I went to the talk about Silbury by David Field of EH, but didn't learn anything about the current situation as it was nearly all about the historic excavations with little time at the end for questions.

One point that did come out: carbon dating of postholes on the slopes indicates the "spiral path" structure was medieval, (or a medieval reconstruction of an original form for all anyone knows) so no-one can say with any authority any more that it was originally built like that.

As for what they have found out about the inside, not a word. A bit annoying really, since the talk was supposed to be about that, I thought.

One VERY bizarre hint dropped out though: "The sonic cores are not entirely satisfactory, there were problems with the maths". Considering EH commissioned the sonic survey as early as the year 2000 in a blaze of publicity, and it was billed as wondrous new American technology that was going to reveal the precise details of the interior so that they could design remedies, and there has been no word of progress till now, and the contractors have left the site, we're entitled to know what the hell they've found out, and is it nothing, and on what basis of knowledge have they now put remedial work out to tender?

There has been an embargo on information on the investigations, allegedly because it had a commercial content, but surely that doesn't extend to the RESULTS of the investigations? Is it conceivable that they've allowed Skanska to claim exclusive ownership of the data? Or are they ashamed to admit that the data is of little use and the time and money has been ill-spent? Or are they simply reverting to their usual secretive arrogance?

I overheard a snatch of conversation at the end. "The report… (I don't know which report) … "was going to be published but then it was stopped. There's all sorts of politics going on, you know".

I can't think of a single valid reason why the public shouldn't know the precise results of the report that they've paid for. Maybe our revolutionary wing should do some letter writing…