Me + Richard Armitage
a frequently irreverent and occasionally cerebral feuilleton of richard armitage studies
Charities Richard Armitage has supported [click this photo]
Click on the image to see a list of charities Richard Armitage has supported, with links!
Fan Sites
- C19
- Русскоязычный Cайт Pичардa Армитиджa
- Fellowship of the Beard
- Foro Richard Armitage [Spanish]
- IHEARTARMITAGE
- RAfanvids
- Richard Armitage at Reddit
- Richard Armitage Board (für deutsche Fans)
- Richard Armitage Brasil
- Richard Armitage Central
- Richard Armitage Confessions
- Richard Armitage Discussion Board [Chinese]
- Richard Armitage Fanfiction Archiv
- Richard Armitage Feed at Youtube
- RichardArmitageNet.com
- RichardArmitageOnline
- The Armitage Army
- The Richard Armitage Daily
Me + Richard Armitage 
and so it begins 🙂
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and so it begins. But I’m glad for people who could realize a dream by doing this.
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so I guess that’s Wellington 11/28, Tokyo 12/1, Toronto 12/3 … poor guy.
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That sounds like some nth tier of the Inferno to me *shudder* I detest long haul flights!
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I hope / assume they have a private jet and he’s not flying commercial.
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That would make a huge difference. I’m cringing just thinking about getting on and off all of those commercial planes at the advent of the cold and flu season – I am not a germaphobe by any stretch, but that is pushing one’s luck I think.
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plus shaking hands on red carpets all over the world. I hope none of them get anything really terrible, because it could turn into an epidemic like 1919. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating. But thinking about specifically that issue was the main thing that caused me to write that post about praying for him and then decide to pray those things specifically.
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Maybe just a bit, but the permutations are making my skin crawl. Could we call it a Hobbit vector? Purell anyone?
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At least we can be reasonably sure he won’t get plague.
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Probably…squirrels (squeerils) should be hibernating by then 🙂
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Yes, praying hard. It’s a scary place out there. Look at recent incidences of SARS, etc.
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yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that — but flying during flu season is a bit risky. I haven’t heard the usual warnings this year, though, so maybe this season’s flu won’t be so bad.
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I hope you’re right. I caught a severe flu on a plane trip last year, and I was being careful.
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he’s in good physical shape, in the prime of life, and one assumes his immune system is in an orderly condition.
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Hmmm. I vaguely recall Japanese citizens flying day trips to Seattle just to catch Ichiro Suzuki in Mariners games (Tokyo to Seattle ~ 7 hours, or London to NYC equiv.). PLUS – with the whole dateline crossing, a person could leave Tokyo @6pm and arrive in Seattle @ 9am the same day in the US!!!
Of course, a direct flight from Tokyo to Toronto is longer ~ 11 hours ~ or London to LAX-ish, but if he wanted – Mr. A could probably catch a 4pm flight out of Tokyo on December 3 (giving him maximum time in Japan), pass out on the flight, and still arrive JUST in time for his Toronto show (maybe also time for an arrivals lounge facial)!! 😉
That’s the schedule I’d book – but then, I’m a flying superfreak. 😀
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arrivals lounge facial! It sounded from the tweet today like he arrived with a 24 hour shadow 🙂
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Okay, you’re going to make me admit it – I’ve never had a facial in my life so I don’t even know what one entails (or what facial hair shadow has to do with a facial).
I also only know the British Airways lounges in Terminal 5 @ Heathrow… where I usually pass the Elemis Spa area in the Arrivals Lounge and think “What the Hell?? Who actually REALLY has spa treatments at an airport??”
Thought I’d give Mr. A the opportunity given the tight flight schedule I booked for him above. 😉
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/elemis-travel-spa/public/en_gb
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I’ve never had one either, but I suspect you need your facial hair shaven for it to work. They put goo on your face and let it sink in, I believe.
The last city I worked in had a massage place in the airport.
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In theory, Toronto is not all that far from here – in practice, my MIL would kill me if could make it there for a talk show, but not to Philly for Thanksgiving 🙂 Preferring to remain alive, I’ll look for it on YouTube.
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it involves a passport, tho. I like Toronto. But on Dec. 3 I will be … hmm. Discussing the French Revolution and the emergence of popular sovereignty in the West … somewhere decidedly other than Toronto.
