... if you had a Time Machine? This is assuming that it was impossible for you to change the past, of course.

I would probably go back and have a chat to my anscestors, then maybe look at histories mysteries, like Einstein's last words. What about you guys?



---
Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Portugal in the 15th century, with all the discoveries and stuff... England in the Elizabethian period to see who really wrote certain plays...

Aren't UFO's our own future, having cracked time travel, coming back to visit their ancestors? *waves*

Carla, did you ever read the book "Small Talk from Wreyland"? I can't lay my hands on my copy right now, but it's basically a collection of thoughts and essays from an English village dweller in, I think, the 1950s? Not sure on that one.

Anyway, in there there's a character who can remember being very very young, sat on the knee of his extremely elderly grandmother hearing her tell the story of when she had been very young sat listening to her grandfather who in turn had heard an elderly relative relating first-hand about the Great Fire of London - I may have missed a generation, but it was still rather mind-blowing to think of history being kaleidoscoped in that way. There's several similar stories in there too. You mentioning the Elizabethan period made me think of that... sorry everyone for potentially leading the thread astray so early!

*with evil grin*

I'd travel back to every significant happening in the bible and write.......

" The Bible - The Real Story!"

Seriously I'd like to know what Morgaine le Fey, Richard III and any other much malined historical figure were really like.

If we were allowed to change history, I'd like to stop all tragic accidents

Oh, no worries. I've got loads of them. Two stand out, though. Two places and times, neither of which can be accurately located in either time or space, which could be a bit tricky. One's fairly easy though; somewhere between York and London, between September 25th and October 14th, 1066. Just at the point where the messenger rides up and says, "Boys, guess what? There's a whole load of Frenchies landed in Sussex ..." I want to see the expression on King Harold's face.

Two's harder. Sometime around 500 AD, somewhere in Britain, the battle or possibly siege of Mount Badon. Assuming I can speak Latin, Old British or Old English, I could collar one of the passers by and ask "Who's fighting? Where are we, exactly? What's the date? And, hang on, come back, who's the leader of the British side? It's not by any chance a chap called Arthur, is it?"



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I'd like to go back and find out exactly what Pierre de Fermat's infamous proof of his Last Theorem "which this margin is too small to contain" actually was. I'm absolutely certain it wasn't the magnificent, but extremely long and abstruse, one concocted by Andrew Wiles!



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Wow, what a question! I'm with you about Fermat, Sarah; there's a lot of room between the space in his margin and Wiles's tome for an elegant solution.

However, I think one of my big questions is, How did Hildegard sing Hildegard? This one (and other monophony-related topics) has been splintering the performing and musicological communities for years (pained silences, pointed remarks, blood feuds...). On a similar subject, I want to know how the English sang chant before the dissolution of the monasteries. The current equal-note-length style is very soothing, but for me very unconvincing. So I guess I'd like to spend some time hanging out in the 12th century. :)

I want to see the expression on Einstein's face as he cracks the theory of relativity. I would like to go back and here the Bard Homer reciting the Odyssey and find out if he really did compose it all. I would like to see a wild Dodo, and find out if they went plock, liked marsmallows and were really all that dumb. I would like to find out who shot JFK, I would also like (being a student in the subject) to meet Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkergaard and all my other idols of philosophy. To know the person and not just the words they left of ink.



TMH

//---------------//------------------//
One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

August 1572 - did Catherine de Medici really give the order for the St Bartolomew's Massacre?

January/February 1567 - how much was Mary Queen of Scots involved in Darnley's murder?

The Grand Opening of Fouquet's country chateau, Vaux le Vicomte in the 17th century - I'd love to see Louis IX's face at the opulance. And later in that house's history, the truth behind the infamous murder of the Duchess de Praslin by the Duc.

So many historical mysteries to be solved!

If I could go back in time, I think I'd like to apprentice under Ansel Adams or Alfred Stieglitz. And I'd love to travel back just far enough to personally watch Annie Liebovitz do a some of the shoots she did for Rolling Stone. I'd love to go watch her work now.

And I'd like to watch Rembrandt paint. That man could capture light like no one else.

Rather than, say, Man Ray. I'm off on holiday to do an Ansel. I'll be glad if I just get the new device sorted out, so I promise nothing.

I'd like to find my Polish ancestor from several centuries ago and ask him to pick a better place to grab his name from, preferably one that I stood a chance of spelling...

I'd like to have a chat with Darwin and show him Mendellian genetics. Just to hear him go 'Oh, for F**** sake - of course!'



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I'd go to 1974/5 and watch The Sensational Alex Harvey Band playing their Xmas concerts at the Glasgow Apollo.

Less world changing than a few other ideas, but probably far more fun !

Skiffle, I swear I've seen video of the SAHB from that period, though not necessarily at the Glasgow Apollo. Wasn't that when the mightly Zal Cleminson was still with them? (Zal has to be one of THE greatest underrated guitarists I've ever seen, along with Mick Hutchinson from Clark/Hutchinson and, oh, a couple of hundred others!)

Hmmm, if we're talking about travelling back in time to watch bands, I think I'd probably pick the Fillmore West, 1968 and a bill featuring the Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Weather, Frumious Bandersnatch, the Oxford Circle and Mad River (with, of course, the late great beat poet Richard Brautigan on guest vocals)

I'd go and see The Band (anywhere), Ziggy Stardust's last gig (although I saw Bowie doing the back catalogue at Glasto), the first playing of the 1812, and Pulp at Glasto 1995.



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I'd join Jon at the Battle of Baden Hill and solve that which has bugged me for many years, namely: Who is the real King Arthur. Then after discovering that one, I'd set off for the late 1100's and have a chat with Eleanor of Aquitaine about what it's like being the wife of two kings and the mother of two kings. And how she'd have taken over Europe if only she were a man.

I'd like to go far enough back to actually meet the Beaker people and then whizz forward a bit to see what Pictish civilisation really was like... and 8th century Ireland, meet the Venerable Bede, see which version of Richard III really is true, see which prophets actually could & did, meet Jesus, Rembrandt, hang out with Shakespeare and Mozart, go and listen to Bach, and finally (well not finally but I've got to take a breath sometime!) go to the writing course at the University of East Anglia - or was it Sussex? - and be taught writing by Angela Carter... and go to Woodstock



_ _ _ _ _

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Just the odd jaunt or two, then?

yep nothing fancy...

Read this story, if you haven't already. Apparently there is a movie in the works.