For the Love of Supernatural Mystery

[thedeadlyhook]

Got a letter from Grandma M yesterday, with an interesting note about the Channel 4 archeology dig programme, Time Team, on the near-York town of Nether Poppleton. Spent a bit of time picking around that site this morning - ye gods, what a fascinating project to conduct nationwide, having people pick through their backyards just to see what relics might turn up. Of course, if you did that in the States, you're more likely to come up with '70s beer can pop-tops and the occasional plastic toy than Roman glass or Medieval flagstone, although in our neighborhood in SF I'd be scared to dig - heard too many tales of relocated cemeteries and ghosts in public libraries. Brr.

Never seen a ghost myself. Had some mysterious slamming-door issues when we first moved into this apartment, although that later turned out to be weird air flow issues, suction yanking the doors closed, like Backdraft without the fire. Creepy enough, though, at 1:00 am in a new place.

Oh, Sci-Fi Channel. Sometimes you know just what a body needs. All-day Night Stalker-thon. Praise be.

Comments

[kathyh]

Channel 4 archeology dig programme, Time Team, on the near-York town of Nether Poppleton.

It was on last week and was absolutely fascinating. They discovered a previously lost Tudor mansion while looking for other things. A Tudor mansion is difficult to lose but Nether Poppleton managed it! It's a really excellent programme.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm jealous of your TV from time to time. I'm an addict for this type of show. The last time we visited, we watched something on mummies with Grandma M. Some of these things get rebroadcast here on the History Channel and the like, but reading along about the whole do-it-yourself dig concept just made me nostalgic to see England again.

[magista.livejournal.com]

Nether Poppleton. Hee. I love English place-names. Sounds like a fascinating show.

Mostly Native American artifacts here, I suspect. I did hear James Delgado (Sea Hunters) speak about some of what he's excavated in SF, though, and there could be more there than you think. He was describing how many ships, abandoned by their gold-seeking crews in the 1840s, were turned into floating hotels or warehouses or businesses - only to end up partly burned and then covered over with earth after the great fire. 1906, wasn't it? He told the tale of one excavation of an entire hull of a ship well inland from the current bay shoreline. Cool stuff.

Mmm... Night Stalker. ::walks away whistling::

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I think I remember when they found that ship. It was on the waterfront, near the Embarcadero. A lot of that area is actually built on those sunken ships, since several blocks after New Montgomery are actually landfill. The Marina too, is largely built on landfill of wreckage from the '06 quake.

But my neighborhood, the Richmond? Originally sand dunes and cemeteries. I'm sure there's stuff to be found, but the idea of hitting someone's old gravesite, and one barely over a hundred years old at that? Yeeks. They do have some great Native American finds in the museums here, though - some lovely photographs too, of what the area looked like before the Gold Rush, very tiny town, lots of Native American settlement in the area, mostly for fishing in the bay.

[elisi]

Like kathyh I watched that too! Well most of it. (And everyone loves Baldrick... I mean Tony Robinson!). We actually used to live in York, and I'm sure we went past Nether Poppelton fairly frequently. Although name-wise I always loved Upper Poppelton.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Toys and I just visited York for the first time this summer. I would have loved to have spent more time there, but we were on a fast past-through on the way to Glasgow, where we have more family. But the whole area seemed absolutely fascinating - I haven't traveled in the North of England much, so it really calls to me.

[riani1.livejournal.com]

Night Stalker??? My late-Friday-night college friend??

And I'm at work, dammit.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

It blows my mind how many cultures this show managed to dredge up spooky mythology stuff on. First thing I tuned in to was the Native American "vengeance spirit" type story, now it's a Hindu guy, and they're explaining how the swastika is actually a holy symbol in his religion, not a sign of Nazism. Pretty multicultural, considering the average plot is all about mysterious murder, murder, murder! And Darren McGavin... gosh, how could one not love his cynical little frown?

[riani1.livejournal.com]

And the "killer" robot that just wanted to become more human. Ah, X-Files before we knew what the X-Files were.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that too. Those little typeset location markers in the X-Files eps pretty much just replace McGavin's private-eye-style voiceovers.

[riani1.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to write a Buffy/NightStalker x-over, but other things keep demanding to be written. Still, an elderly ex-reporter remembering the glory days, hearing about a place where vampires roam around--Kolchak would be there in a heartbeat.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I so wanted to see an episode of BtVs that did that - some reality show, or "ghost hunter" TV crew showing up. X-Files did it, with the "Cops" parody. How I would have loved to see Buffy and her gang interviewed on camera and have to pretend they've never heard of vampires. Sigh... Comedy gold.

Have you seen tesla321's X-Files/AtS crossover?

[riani1.livejournal.com]

Is that the one with Vamp!Mulder?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Yepper. I'm so hoping she does more - it's such a fun mixture.

[lillianmorgan.livejournal.com]

Never seen a ghost myself.
The house I lived in London had one. Although I never saw the ghost, one of my flatmates did. As well, there was this terrible, sad feeling which permeated the house. You could get very depressed, very easily for no reason if you were alone in it. Strange.
the Channel 4 archeology dig programme,
I can never get by: "I have a cunning plan!"

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Eeee. That sort of thing scares me. I find it hard to be cynical about these things after hearing these kinds of stories.

I had a coworker once that had a very active ghost, one that threw things - heavy things, like her leather jacket, sailing across the room. Freaky. And then they did an exorcism, and got an even freakier ghost after that, as if the removing the first ghost let this other, more ominous one out that appeared as dark shape in the hallways, like something out of Halloween. And another coworker described ghost sightings on her famliy farm in Chile. People that were there one mintue on not there the next. Brr.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I hate that you can't edit comments. All the bold text is kind of a mistake there, obviously.

[lillianmorgan.livejournal.com]

Yipes!! I know I can never look at myself, alone in a house, after watching one of those "real life ghost stories" on the teev, where every time this woman brushed her teeth, she would see the ghost in the mirror.
Interesting (though incredibly unsettling) that the exorcism brought on another ghost. You don't hear about that!

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

There's this very famous old made-for-TV movie called The Stone Tape, by Nigel Kneale, I believe, on this very topic. Super-creepy. The idea of removing one layer of haunting can uncover something... older. Shudder.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

I love Time Team.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I would have so been one of those people digging in a public park. I would have been there with bells on.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

My parents back garden has the remains of a pre war pig sty that took a direct hit in WW2.
It was the school cross-country running route that went over the bronze age barrow.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

See, that's what's so cool about being in England! Here's there's the "untouched nature" vibe in certain areas, like my home state, which is heavily forested... but then most people don't really respect that, and think nothing of bulldozing huge acreages to put up yet another big-box store or boring housing development. There's this general feeling that there's plenty of space, why bother preserving anything instead of just going down the road and building new?

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sci-Fi Channel. Sometimes you know just what a body needs. All-day Night Stalker-thon. Praise be.

OMG, my thoughts exactly. Sci-Fi may have cancelled "Farscape" but sometimes they know what the hell they're doing, not to mention what we desperately crave.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Sniff for poor Farscape.

I just wish they'd do more of these marathons and less of the invading insects stuff they've been into lately. They've really developed a taste for pretty horrible straight-to-video fare. (Although I have a soft spot for Snakehead Terror, which was over-the-top enough to break a certain barrier and become actually fun.)

[makd.livejournal.com]

What? a Night Stalker marathon on the Sci-fi channel? See you later....