Welcome to the cyberhome of Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

On site, September 2010 © Christl Squires

Many thanks to Christl Squires for permission to use her candid photograph of me.

From this page you have access to all my websites.

• Music: a lifelong obsession 9 July 2012 I was introduced – if that’s the right word – to music as a toddler. True, my mother had alwyas bought records and listened to the radio, but it was her habit of sitting me in front of the television for hours on end to be “entertained” by the Test Card and its music that was my first experience of solitary listening to music. I must have enjoyed it becuase, apparently, it would keep me entertained for hours, even though there were no moving images on the screen. If you’re not old enough to know whar the Test Card was, it was a graphic displayed on the television screen when, between the morning start-up around 9 o’clock for schools programmes and the start of children’s programmes around 4, there were no programmes on. In those days, we didn’t have twenty-four hour television. Behind the Test Card was a constant stream of what was known as Light Music, orchestral pieces by composers who wrote characterful but not intellectually demanding pieces. Forgotten, even despised, since the later 1960s, it is currently being rediscovered and found to contain items of real musical worth and quality. I am also (just) old enough to remember the impact of The Beatles. Their music and that of their imitators soon dominated the radio stations my mother would play (the pirate station Radio London was her favourite). when I was seven, my parents bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which they would use to record episodes of Top of the Pops by the primitive…
• Music: a lifelong obsession 9 July 2012 I was introduced – if that’s the right word – to music as a toddler. True, my mother had alwyas bought records and listened to the radio, but it was her habit of sitting me in front of the television for hours on end to be “entertained” by the Test Card and its music that was my first experience of solitary listening to music. I must have enjoyed it becuase, apparently, it would keep me entertained for hours, even though there were no moving images on the screen. If you’re not old enough to know whar the Test Card was, it was a graphic displayed on the television screen when, between the morning start-up around 9 o’clock for schools programmes and the start of children’s programmes around 4, there were no programmes on. In those days, we didn’t have twenty-four hour television. Behind the Test Card was a constant stream of what was known as Light Music, orchestral pieces by composers who wrote characterful but not intellectually demanding pieces. Forgotten, even despised, since the later 1960s, it is currently being rediscovered and found to contain items of real musical worth and quality. I am also (just) old enough to remember the impact of The Beatles. Their music and that of their imitators soon dominated the radio stations my mother would play (the pirate station Radio London was her favourite). when I was seven, my parents bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which they would use to record episodes of Top of the Pops by the primitive…
• I remember why I’ve never wanted satellite television 25 September 2011 For some reason, there is a channel known as The History Channel. Given its schedule, I can only conclude that the name is ironic in a postmodern sense. It certainly bears only a tangential relationship to something that I would recognise as ‘history’. I’ve been aware for some time that its programming is weighted towards the American Civil War and Nazis, much in the way that the ‘bookshop’ W H Smith has a ‘History’ section that deals largely in World War II and bullshit history. Given that the channel has aired series such as The Bible Code: predicting Armageddon and Nostradamus Effect, I really ought not to be shocked at any of its offerings. And yet… According to the History Channel’s website, “This ancient stone figure, found at the Mayan ruins in Tikal, Guatemala, resembles a modern-day astronaut in a space helmet”; no, it doesn’t! And yet, the discovery that it has given air time to a programme called Ancient Aliens (note that it’s not even a question!) is shocking and profoundly depressing. And it’s in its second series! Given that many people in the modern world use the television as their principal window on the world and source of information about that world, for a significant number of them, it has an authority that probably no other institution (even school) does. If it’s been on a television documentary, so popular wisdom has it, then it must be true: a twenty-first century equivalent of “I read it in the paper, so it must be true…”.…
• Pushing the “aliens built the Great Pyramid” lie 25 September 2011 The Great Pyramid of Ḫwfw (Khufu) A certain George Rixon has published a post on UFODigest (“Ufo and Paranormal News from around the World”) on the subject of Extraterrestrials and the Great Pyramid, apparently based on “the knowledge Aramac (an extraterrestrial) has passed on to ”. This ought to grab our attention: after all, as an extraterrestrial, Aramac obviously knows more about Old Kingdom Egypt than any mere Egyptologist, although I can’t help but think that a particularly revolting sweet lurks behind his name… Unfortunately, it’s not at all clear from Mr Rixon’s text which elements are his own and which derive from his extraterrestrial friend. This is a pity, as I’m sure it would help if we could separate the earthly dross from the heavenly wisdom, but until the poster achieves his true desire (“LOOKING FOR FULL PUBLICATION.OF MANUSCRIPT” (sic)), we’ll just have to go with what’s presented on UFODigest. We start with accusations against the hieroglyphs containing Ḫwfw’s name: To begin with it has been thought and taken for fact that the Great Pyramid was built for King Khufu as a burial tomb. This is because his name was written in hieroglyphic markings inside the construction. But, there is great doubt to its authenticity. Some were wrongly spelt, and some with bad grammar, making them appear to be fakes. Ḫwfw's name painted on a block in the pyramid Well, this can’t be from CAramac, as it’s just dead wrong: there is no doubt whatsoever about the authenticity of the painted marks, some of…
• This ought to be the first rule of “Biblical Archaeology” 24 September 2011 “Biblical archaeology” is in “scare quotes” because it’s a highly problematical concept, but more of that later. What I want to address first is what ought to be a first principle for anyone reading about claims for discoveries that are supposedly to the Bible (Hebrew or Christian) or any religious text, for that matter. It’s this: If a discovery confirms your pre-held religious beliefs, then it’s wishful thinking at best and even more likely to be a fraud. As a principle, I think it’s a good one. But it’s one I have rarely, if ever, encountered in so-called “Biblical Archaeology”, which is a sub-discipline that is characterised by a distinct lack of sceptical thinking. Why is that? Let’s answer that by looking at some recent claims: the “Jesus family tomb”, the “lead codices” from Jordan and the interminable searches for “Noah’s Ark”. The “Jesus family tomb” The so-called ‘Jesus family tomb’ In 2005, the Canadian investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici (know to television viewers as The Naked Archaeologist, a rather unappealing designation) entered a tomb originally found during construction work in 1980 at Talpiot (‏תלפיות‎), a suburb of Jerusalem. It seems that he did this without the permission of the Israel Antiquities Authority (העתיקות רשות), which makes it an illegal act. The purpose was to make a documentary with the film director James Cameron, as Jacobovici believed that it was the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and other members of his family. The documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, was released in March 2007, with a…