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The Raven and the Rose

Shorts
Made in Jest.....
BBC2 - Monday 5/02/01.
Spoof historian David Oxley as part of the "We Are History" series, presented his view of the Vikings in the North East of England - "Our Friends in the Norse". Despite being only a 10 minute show all the Viking stereotypes were packed in there, from blonde hair to Horny Helmets and back again via rape and excessive drinking. But, and it is a big but, it was done in such an openly ridiculous and satirical way as to throw scorn on the existence of these kind of stereotypes themselves, no-one could possibly have taken Oxley seriously even for even a second, especially after the opening minute of the show sees him in a library surreptitiously tearing pages out of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Oxley also had a parting shot for contemporary historians - "How do you know this is true...?..'cause I'm a historian and I've just told you so!" Our favourite bit - unquestionably the origins of the name "IKEA" as a Viking war cry!

So now you know....
BBC1 - Tuesday 6/02/1.
As part of the Holiday 2001 series, presenter Sankha Guha took a cruise on a Norwegian ship, stopping off at one point to visit the Viking Museum of Borg, in Lofotr, where he took part in a Viking banquet. Sankha was quite impressed, concluding that Vikings "were sophisticated" after all. Well how about that. Old, old news, dear boy. Displaying a certain distinct lack of knowledge regarding Viking etiquette, Sankha then informed one of his Viking hosts that they had not been "very popular in England". Well, being from the South of England I suppose he would say that, wouldn't he?! We don't think that where I come from, mate......

Bring it back!
BBC Teletext letters page (p.145 if you're interested) - 8/02/01.
A certain SW of West Yorkshire argued that democracy was dead in the United Kingdom, and that it was time to "...bring back the Kingdom of Jorvick (sic). The Vikings had a real democracy". Absolutely. SW, you're our kind of guy/girl (delete as appropriate).

A right loads of balls
What a load of balls!FourFourTwo football magazine, 2001. FIFA decided to include this little gem in their "Brief History of the Football" advert, a rather lame attempt to encourage footie fans to shell out for a FIFA approved ball. FIFA are apparently concerned about the rising tide of racism in the game, and obviously figure that using sad, offensive stereotypes will somehow help in the war against sad, offensive stereotypes.
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