if you could go back in time (just once) what would you do?

[pyan]

I'd like to go back to 20th October 1955, with a £10 note, and buy a first edition set of LotR...

[Clansman]

Better still, Py my fellow Tolkien trivia denizen, to 1937, and The Hobbit. Then, jump forward to 1955...and the rest would be history. And, I'd go with gold, because I'd have to have notes that were dated correctly, and enough notes so that I could buy several copies for my friends in The Revised Tolkien Trivia

I have the 1st of The Silmarillion, but so does everybody else. They must have printed a gagillion copies of that book. There are three first prints in my local second hand store alone...

I would also want to leave some money with an investing house that I know will still exist, and instructions to a solicitor as a trustee to make "certain" key investments and sales from time to time.

May as well make the most of it since I'm going... I also might have a word or two with Neville Chamberlain.

[Montero]

I'd like to go back to meet my parents when they were in the prime of life, with myself as an adult. (Not known to them as their child.)
They both were ill for a long while before they died, and that has rather blurred their earlier selves.

And the flip of that, is I'd like to be able to go back and meet them as their child and get answers to lots of questions I thought of too late.

Also like to meet my great grandmother who is a family legend. Died long before I was born, but I've heard the stories, seen the photos.....

None of that should really change anything - chatting to a stranger - we all do it.

[rai]

Originally Posted by Montero

None of that should really change anything - chatting to a stranger - we all do it.

that's what Oedipus the King said before he poked his eyes out.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Back I'd go two thousand years and witness a certain crucifixion.

There's not much doubt that the crucifixion took place. Watching the tomb, however, would prove interesting...

[TheEndIsNigh]

Mmmm

That last rib was a big mistake

[Montero]

Originally Posted by rai

that's what Oedipus the King said before he poked his eyes out.

I don't know the Oedipus story well enough to follow that - could you expand a bit?

I know the bit that Oedipus was sent away so he wouldn't fancy his mother, but then didn't know she was his mother when he saw her so he fancied her after all. But poking eyes out?

[Interference]

If you could go back in time (just once) what would you do?

Find my bloody car keys *grrrrr*

[rai]

Originally Posted by Montero

I don't know the Oedipus story well enough to follow that - could you expand a bit?

I know the bit that Oedipus was sent away so he wouldn't fancy his mother, but then didn't know she was his mother when he saw her so he fancied her after all. But poking eyes out?

.......

Oedipus, unbeknown, had murdered his father Laius and had married his mother. As the truth is finally confirmed this tragedy turns into a horror. His wife/mother commits suicide. Oedipus then takes the pins from his wife/mothers clothes and in a fit of craziness repeatedly pokes his eyes out.

[Montero]

Thanks for the explanation Raj - now I get the joke. (That must have been one of the slower dropping pennies in the world.)

[Ökuþórr]

I would go back to just before the Norman conquest and drill holes in every one of Williams ships.

Go back to preChristian Europe and collect every bit of information humanly possibe on the beliefs, practices and lives of the Pagan peoples of northern, southern, western and eastern europe. Their travels through the world and how they interacted, traded and settled with folks outside Europe.

[mygoditsraining]

I think my feelings on this matter can be summed up by the following two words:

Dinosaurs! Wooo!

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Ökuþórr

I would go back to just before the Norman conquest and drill holes in every one of Williams ships.

Hope not, Ökuþórr. The current population is a mix of Saxons and Normans. The Normans didn't leave after winning, they are part of us.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Hope not, Ökuþórr. The current population is a mix of Saxons and Normans. The Normans didn't leave after winning, they are part of us.

Yes, many of us would not be here, but it would be interesting to see how we would have developed differently. I don't believe it would have set us back technologically much, but there would be no Doomsday Book and I think the country would remain fragmented into states. No Magna Carta either.

Britain's later prosperity was built on its Navy which didn't come about until after the Spanish Armada, and on the natural defences of being an island, together with boundless natural resources - trees, fast streams, Coal, Iron, Limestone, Tin, Lead, Gold, Silver - our geology unusually has a little bit of everything.

However, our politics, language, art and culture, all those would be very different, more Germanic or Scandinavian. I wonder, would everyone speak with a Geordie accent?

[Ökuþórr]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Hope not, Ökuþórr. The current population is a mix of Saxons and Normans. The Normans didn't leave after winning, they are part of us.

Like the below poster said, it would be interesting.

Originally Posted by Dave

Yes, many of us would not be here, but it would be interesting to see how we would have developed differently. I don't believe it would have set us back technologically much, but there would be no Doomsday Book and I think the country would remain fragmented into states. No Magna Carta either.

Britain's later prosperity was built on its Navy which didn't come about until after the Spanish Armada, and on the natural defences of being an island, together with boundless natural resources - trees, fast streams, Coal, Iron, Limestone, Tin, Lead, Gold, Silver - our geology unusually has a little bit of everything.

However, our politics, language, art and culture, all those would be very different, more Germanic or Scandinavian. I wonder, would everyone speak with a Geordie accent?

Way ay man!!

But no Domesday book Didnt think of that.

I was waching Lost Kingdoms of Africa last night. I would love to go back see those civilisations at there hight. They look just as impressive as anything in Europe. I never knew there were things like that in Africa, was never even hinted at in school. Its sad. I feel like i've missed out on learning about an amazing part of the world and a people that are, unfortunatly (IMO) overlooked and to often portrayed as being behind the rest of the world, or unable to have achieved such things without "outside" help. Africa FTW