Time Commanders

**Barbarossa82** · 01-04-2005, 16:07

Time Commanders is playing all this week during the evenings on UKTV History. Tonight is Boadicea ( I refuse to say Boudicca

) v Agricola.
Last night's was Pharsalus, and the Optimate side (the team) got creamed just like in real life.
Eddie Mair came across as a w****r as usual, although I suspect this is not his fault but because someone is writing a script for him setting him up to bait, belittle and harrass the team in order to make the show more confrontational and hence more fun. But last night he met his match in the form of the team leader, who managed to take the p*** by somehow ingeniously working in the names "West Side Massive" and "East Side Massive" into his battle plan. Mair had no clue what he was talking about, and obviously neither did the producers, as they left it in! Watching the team leader trying to keep a straight face as he said it was wonderful.

**Arrowhead** · 01-04-2005, 17:34

Originally Posted by Barbarossa82

Time Commanders is playing all this week during the evenings on UKTV History. Tonight is Boadicea ( I refuse to say Boudicca

) v Agricola.
Last night's was Pharsalus, and the Optimate side (the team) got creamed just like in real life.
Eddie Mair came across as a w****r as usual, although I suspect this is not his fault but because someone is writing a script for him setting him up to bait, belittle and harrass the team in order to make the show more confrontational and hence more fun. But last night he met his match in the form of the team leader, who managed to take the p*** by somehow ingeniously working in the names "West Side Massive" and "East Side Massive" into his battle plan. Mair had no clue what he was talking about, and obviously neither did the producers, as they left it in! Watching the team leader trying to keep a straight face as he said it was wonderful.

What time is it?

**Barbarossa82** · 01-04-2005, 18:01

Originally Posted by Arrowhead

What time is it?

I think it's 7.00pm except for Friday when there's a double bill starting at 6

**Arrowhead** · 01-05-2005, 18:53

Originally Posted by Barbarossa82

Time Commanders is playing all this week during the evenings on UKTV History. Tonight is Boadicea ( I refuse to say Boudicca

)

Why do you refuse to say Boudicca?

**Barbarossa82** · 01-05-2005, 19:05

Because, as Winston Churchill proclaimed, "everyone has the right to pronounce foreign names exactly as he chooses"! I'm not going to say "Beijing" or "Mumbai", because Peking and Bombay sound more natural in English. By the same token, I have no objection to the French calling England "Angleterre" and London "Londres", so long as I don't have to say "Paree". Boadicea may well have been called Boudicca in Gaelic, but it just trips better off the tongue when Latinised and then Anglicised to Boadicea.
No disrespect to anyone who wants to be authentic by saying "Boudicca", but for the sake of consistency they should also say "Roma Total War", and "Yu-lius Kae-sar"!

**Fridge** · 01-05-2005, 19:14

Originally Posted by Barbarossa82

No disrespect to anyone who wants to be authentic by saying "Boudicca", but for the sake of consistency they should also say "Roma Total War", and "Yu-lius Kae-sar"!

Good point, well argued!

**Didz** · 01-05-2005, 19:40

Hmm! my understanding was that Boudicca was her real name.

Boadicea was nothing more than an early spelling mistake in the Roman history books.

Also unless one was not born in Britain (which of course is quite possible) Boudicca is not a foreign name and so Churchill's rule does not apply.

**Barbarossa82** · 01-05-2005, 22:05

Didz, you're right that Boudicca was her "real name", if by "real name" you mean that which she used herself. However, "Boadicea" is not a "spelling mistake" as you attest, but a latinisation, much like "Arminius", "Carthago", "Gallia", "Caractacus", or any number of other names. Similarly, Londres is not a "spelling mistake" for London, but an attempt to make it sound better and more natural in French.
As for the foreignness point, Boadicea was a British, Celtic queen. Since my ancestry is predominantly saxon English with only minority Celtic influences, this does make her foreign from my perspective, though were I Welsh, Irish or Breton there would be strong grounds for saying the reverse. The word "British" now has a political meaning but it is originally the name of an ethnic group of which the surviving members are the Welsh, Cornish, most of the Irish and a few of the Scots. The English and most of the Scots are ethnically Germanic and Scandinavian are not ethnically British, merely politically so.