BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.

Subject: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Cas
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 08:01 AM

Like Ivy Ive been digging up a 17th Century site in Yarmouth... I also reenact.. This weekend at Bosworth we had a strapping bloke dragged up as a lady to dispense water to the troops. whats the weirdest thing youve seen in a field?

I missed the time the Klingons rescued the King at Tewkesbury!

Not including beer tent hallucinations! K.I.C...

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Morticia
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 08:32 AM

Well, I could tell the story of Gervase at Towersey one year who was several gallons over the eight and......but no, perhaps not as I'm seeing him on Friday and he's bigger than me....by about a mile and a half.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST,Celtic Soul
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 08:32 AM

Set the way back machine for the early 80's, back when I was last doing anything with re-enacting. At the Battle of Hastings re-enactment put on by Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia event, they came out with a bomb, laid it on the field, and yeld "BOOOOOM!"

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 08:58 AM

nothing at all like any of that... But completely in the middle of nowhere what so ever. No roads within miles, and a spot of nowhereness... A car bonnet???

How on earth did it get there.

Oh, and once whilst watcing the Tewkesbury reinacting battle. A modern day ambulance racing onto the field, dodgy past several swiping knights, being hit by arrows, and several mad looking soldiers all chasing each other.

It was so funny to watch - the fella wasn't badly injured, just winded and blacked out.

But watching the ambulance men administer their stuff during the onslaught of arrows, and stuff was something straight out of a Monty Python Movie. It was great!

Ella

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 10:37 AM

A co-workers arse. That's the last time I shout "bare it!" when he shouts "kiss my ass". Not the nicest thing to see looming over the section face of my trench when I'm dying of a hangover.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:03 AM

Driving down Sligo Creek Parkway near Takoma Park, Maryland (USA), a small grassy field with a man standing in the middle of it (all by himself), playing the saxophone. Could it have been one of our Takoma Park Mudcatters by any chance?

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:06 AM

Coulda been Bill Clinton playing the Monica Blues....*BFG*

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:54 AM

Morticia m'dear, if you think that was weird, you should have seen my son face-down in a cow-pat the following morning. Quite put me off me breakfast, it did!

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:58 AM

Sally & Baba O'Reilly

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST,Marymac at the boss' desk!
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 12:17 PM

I didn't know folks over on the other side of the puddle were into re-enactments!

My chiropractor is known to take his trumpet into a cemetery to practice.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 12:22 PM

A really large and handsome modern-looking steeple-- permanently built onto a foot-tall brick base and taller than the brick church that sat just behind it! We never did figure out the theology of THAT statement!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Trevor
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 12:27 PM

I've just seen eleven blokes in white in a field, claiming to have beaten the Aussies at cricket - now THERE'S strange.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 12:44 PM

Earth Spirit Camp - about 7 years ago - somewhere beginning with B. It was a VERY alternative festival (no meat or alcohol on sale - good thing we took our own...).
In the centre of the festival there was an enclosure where, all weekend, people were carving huge balls out of wood by chainsaw. There were huge poles, and massive chains. At the end of the weekend they hoisted up the poles, with the balls attached to the chains. Then nothing much happened.
We didn't have the sense to ask, so we never figured out what it was they were doing. Years later we were still bumping into strangers who had also been there and who also professed themselves completely puzzled.
Any ideas?

Kris
PS - this was the festival where the loos were SO bad that we walked 5 miles into town to use the public conveniences in the morning. You would have thought that with no meat or alcohol there would have been less problem. Maybe it was all that roughage. Anyway NEVER have I been more glad that I had a lantern in my hand when I went into the portaloo in the dark - immediate exit!

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Cobble
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 01:26 PM

Trevor.... not only claimed to have won. They did!!

Strange but true and a good match it was too : -))

Mrs C.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 01:31 AM

A lone Roman soldier, standing up to his knees in mud, smoking a cigar and listening to the test match. Boy was he surprised when the Saxons invaded from behind, helped by a Scorpion tank, a regiment of pikemen and the entire cast of 'Braveheart'.

The silliest was the same Roman soldier trying to discretely pee in the bushes but too drunk to work out how his authentic Roman underpants (nappy) worked. I swear he twice tried to pull a finger through and pee with it!!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 01:31 AM

Oh, and there's a field in the Piddle Valley, Dorset, that has a chimney in it. Nothing else, just a chimney, complete with pots.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: BillR
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 02:48 AM

In a field near Amarillo Texas there is a row of '60s vintage Cadillacs buried nose down, tails stining up at a 45 degree angle.

