Heritage old and older

The first item really being a moan about heritage folk. Having this morning acquired a bit of gossip about how Côte Brasserie are not going to move into the antique premises once occupied by Lester Bowden, Epsom's late lamented fancy tailor, then Lakeland and now vacant, in part because they were not allowed to disturb some bit of interior heritage wall. I think there were some distinguishing features, apart from just being old, but it seems to me to be perverse to deter occupiers in a town which is getting short of proper retail activity, in favour of a bit of old wall. What exactly is it that the heritage people think that they are saving?

The snap above being taken in Côte Lewes and lifted from reference 1.

The second item being a very large Roman barge that I also came across this morning. One of two barges built by the Emperor Caligula, probably for show but possibly dressed up in religious clothes, given that they floated on a religious lake, the same lake made famous by Sir James Frazer, for which see reference 5 and 6. I had not thought that the Romans could build something so big. Although, while I dare say they floated, I don't suppose they would have lasted very long on the open sea. Excavated by Mussolini, but mostly destroyed in the course of the second world war. See reference 3.

[Ruins by the shores of Lake Nemi, in an 1831 engraving. Lifted from reference 3]

I came across them in the course trying (unsuccessfully) to track down an anecdote from Rome in Freud's big book on dreams at reference 4. The anecdote being that there was a Roman emperor who had someone executed who was dumb enough to tell him that he had dreamed about assassinating him, that is to say the emperor. The context being ruminations about whether dreaming about bad things made one a bad person. The extent to which dreaming about doing bad things was apt to result in one actually doing those bad things. If at all.

References 

Reference 1: https://www.thegraphicfoodie.co.uk/2018/05/review-cote-brasserie-lewes.html.

Reference 2: https://www.cote.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemi_ships.

Reference 4: The interpretation of dreams – Sigmund Freud – 1899/1954.

Reference 5: The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion - Sir James George Frazer - 1890-1915. A real-life Casaubon, with the prior fictional version being rather harshly treated by George Eliot. To my mind, anyway.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Nemorensis.