Film Review: or, why ASNC is good (or possibly bad) for your health

Velda Elliott writes:

It might have been a mistake, but a friend dragged me to see Russell Crowe as Robin Hood recently. She loved it. As an ex-mediaeval historian I had a few more problems: specifically my blood pressure. I know it was set just outside ASNaC’s jurisdiction, but there’s definitely some transferable knowledge.

Now, I understand that they almost certainly had an historical consultant – after all they did get right the fact that chain mail weighs a tonne. Well, okay, maybe three stone, as if you were running around all day with a small child strapped to your back. Robin has to ask Marian to help him off with it before he can bathe. The fact that later in the film Cate Blanchett, a twig of a woman who has most certainly not spent years growing used to the weight, manages to turn up to battle in full chainmail and then fight – hey, I’m not even going to go there. Some romantic licence must be allowed.

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood

So they almost certainly did have an historical consultant, even if they did ignore eighty, eighty-five per cent of what s/he said. Let’s not go into calling the king ‘Your Majesty’ 350 years early, burning a body instead of burying it, wielding a broadsword one-handed, or the boats which needed another 500 years to be invented. I did have an actual head-slapping moment when King John refused to sign the Magna Carta, because, actually, in fact, sorry, he DID ACTUALLY SIGN! The woman sitting next to me looked a bit startled.

ASNaC: a USP

Velda Elliott writes:

If there’s one thing that Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice have taught us, it’s the need for a USP: a Unique Selling Point. Once you’ve been an ASNaC, that’s never a problem again!
After graduating, I trained to be a secondary English teacher (which I chose over History because the pay was better – either would have been an option); not an eyebrow has ever been raised that I studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic rather than English Literature, from the day I interviewed for the PGCE to my most recent promotion. In fact, in many ways it made me a better prospect for schools, because I had studied linguistics as part of my degree, and too few English teachers know the first thing about teaching English Language, a subject which is increasing in popularity all the time. It made me stand out from the crowds too – the interviewer might not be able to remember the whole name of the course, but they’ll remember you were the person who studied the interesting subject. It’s not just in teaching that this is an advantage – careers for arts students tend not to be subject specific, and being the person who read something out of the ordinary gives you a little extra shine.

People are fascinated by the fact that I studied ASNaC; it’s a conversation starter, often when they approach me, having heard about it from someone else. Esoteric and at the same time immensely interesting, it’s the subject that everyone knows a little about, but never enough. They’re always ready to talk about it, find out what it was, why you chose it. It’s a subject that never fails to impress, and raise a smile.