The truth about lies
The ex-Speaker John Bercow has been found to be a serial bully and serial liar. The ancients would have had…
Tacit approval
Last week Aristotle offered a lesson in tyrant theory. This week Tacitus (ad 56-c.120) offers one in tyrant practice. Tacitus…
Tyrants past and present
Is Putin a tyrant? Aristotle (384-322 bc) might well have thought so. Seeing the turannos as a deviant type of…
A figure of shame or pity
Virginia Giuffre may well be a heroine among all those abused in their youth. Ancient reactions compare interestingly with ours.…
Live and learn
German archaeologists have found ancient Egyptian tablets covered in repetitive writing exercises and ask — were they pupil punishments? But…
Healthy profit
Yet again ‘doctors’ with no qualifications have been found advertising dodgy but expensive products and treatments, in this case, injections…
Words of advice
The Prime Minister has been having some trouble with his inner circle of advisers. Tacitus supplies fine examples of how…
Cher options
The singer Cher, now 75, has announced that, because she refuses to appear old, she is not going to allow…
Gathering storm
Whatever the result of Sue Gray’s report on ‘gatherings’ in Downing Street, there is a political lesson to be learned:…
Stone cold revenge
The statue of the Bristol merchant Edward Colston is apparently guilty of a hate crime. Let us hope that the…
Rethinking Penelope
Problems about the misuse of history, especially on subjects such as race and colonialism, have been running for a long…
Omicron variants
Time to settle the Great Omicron Question. First, there is no word omikron (and no c) in ancient Greek. Second,…
A classic defence
A teacher wanting to teach Latin has enquired whether it is worth doing because the subject has ‘such a bad…
Game theory
The ‘globally outstanding’ University of Durham has plans to help its undergraduates who pay their way by prostituting themselves. Three…
Words and deeds
Greta Thunberg and her supporters were loud in protest at COP26, but one wonders to what end. They demanded deeds,…
Only right and natural
MPs are not exactly attracting plaudits for their recent attempts at governing. Perhaps Cicero’s three-book work On Duties (De Officiis)…
Nature vs nurture
The ‘social mobility tsar’ Katharine Birbalsingh has suggested that children, born evil, ‘need to be taught right from wrong and…
Plato the censor
The Globe theatre’s project to ‘decolonise’ Shakespeare, as if that would make plays like The Tempest ‘acceptable’ to them and…
As a matter of curse
Twitter and other easily accessible means of online communication have encouraged the public to believe that Their Voice Will Be…
Aristotle and transphobia
Professor Kathleen Stock of Sussex University is accused by a group of students of being transphobic and a danger to…
Absurd plots à la Bond
So James Bond is back, doing exactly what he always does, inviting the audience into a fantasy world for the…
In search of refuge
Hardly a day goes by without headlines about immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. In the ancient world, movements of people were…
Power struggles
Why are cabinet ministers Liz Truss and Dominic Raab squabbling like children over access to grace-and-favour Chevening? Because they know…
The game of life
The extraordinary sporting achievement of Emma Raducanu and the response it has received from royalty and politicians alike makes one…
Root cause
A ‘State of the World’ report warns that a third of the world’s wild tree species are threatened with extinction.…
