Ancient greece
A changed woman
Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris,…
Split decisions
Divorcing couples are being given vouchers worth £500 to settle their problems by mediation rather than going to court. It…
Sea fever
From ancient Greece to TikTok: Alexandra Coghlan on the pulling power of shanties
Take the hard road
Diversity is ‘about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different, in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion,…
Classic examples
To what use does one put history? Romans thought it provided ‘lessons’. Modern historians rather sniff at the idea, but…
Revenge of the snitch
If neighbours break whatever new Covid rules might soon emerge, it has been suggested that the Good Citizen might snitch…
Rotating the Lords
Arguments about the purpose or indeed very existence of anything resembling the House of Lords would have struck classical democratic…
High life
Serifos There’s no high life here, only family life, so I’ve been hitting the books about great Greeks of…
Weighty matters
Tackling obesity is the latest government initiative, universally condemned as nannying. Ask a Spartan. From an early age, Spartan children…
Wars and unjust peace
In 1984, China agreed a ‘one country, two systems’ treaty with the UK, designed to control the relationship between Hong…
Why stop at statues?
The actor John Cleese has been wondering if we should destroy Greek statues because Greeks believed ‘a cultured society was…
High life
Gstaad Hippocrates is known as the father of Western medicine and he discovered and named a disease known as ‘micropoulaki’…
When life becomes art
Covid-19 has not yet reached its peak but already the moguls of the small screen are plotting how to monetise,…
High life
Aristophanes was a comic genius long before the Marx Brothers, but he also gave good advice to the Athenians: stop…
Ancient and modern
Plagued by the past
Brevity goes a long way
The PM is insisting that the briefings he finds in his red box every evening should be, well, brief, and…
Beyond impeachment
An impeachment trial is overseen by Congress and Senate, who both make the law and (in this case) sit in…
Family matters
There are as many explanations for Harry and Meghan’s problems with the royal family as there are commentators. May as…
It’s science, not protest, that will save the planet
One might expect that the challenge of climate change would encourage many young people to take up Stem (science, technology,…
For the ancient Greeks, the only point in taking part was to win
The England team reached the final of the rugby world cup in Japan but they lost. As athletes, they knew…
Would the Athenians have held a second referendum?
The Athenians invented the referendum: after debate in the citizens’ assembly, they voted through all political decisions by a show…
Watching Stephen Fry was like being in the presence of a god
Stephen Fry lies prone on an empty stage. A red ball rolls in from the wings and bashes him in…
Boris is facing his Sparta moment
The PM’s hero is the Athenian statesman Pericles, and a Periclean crossroads is now approaching. According to the biographer Plutarch,…
Let’s choose our politicians by random selection
Athens Standing right below the Acropolis, where pure democracy began because public officials were elected by lot, I try to…
Politics, Pandora and the tender leaves of hope
With parliament irretrievably deadlocked over Brexit and the EU intransigent, there remains little belief that either of the prime ministerial…