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Dec. 3 it’s the Black Death and the Hundred Year’s War with a chaser of the Cold War for the afternoon class (I like to mix it up!)
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ooh, yersinia pestis, my favorite.
I do multiple doses of the same topic on Mondays. Helps keep my mind together. Those are also my last official office hours … the end will be in sight.
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On yersinia pestis – have you read anything on re-identifying the Black Death as some type of hemorhaggic (sp?) fever because it moved to fast to be spread by a rat borne vector?
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no, I haven’t — but the only time I ever talk about it other than to refer to it having happened is in a lecture on how plague incidences affected urban politics and architecture — in a course I almost never teach anymore. All of my classes since 2001 have started *after* 1350. So I don’t stay up on that stuff anymore. Is that the new view?
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I can’t freaking remember where I read it – I did a History of Disease class a few years ago where we worked on creating a paradigm for what primary sources were calling PLAGUE (starting in Athens, Antonine, Justinianic…) When we got to the Black Death, there were sources that were talking about how fast it moved and the fact that yersinia pestis specifically is rat borne and at it was unlikely that rats could move that quickly the disease either mutated or was something else entirely. I’ll have to go back through the lit. and find the reference. Right after I read 14 more abysmal discussion of the impact of technology since 1500 – blech!
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well, iirc, you don’t have to be near the rat to get it. The rat is bitten by a flea, and the flea can jump from person to person, stay hidden in clothes, etc.
I make a case like that for syphilis, though — that what we know today as syphilis is not exactly the disease as it’s described in contemporary sources. That lecture is always a serious hard sell.
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It also had something to do with the temperatures of Europe vs the life span of the fleas, not just the rats…it was really interesting. Too bad I can’t remember where I read it.
Speaking of syphilis, (where else can you talk about Richard Armitage, bubonic plague and syphilis in one breath I ask you!?) there is some relatively new data coming out of Pompeii suggesting 2 cases of congenital syphilis amongst some skeletons found in a cellar in a suburban area near the Villa at Oplontis. Pre-Columbian European instance of syphilis. (smiley seems inappropriate)
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True, the smiley is inappropriate, but I would be resisting the temptation to say, “Told you so.” Diseases like this are far too widespread and tough to have been confined to one relatively small group before the late 15th century.
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Syphilis seemed to have declined drastically in virulence within about 80 years after its (re?)introduction to Europe — so not implausible to me that there could have been earlier variants of it that became extinct. In any case it’s clear that when Europeans start getting it after 1520, it hits them hard.
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Yay for the end in sight, Servetus. 3 December is supposed to be highly propitious this year.
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Maybe it will be a good lecture then — though at this point I don’t think any of us care any more.
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You crack me up! Do you start with that line…”I don’t really care, but let’s get started..”
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No, I don’t, but yesterday I jumped up and down three times, yelled “early modern Europe, okay!” like a cheerleader, and did the Bavarian snap / slap over an open fist thing five times at the beginning of lecture. Everyone laughed. I gotta get myself excited, too, ya know.
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That’s more than half the battle! Yesterday I gave my scared straight medieval pregnancy and childbirth lecture – It’s always a big hit 🙂
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I hope it scares them straight. The first time I saw a live birth it put me off sex for weeks. And that was in a hospital with medical professionals involved.
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My parting shot is “Have a great Thanksgiving and for heaven’s sake don’t get pregnant!” always met with slightly nervous laughter – mission accomplished!
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Best when you lecture this stuff in a totally straight, matter of fact, but nerdily fascinated tone 🙂
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It is awfully messy…
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Me too…but I was the one giving birth, so I didn’t actually see it – I felt all but the last two hours though 🙂
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THANK YOU FOR THE HEADS UP!I don’t think I’ll be in TO for it. But I will be watching George S!. Would love to join Phylly (no passport required), but I think she’s a bit further north, and the roads will be really snowy by Dec.
I hope Mr. A keeps his energy and health intact for all the publicity tours, flights, conflicting climate changes…
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Do you know what network airs this program in Canada? I wonder if my husband’s super satellite picks up their signal…he seems to find virtually everything else.
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Yes, the show in on the CBC network.
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Thanks!