-Bill

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Trevor
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:14 AM

I've seen a field with a chimbley in the middle as well! Just stood there, doing nothing, with a fire grate as well.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: IanC
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:28 AM

I once saw three cows in a field. When I drove back the same way, they hadn't moved an inch. It was in Milton Keynes, though. Strange things happen, there.

;-)
Ian

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:54 AM

Iv'e seen the concrete cows as well, I used to live in Lancaster, and one day we woke up to find a sheep at the door.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: gnu
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 05:04 AM

Barbecue stacks and cows are strange ? Maybe barbecue stacks AND cows could be considered strangely twisted black humour.

I once saw a farmer who was outstanding in his field. (sorry... I had to)

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: mcpiper
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:46 AM

Never seen too much strange, but an explanation for the chimney in the field could be that according to an ancient English law, if you could erect a fireplace and chimney, and spend the night in the field, you could lay some sort of claim to it.
I will find the book tomorrow, and confirm the exact details. Might work in the UK but here in NZ you would probably get molested by a sheep, or shepherd, become the subject of a land claim, or get shut down under the Resource Management Act.
cheers

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:53 AM

Well find out quick then mcpiper - then all us UK 'catters can go out and become landowners.

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: IanC
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 07:01 AM

Comes from Mediaeval forest law. You have to clear enough space to be able to live off, then set up a hearth and roof all in a day and a night and by your own hand. The settlement you make is called an "Assart".

Forest law doesn't apply to much of the UK (good job, as it involves being hanged for doing more-or-less anything).

Cheers!
Ian

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 08:12 AM

Might apply to my garden - that's quite overgrown. Got a nice tree for a gallows too.

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 08:30 AM

Silly sight, a chap in "wars of the Roses" period armour setting out to do battle....On a Dutch WWII bicycle !

Kirby Hall this year.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 01:46 PM

Here in this part of the US, it's not uncommon to see a chimney and nothing else in the middle of a field. Here, it indicates that there was once a house (usually a farm house) there, but it burned down or something and was never rebuilt.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: MMario
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 01:56 PM

I didn't think a chimney or a fireplace in the middle of a field was strange, myself ; there were several around my home town. very handy for giving directions.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 02:22 PM

So we're agreed that chimneys are not strange.

How about a 180ft giant with a HUGE stiffy?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 02:32 PM

A 180ft giant with a HUGE stiffy would be more wonderful than strange, I'd say.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: jeffp
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 03:10 PM

Well, Carol, whether it's strange, wonderful, strangely wonderful, or wonderfully strange - Click here and decide for yourself.

jeffp

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 05:07 PM

Not the best picture in the world, but gives you the general idea...... thanks Jeffp for posting that....

Big club too....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 05:25 PM

Wow jeffp! Thanks!

You really know how to show a girl a good time. Made my whole day...

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:36 PM

Ah ! The Old Man of Cerne Abbas - The Shambles's home teritory.

Question. Is this Iron Age ??? old relict needing a Pubic Entetertainment Licencse from Weymouth and Portland District Council ???

Gareth (in cynical mode)

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:00 PM

My God, it's a paleolithic representation of Catspawtithicus Erectus!!! Stop the presses!!! Call in the boffins! Cor! This is definitive proof that overendowed dumbasses with little or no sense of decorum are not just a modern phenomenon, but existed in prehistoric times as well.

The WSSBA may do a field trip on this if we can get funding (hint, hint...).

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: emilyrain
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:14 PM

From Bruce (reading over emily's shoulder)... in a field in the mountains outside of Boulder CO in 1973 someone(s) had ritually sacrificed and displayed a crow on some sticks in the formation of an inverted crucifix... !

I ran.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: emilyrain
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:21 PM

i witnessed the mating of two great grey slugs.

perhaps that doesn't count as strange, as it probably happens all the time (to judge from the enormous slug population, that is), but it was definitely new to me.

lots of slime.

their penises (slugs are hermaphrodites, by the way) were about half the length of their bodies.

it was very very very slow.

very slow.

sluggish, one might say.

but gosh, they were having a good time. didn't mind me watching at all.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:33 PM

On Interstate 81, a highway that goes from the Canadian border south into New York State, just a few miles inside the USA, there are 3 enormous crows standing in a field near a grove of trees. Watch for them on the right as you drive south, just after a big rocky area. You'll see them in the field. They appear to be made of wrought iron or perhaps stone or concrete...they are black, and quite realistic, except for their size. I would estimate each crow is about the size of a Volkswagen or at least an Austin Mini.

