Teeth on edge

[catsidhe]

Watching The Seven Ages of Britain.

Note to the presenter:

PUT SOME GODDAMN GLOVES ON WHEN YOU HANDLE 400 YEAR OLD BOOKS UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO REACH THROUGH THE TELEVISION AND PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE!

It could be worse. In the first episode he was taking liberties with the Peterborough Chronicles.

But FFS, if you're pawing through artifacts from the Mary Rose, please do not insult every historian, archaeologist and mediaevalist in your audience (or, in other words, almost all of it) by acting as though putting on gloves is an imposition.

Don't make me have to hunt you down and cut your hands off.



And Tyndale's bible was the first in English, and the first to be printed (even if not in England, and not in its entirety). The Greate Byble wasn't even the first complete printed Bible in English. That honour goes to Coverdale.

Stop making shit up, and stop getting your grubby paws over priceless artifacts.


Gah!

Comments

[tangent_woman]

Thank you for furnishing my regular dose of inappropriate book-handling outrage. My usual supplier is out of town.

I have to wonder whether they haven't neutralised that presenters hands somehow? Maybe by boiling them in bleach or soaking them in acid for a few days?

[felinophile]

Uh, actually no. Gloves make you clumsy and likely to break off the page edges. In most cases just wash your hands well and don't have ridiculously long nails. I handle stuff at least that old regularly.

[catsidhe]

Grumble.

Actually, I'd far prefer that he didn't touch them at all. Or at least limit it to turning to the pages he needs (but can't understand — he clearly said when he was fingering the Peterborough Chronicles that Old English is gibberish to him, even while someone who does speak the language had directed the cameraman to show a section of page which for those who can read OE illustrated the point he was making) to demonstrate his point. But no, he has to run his hands lovingly, lecherously, over the page, touching the most important parts to make his point, instead of pointing.

OK, so maybe he is a professor of history. Maybe he has the decades of experience to be able to do these things cavalierly yet well. It still irritates the hell out of me.

And my point on the outright lie that the Greate Byble was the first to be printed in English stands.



Maybe it's just that the presenter irritates me mightily. The same content with, say, David Starkey would be far superior.

[felinophile]

Fair enough. I didn't see the show, but that does sound like he's a prat.

I actually got asked if I was scared of the books during the course I did earlier in the year because I'm fairly careful with them. The guy running it was "Here's a nice example of incunabula" *plonk* *flick, flick, flick*. Compared to paperbacks, those things are near indestructible.

0_o

[ysabetwordsmith]

Some people definitely need to be taken out and flogged. And not allowed to read anything for a good long time.