Why is Virgin East Coast ditching its quiet coach?
Virgin East Coast, reneging on its franchise, is not in anyone’s good books at the moment, but since it is…
Corbyn is the master of ‘raising issues’ – with no result in sight
Jeremy Corbyn is the master of ‘raising issues’. He received an obscure prize last year for his ‘work for disarmament…
Outsourcing has a long history
The outsourcing business Carillion has gone bust because its bids for government work have been far too low. The problems…
Army recruiters should follow the Roman example
Advertisements encouraging men and women to join the army emphasise that their religious beliefs, sexual orientation and emotional needs will…
If Trump seems bad, remember Caligula
Whatever one makes of the accuracy of the journalist Michael Wolff’s depiction of President Trump, it cannot all be the…
Don’t damn the ancients for failing to give women the vote
This year will be the 100th anniversary of some women over the age of 30 getting the vote, and for…
Regina, a Syrian in South Shields
D(is) M(anibus) Regina liberta(m) et coniuge(m) Barates Palmyrenus natione Catuallauna an(norum) XXX ‘To the spirits of the dead, and to…
Like Thasos or Naxos in ancient Greece, Brexit Britain must be punished
Since the EU does not want the UK to leave and will do everything to stop it leaving, it is…
Do animals really have feelings? Plutarch thought so
Whatever the government decides about post-EU regulations on animal sentience, the Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch (died c. ad 120)…
When armies take over democracy dies
While the military is running Zimbabwe, there is no hope of anything resembling a functioning democracy replacing the tyrant Robert…
Fake news is nothing new — it was de rigeur in ancient Greece
The liberal media is at the moment engaged in a campaign attacking social media on the grounds that it is…
The wily courtesans who won more respect than modern-day feminists
Some MPs have been exploiting their power by their sexual fumblings with the lower ranks. The result is that when…
Roman censors
Students eager to pull down statues and silence debate on topics of which they disapprove — and vice-chancellors who pusillanimously…
A matter of life and death
Before he died, the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, reassured his diocese that he was ‘at peace and…
Frater, ave atque vale
As his obituaries pointed out, my brother David made a name for himself with his unrideable bicycle; his ‘perpetual motion’…
Trump and his empire
All the news emerging from the White House seems to suggest that the USA is in that state so beloved…
Beauty and the beasts
Doctors have analysed how the mucus of a certain type of slug gives it protection against its being levered off…
Health and personal choice
Public health specialist Sir Michael Marmot has blamed ‘the cuts’ for the rise in dementia among the elderly, resulting in…
The post-truth is out there
In a political ‘post-truth’ world, currently the subject of a slew of books, emotions and personal belief are said to…
Power and the middle class
When the centre disappears, equality vanishes with it
Aristotle vs the civil service
The civil service is to be allowed to find out what job applicants’ ‘socio-economic background’ is. What abject drivel is…
Plutarch and the EU
Boris Johnson argues that the current European Union is yet another failed attempt to replicate the golden age of a…
How Rome did immigration
Last week it was suggested that the questions asked of London mayor Sadiq Khan had nothing to do with racism,…
Rome, racism and Sadiq Khan
‘Racism’ refers to the belief in racially determined inferiority, most often recognised in body-type, about which, by definition, nothing can…
Pliny on the joy of elephants
In order to deter poachers, hundreds of tons of elephants’ tusks are being incinerated in Kenya. But even for Romans,…