It certainly makes you wonder, since this is an empty field with no sign of habitation anywhere in sight, not even a farmhouse. Weird.

As for those cars near Amarillo, they were pictured on the sleeve of a Bruce Springsteen album...I think it was "The River". That's probably where he got the idea for the song "Cadillac Ranch". I suspect Springsteen was conceived in the back of a large American car...he certainly is obsessed with them.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST,Bardford
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 11:16 PM

When I was a little kid, an underground waterpipe ruptured under the local soccer field. This caused a huge bubble of water to collect underneath the grass, like a water blister. It must've been thirty yards across and a couple of feet high. We could stand on this bubble and ride it, like surfers. Jeepers, that was keen...

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 11:25 PM

Just think. If you'd broken through you might have been the first people to drown on a soccer field...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST,Bardford
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 12:30 AM

You're right, LH, some of the slower kids could have met a watery death out there on the pitch, but not me, quick thinker that I am. I would have grabbed hold of the eighteen yard line :-)

Cheers, Bardford

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 02:04 AM

The giant golfballs, north yorkshire.If anyone is wondering what I am on about, they are a governmaent spy base which is part of Echelon.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 02:32 AM

Ah but the golf balls are no longer there..... leastways, we couldn't see them when we went past in March....

To give our Cerne Abbas Giant a freind, someone once planned to cut a silhouette of Marilyn Munroe on the opposite hillside. Needless to say, permission was denied.

Oh, and he's strongly reckoned to be a representation of Hercules, there's evidence that there was something resembling a cloth or animal skin over his outstretched arm, and the Victorians let the grass grow over the obvious feature. When it was recut, it's possible that his belly button was .... incorporated', thus making it the size it is today. There are no clear records before the early 1700's I believe, so there is no accurate way of dating him. The statuette of Hercules in exact same pose found nearby dates from early Roman, when they occupied the site now under the abbey ruins. The earth work on the top is called the trendle or frying pan, and was used for Mayday rituals/morris dancing. It was also used as a pen for stray animals.

I used to work in one of the 3 pubs in the village, so saw quite a lot of him. Apparently the local RAF used him as a navigation point....... loved to have seen the description of it!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: alison
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 02:40 AM

a couple shagging in a sleeping bag.... broad daylight.....with people walking discreetly around them..... thankfully my dog was on her lead or she'd have gone investigating.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 11:34 PM

Here's something strange you might see in a field in Nebraska: Carhenge.

And the Web site for the comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead" has a list of lots more strange Real Places that have appeared in the strip, and photos of many of them.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Mike Byers
Date: 23 Aug 01 - 10:28 AM

During a festival I once saw a fairly serious altercation between a large group of (US) civil war reinactors and and equally large group of morris dancers. Evidently, both groups had been scheduled to use the same area at the same time, and neither was inclinded to give up without a fight. Many people at the festival seemed to think this was all part of the show, but as far as I know morris dancers never fought against union troops in the civil war. Mighty entertaining, I'll have to say. The troops won the day, as the morris dancers could not stand against a charge with fixed bayonets.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: gnu
Date: 23 Aug 01 - 12:22 PM

Near Goshen, Albert County, New Brunswick, Canada, there is a "gentleman" who has dolls, fluffy stuffed animal toys, etcetera, tied or nailed to every fence post along the highway and also to numerous fence posts and trees in his yard. Even stranger, the front and rear bumpers of his pickup truck are wood and decked out with dolls and stuffed toy animals. I've never seen the guy and hope I never do. I don't think it's a flea market... flea brain ?

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Aug 01 - 01:40 PM

A contented Farmer. Slan Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Trevor
Date: 24 Aug 01 - 05:10 AM

I saw a similarly festooned garden in Lanzagrotti the other year, just outside the market in Teguise. I wouldn't want to meet the owner!

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: Llanfair
Date: 24 Aug 01 - 03:57 PM

Seeing a field full of llamas for the first time was a bit of a surprise, specially when you're only a mile or two from home.
They were at Leighton, just outside Welshpool. The other claim to fame there is that the cupressus leylandii was first found at Leighton Hall amongst their collection of evergreens.
Cheers, Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: strangest thing youve seen in a field.
From: GUEST,Andytwodogs
Date: 24 Aug 01 - 06:51 PM

A roman soldier in full armour and kit, driving a steam roller It seemed quite funny at the time as we were in the city of Gloucester, originally a Roman settlement.

perhaps they were more advanced than we thought?

A2D