Status-Q

My friend Turi King is perhaps best known for the DNA analysis identifying Richard III's remains when they were found in that Leicester car park. She also hosts the BBC TV series DNA Family Secrets, with Stacy Dooley.

Her recent book, "The Secrets of our DNA", is a very readable way to learn about the history of DNA analysis, what can and can't be done at a crime scene, how many children Thomas Jefferson actually had, and the role DNA analysis played in the recent lives of O.J. Simpson and Angelina Jolie, to name just a few. I say it's readable, though I'm actually listening to the audiobook (which Turi narrates very nicely) on my daily dog-walk.

So I know a lot more about DNA then I did a few weeks ago, but I was still pleasantly surprised by an article John Naughton linked to recently. It explains how you can learn about historical livestock diseases from medieval documents... but perhaps not in the way you'd expect!

Not having watched any live TV for... well, not since the last millennium, probably... we are often a bit slow to catch up on the really good TV series. But this has the advantage that we can binge-watch things that have stood the test of time!

And so it was only this year that we got around to watching Detectorists, which had been recommended by various friends since its 2014 release. And not long after doing so, we watched it again...

Anyone else who is a fan of the series may remember that the main characters would generally meet up at the 'lunch tree' to discuss their finds of the morning. Well, our find of this morning was the tree itself, a short walk from the delightful Suffolk campsite where we had spent the night.

It doesn't take much to make us happy campers!