The man who invented the bank holiday kept a pet wasp

Caricature of John Lubbock
from Punch, 1882,
via Wikipedia.

Heritage! The Battle for Britain's Past is available on iPlayer for a limited time and well worth catching while you can. It details the nineteenth-century heroes who realised something must be done to stop the destruction of our old buildings and green spaces, and led to the establishment of the National Trust.

Among the heroes was John Lubbock MP (1834-1913), who I'd not heard of before. A pupil of Darwin's (having grown up near Down House), Lubbock later named an insect after him. Lubbock also introduced the first bank holiday, kept a pet wasp, got insects drunk to see if they recognised each other and claimed to have taught his dog to read.

He coined the terms "neolithic" and "paleolithic" and bought the site of Avebury to save the ancient stone circle there from destruction. Many of his prehistoric finds are on show in Bromley Museum, which I shall now be making a trip to.

Later, Lubbock became the first Lord Avebury - and his grandson sits on the Liberal Democrat benches in the House of Lords.

Stone tape

To the stone circle at Avebury yesterday with a group of chums (not all of whom I'd met), for the purposes of something that will get announced in early August.

We had to retire to the Red Lion while the rain slashed down. It was one of those days like when the Axons invaded, with the weather all over the place. So when I got home I put of The Claws of Axos - I've had the DVD for ages but not seen the story since my teens.

Cor, the Restoration Team have done something wonderous with the picture, and I took a rare foray into the documentary about exactly what. The Dr got to glimpse Roger Delgado as the Master for the first time, and I was a little surprised how fab it all was. Weird and funky and cool, with a threat to the world not just to the Home Counties.

But Terror of the Autons is still 1000 percent more damn cool. Can we have that on shiny disc soonish?