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The history of the plague,black death etc. appear to be variable. Definitely now ascribed to rats and fleas. Historical illnesses – haven`t found a satisfactory explanation for the prevalent `late medieval and 16thC sweating sickness. a “flu virus, perhaps. It seems accepted now that some illnesses and life-threatening diseases have disappeared.Leprosy, curable and contained, if drugs available. Affordable. But, while greatly contained, (in some parts of the world) HIV is here. Does anyone know what ebola is, or how to deal with it.
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Cool…thanks. It was an great class. What they basically determined by the end of it was that the various sources – when we looked back to the original language used a variety of words to describe these outbreaks that are invariably translated as Plague in English…plague has since become virtually synonymous with the Black Death and confusion ensues on the nature of earlier outbreaks, most of which almost certainly weren’t Bubonic (maybe the Justinianic one was)
Interestingly, I learned from a student paper today that AIDS is spread in the drinking the water in Africa. Seriously, someone in 2012 believes this? Have I totally missed some new research?
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I don’t believe so. Doesn’t HIV have to be transmitted by blood / blood contact?
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That’s what I thought…blood or saliva – into the blood stream. Are we at the point that we need to begin re-education?
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I think so. I was taught that it is also spread by seminal fluid into the blood stream, but that was 20 years ago. Saliva was less likely because the concentrations of the virus had to be high. At one point it was thought that it could be spread blood-to-blood by mosquitoes, but no longer. The virus itself is not robust.
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That is what I had always heard from medical prof., ie that out of the bloodstream the irus was quite weak. I think this student quote results from a misinterpretation of some yahoo news soundbit which then made it into his paper on technology. *shaking professorial head*
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That’s what I detest about internet “research” — people take a sound-byte or out of context quote and cite it as if it’s real. If they actually read the source docs, they would realize (I hope) that some of their citations actually contradict their point or are utterly worthless.
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This one didn’t bother with citation at all…just put it in there as if it were common knowledge. These are very young writers, but they already have very bad habits 😦
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To me — and here I am getting on my pulpit, which guarantees no one will listen — what this means is that history education has to change fundamentally. It’s not about amassing information; it needs to focus now explicitly on what had always been a theme, but not always a primary one: critical evaluation of confusing information. This was actually what my undergrad history classes were about — source critique, source critique, source critique — but that’s not how history is usu. taught, I’ve learned. Really, we could do a lot in teaching / helping people understand the information they receive.
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I should mention, that they were not supposed to be using ANY outside sources, but rather thinking about analyzing material that had already been discussed in class lectures, readings, etc. They are really resistant to not simply going to look it up. IMHO it is virtually useless to give underclassmen simple “research” projects – what the really need to learn is how to think and understand. I’m right behind you on the pulpit – it’s a frustrating uphill climb though.
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This happens to me, too — I say specifically and repeatedly, do this assignment ONLY using sources we have discussed in this course and which you have (I hope already) read. Do NOT google, do NOT do additional research, just provide a persuasive analysis of this body of literature. And nonetheless, the first thing they do is type a search word into a google window and then click on the first link. I may start failing people who do that in my intro classes.
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Or refuse their “work” on the grounds of noncompliance, and tell them they can take the hit of zero credit or take an incomplete and do the assignment properly.
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And you are preaching to the choir here. Why have they not learned to think and construct a well-reasoned argument from assigned material by the time they get to you? In theory, they should know how to do this by the time they’re 14, if not before. If they are this limited, why were they allowed to progress?
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I think there are a lot of factors at work. One is that secondary ed in the U.S. tries to do way too much. The other thing is that federal educational initiatives in the last twelve to fifteen years have tended to emphasize certain skills at the expense of others. A third is that they haven’t gotten enough detailed instruction in writing by the time they get to college — a combination both of under-staffing at schools and the fact that the comp professionals have left behind the traditional methods of writing instruction most commonly used in the twentieth century for a style that most professors outside of English now agree doesn’t work. A further one is that the fact of having instant information has made them lazy. Kids have always copied out of the encyclopedia, but the fact that they had to go someplace to find one meant that they were sometimes exposed to more. The Internet doesn’t require that. And there are far too many kids in post-secondary ed in the U.S. that don’t want or need to be there but have been told they must / should, or have looked at the statistics for earnings based on a high school diploma and decided they must continue even though they are not so interested. A perfect storm.
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A perfect storm is right. We’re already seeing the damage left in its wake, and I expect that it will get worse.
