other dribble on our tv's.
Agreed. I think we'd also find a lot more obvious recent history since colonisation. Indeed TT has done digs to uncover stories of around 100 years old in the UK. It even tackled a WW2 Spitfire crash in France. We'd certainly have things to fit into that time frame. Your thoughts on Newcastle would be good to pursue. We've even had a local story here in the past couple of weeks which has caught our attention. Part of the site of Ned Kelly's seige - his "last stand" - in Glenrowan, has been dug up by the local council without consultation or heritage permits. It's justifiably upset quite a few people. I wonder if there is any outstanding archaeology to these sites, or has everything to be known about them been uncovered? More grist for the mill!
It would be a great project to have the UK guys do an episode or two here, consulting, as they do in the UK, with local archaeologists. I'm guessing that our fellow enthusiasts in the UK would also find this interesting and it would provide a base for comparison - similiarities and differences in archaeology between the two countries, and the relative time lines of history. I'd better start saving...
So do I! Apart from public roads, coinage, dress sense and marketing, what have they ever done for us?
Seriously though, yes, the artwork is a lasting legacy and could tell a huge story. Perhaps, like any art, it is viewed by the TV industry as appealing to only a niche. Tie it in, though, to other aspects of life in a particular location and it might provide a firmer base for a TV program.
Much of our indigenous art is being kept alive by artists, who are selling their works into big overseas galleries. While the canvas and portability of the work has changed, the cultural stories are being kept alive.
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Originally posted by Owain Glyndwr:
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Originally posted by staticgirl: It would be great if Time Team had a spin off in Australia. There's 50,000 years of human settlement there.
You could do a lifetimes work on the 'artwork' alone.Sadly it seems a subject ignored by t.v.....I blame the Romans
Given that in earlier series TT has looked at British historical sites in the USA (Maryland) and West Indies (Nevis), there's no reason that they (or someone else, for that matter) shouldn't investigate similar sites in Oz - assuming they haven't all been built over or otherwise destroyed by later developments. All you have to do is find them........
Yes...I seem to remember that in the "10 Years of Time Team" special, one of the executives stated that it had been cheaper to produce episodes off-shore.
Apart from the conversion rate between the Pound Sterling and AUD generously favouring the UK at present, I'm sure there would be a multitude of other cost savings that could be gained along the way. Not having to transport technical equipment would be a big one I reckon.
Apart from the fact that collaboration could be possible between the ABC and the UK production team (the ABC have done this sort of thing before), and local archaeologists and heritage organisations.
I'd be confident to say that most sites of interest in the rural setting wouldn't have been built over, as they form the basis for local tourism. Perhaps some of the urban settings may have been in the past. But I think the local Heritage organisations over here are pretty sharp and afford them some protection. The remote sites (in the "outback") would be well-protected I'd imagine, having been the subjects of long-term archaeological research.
It's a good thought, but one that is well-and-truly in the lap of the gods. Perhaps once a few more locals see what TT delivers the idea may take flight.
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Originally posted by lewf: Given that in earlier series TT has looked at British historical sites in the USA (Maryland) and West Indies (Nevis), there's no reason that they (or someone else, for that matter) shouldn't investigate similar sites in Oz - assuming they haven't all been built over or otherwise destroyed by later developments. All you have to do is find them........
I'm hoping my friend in Newcastle is still with us...in which case I need to let you know, Dungogvolts old boy, that next TUE 1 AUG is the last episode in the 2003 series due for broadcast. I have no idea whether the ABC have any future plans for broadcasting other series.
Those of us who really like the program need to rally support locally and let ABC know what we think of the series and encourage it to obtain more.
If you feel so moved, could you write a letter to:
The Manager ABC Audience & Consumer Affairs GPO Box 9994 SYDNEY NSW 2001
I think that a ground-swell (or could it be a neolithic barrow?) of written support will be the evidence the ABC needs to realise it's "on a winner".
Regards to all.
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Originally posted by Dungogvolts: I Have just found this site & would like to thank u Mikey Aussie to Aussie can't wait till Tuesday nights....
I just checked the ABC Tv guide and TT is still on next week, and every tues for the next few weeks (they only show about 3 weeks of scedule on the site). Next week is Syon House.
