Homework and dirty work

Junior gets a makeover

Webtastic is the Gateway to websites’ younger sibling (gender unknown). We’ve had a collection of links to useful homework websites for a long time, but recently a colleague has been beavering away, adding more links, banishing faded ones, and making the pages much (much) brighter – and Webtastic was born!
Ranging from "Art & design" to "Webguides and search engines", the categories are broadly similar to those on the Gateway. But if, for instance, we look at "History", we can see a motley collection of the usual schoolwork suspects – the Ancient Egyptians, The Tudors, and the Victorians.

The Romans are also included, of course – they are billed as BBC Romans, not because they are a bunch of actors kitted out in the Television Centre wardrobe, but because the link is to yet another subject about which the BBC coverage reigns supreme.

The aim of Webtastic is to cover more or less everything on the school curriculum – we’re constantly looking for gaps to fill – but there’s nothing to stop you using these links for college coursework, or just for the pleasure of getting all the dirt on Henry VIII and his spousicidal tendencies (don’t bother checking – I made that word up, then found out that it’s been done before, dash it).

Go directly to Webtastic


Criminal relations

After looking at "History" on Webtastic, I glanced through the same category on the Gateway itself. I was drawn, not for the first time, to a website called Proceedings of the Old Bailey, which is pretty self-explanatory. Various learned bodies have got together to digitise the reports, from 1674 to 1834, of cases before the most famous court in the land.

I’m sure the motives behind the project are serious and scholarly, but that’s no reason why we can’t have fun with it. The best way is to enter your own surname into the search box and see what trouble your forebears got into. There were just four entries for my name, involving two people; each was transported for nicking things (or "simple grand larceny" as it was more picturesquely called at the time).

Then I moved on to colleagues’ names. Well! What a bunch of crooks and ne’er-do-wells. It’s a silly game, of course – after all, they wouldn’t be here unless they were criminals or witnesses to crime. And they might be no relation whatsoever. Good fun, though.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "History". Proceedings of the Old Bailey is under "Local history".)

Picture Credit: ren/morguefile.com