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Do you then also get this: “I can’t find enough information in the book” MmmHmmm and that is why I gave you the topic and told you not to use outside sources – because there is not enough information in the book. *sigh* (2 more weeks)
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Yes. I think they say that because they think it will make them look more engaged / smarter / intelligent. (“I was so into this that I wanted to go beyond the book.” OK, fine, but humor me and start with the g*ddamned book.)
Then there’s the variant, heavily in evidence yesterday during research conferences — “But the primary sources for this topic are not in our library!” (Drafts are due next weeks and its dawning on some of them that they won’t have the necessary research done.) Then I pull out my copy of their research proposal from five weeks ago where I tell them what the primary sources are likely to be, and note in capital letters that they will have to be ILLed, because they are not in our library, and ILL usually takes a minimum of two weeks, and they should ILL now — and then they gulp. It’s like they don’t believe me when I tell them I have been in that library. Sigh …
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Yes, we have a very small library – I know exactly what we have as regards the Greco-Roman world – I ordered about 1/2 of it, so when they tell me they can’t find bound sources (I’m trying to encourage them to actually use *gasp* books it precipitates the 4th grade class trip to the $@$@# library to show them the very books they tell me they cannot find. 🙂 Since I did not spend 1/2 of my life in college, I would have no idea about the excuses one might manufacture to cover gross slack-assedness! (Did I mention – 2 more weeks?)
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Amen sistah! My 14 year old son (who I have pulled from traditional US school for the very same reasons you cite) was helping me grade quizzes – he does the objective questions- and commenting that answers on the fill in section were not even the correct form of speech to complete the sentence. There is a definite breakdown in the secondary ed system here in the US.
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Oh this is terribly exciting news!! George Stromboulopoulos is a fantastic interviewer. I would dearly love to be in the audience of ANY of his shows but THIS one would make The.Best.Story.Ever!!
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/George+Stroumboulopoulos+Tonight/Best+Story+Ever/ID/1238017250/?page=6&sort=MostPopular
But I am a 2-3 day drive away and a plane ticket from here costs as much or more than for one of you to fly to England or New Zealand (depending on where you live). So like Fitzg – I will be curled up on the couch with a huge mug of tea for that wonderful day.
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happy snuggling!
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Some (who shall not be named, Maybe they ought.) do not believe in condoms, or safe sex. The similar people who prevented a Sikh woman having a life-saving pregnancy teminancy in Ireland. She died. Way off blog here. Sorry. Getting too political here.
Back to topic: the issues of medieval and historical diseases is interesting. For those who pursue their genealogical and ancestral backgrounds, diseases and genes are of interest. (Not to me, if I have gene diseases, rather just cope if it/they arise, thank you. 🙂 )But the study of health and disease is definitely crucial. Much can be prevented. Much can be understood. And provide for future prevention. Leprosy, for instance.
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And smallpox, TB, and polio…
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Oh dear, I feel sick just reading the comments! Leprosy? Syphilis? Smallpox? I don’t pray but I have a mantra I keep repeating to myself: He’s going to be fine, he’s going to be fine!!! And I believe he IS going to be just fine, and will stay fit and healthy throughout the publicity tour!
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I think he’s fairly safe from plague, leprosy and syphilis with regards to frequent air travel – but good vibes can’t ever hurt right?
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The worst thing he’s going to get is a head cold,hopefully nothing nastier than that! He’s going to get plenty of good vibes from us that’s for sure!!!
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He should be able to feel them like a warm blanket 🙂
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yeah, I should stress the worst thing I was worried about was cold / flu. I was not the person who brought up plague 🙂
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or maybe a stomach bug
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There’s a horrible thought – stomach bug on a 16 hour flight! Praying, praying, praying.
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That would be me…I didn’t actually entertain the notion that the Hobbit cast would contract the plague on a plane 🙂 Even I am not that far gone!
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would make a great RPF fanfic, though.
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so much pestilence, so little sex?
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you could have sex, too. The fleas need some way to jump from body to body.
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That is disgusting! I love it!
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This thread is hilarious! You know that Mount Doom has erupted?
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I did read that. I hope whatever plane that’s flying them into Wellington can avoid the smoke …
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Good grief – I hadn’t even considered the threat of natural disasters! 😉
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Woof! Are there 74!! Canadian RA fans out there??? 74 comments!
Falling over laughing at the comments!
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Oddly, none of the Canadians who are known to me are actually going.
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