 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXCESS BAGGAGE
|
 |
|
 |
MISSED A PROGRAMME?
Go to the Listen Again page |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 Listen to Excess Baggage for
21MARCH2009
OLD TRAVEL GUIDE BOOKS – OLD TECHNOLOGY
Sandi Toksvig examines the efficacy of old travel guide books to explore the modern world and travels in search of the significant sites where early technology made its mark - from Bletchley Park to Silicon Valley.
Lecturer and historian David Heathcote shared his passion on Excess Baggage recently for 1930’s Shell Guides to Devon and Dorset and the Baedeker guides used by American visitors to Britain in the late 19th Century. Today, he ventures further afield, across Europe and Africa.
Writer and journalist Christine Finn’s Silicon Valley travelogue “Artifacts: an Archaeloogist's Year in Silicon Valley” inspired a wider search for modern relics. Since 2000 Christine has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles by bus, boat and train for its follow up, an exploration of lost tech landscapes worldwide. She talks about her visit to the annual Vintage Computer Festival.
Presented by Sandi Toksvig
Photograph:"Birthplace of" ( where Bill Hewlett and David Packard began developing their first high-tech product - an audio oscillator - in 1938.) photographer: Jerry Bradshaw©
This week’s guests:
David Heathcote is a historian and teacher but also an avid fan of old guidebooks. He recently made two programmes for ѿý4 taking the premise of using old and well written guide books to tour around Britain today.
is a writer, freelance journalist and also “an archaeologist with research interests in historical archaeology, contemporary archaeology and the history of archaeology. She has carried out research into the material culture of computing. I am also currently completing a travelogue of America exploring technology and material culture.” Christine is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries with a special interest for vintage computers. As part of the research for her Oxford archaeology doctorate, which mapped the poets WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney’s literary landscapes, from museums to childhood playground, Christine looked at a copy of Yeats’ Baedeker guide with the poet’s annotations.
Artifacts: an Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN-10: 0262561549
ISBN-13: 978-0262561549
Past Poetic: Archaeology in the Poetry of W.B.Yeats and Seamus Heaney
Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd
ISBN-10: 071563237X
ISBN-13: 978-0715632376
2442 Research Drive, Livermore, California 94550
is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert, in Northern Nevada.
The ѿý cannot be held responsible for
the content of external sites |
|
|
|
|
| PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES |
|
|
|
|
 Sandi Toksvig:
The daughter of a foreign correspondent, Sandi has been travelling all her life more info |
|
|
|
|
