A Don’s Life

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The alibi for the trip to New York was a visit to the Metropolitan Museum. The husband is part of a team organising a Syria exhibition at the Royal Academy and wanted to look out some early Christian Syrian material and talk to the curators who might lend it (interestingly -- or horrifyingly -- it turns out that a Syrian exhibition would not be possible in the USA, as Bush's legislation about not dealing with terrorist states extends to cultural objects and projects). We also wanted to "do" the new Roman galleries in detail.

Let me say to start with that there is some fabulous stuff in these galleries -- and interestingly different from what you find in European collections. There are no big bits of 'state art' in New York... it's by and large smaller in scale, but almost everything would provide the subject for a whole lecture. It also shows the necessity of actually SEEING the the things you write about.The bronze image of the goddess Cybele pulled by lions in her chariot is often illustrated in books on Roman religion (including my own). I had never realised before that it was part of some water feature, with the lions' mouths acting as spouts. That makes it something rather different from the cult object it is usually assumed to be.

So the whole visit was tremendously worthwhile.  In particular the glass, like this gorgeous blue piece -- which I suspect, if one saw it in an antique shop, one would never guess was Roman. Eighteenth-century perhaps?

It made me think that if I was starting my research career all over again, I'd seriously consider going into ancient glassware.

But despite the tremendous riches, there were some problems. Notably some of the labels and information panels. Now, I know from experience that writing museum labels is much harder than people imagine -- and it is too easy to carp.

But the Met didn't come out very well.

Escaping exams

I am knackered -- for a myriad of reasons, but partly because I have just finished being chair of our Part 1a exams. OK I am sure that taking exams is more exhausting than marking them; but marking takes it out of you too, and you don't get all the sympathy/ (The picture shows the examiners consuming a well-deserved lunch after their labours.)

It's tiring not only because of all those scripts to mark (pushing 200 in my case) but because of the absolute obligation to make the process as fair as it could possibly be. By fair I mean this: would it be possible to face each and every candidate with their results and explain to them why they had got a 2.1 or a 2.2 or whatever -- and to feel comfortable with that explanation? To put it another way, "classing" (explained here for those unfamiliar with this system)  candidates cannot possibly be fair if the classers themselves don't believe in the results.

That is not to say that the whole process is without its rough edges. There are candidates who do badly on the day because of all kinds of unpredictable and unfair reasons (row with girlfriend, toothache etc). And it is not to say that there might not be all kinds of other ways of assessing university achievement (some of which we already use, side by side with sit-down exams... dissertations, portfolios of essays etc). but -- the bottom line at the final stage -- the examiners' job is to assess and grade the results in front of them fairly.

In my experience, we do this as well as is humanly possible within the constraints of the system -- and it is  time-consuming.

How do we do it?

I blogged last year about using both alphabetical and numerical marks. But the nuances in our system don't stop there.

The key is to have principles and criteria, not rules. It's a key, in my view, that might have an application for other areas of life ( isn't part of the problem about MPs expenses that it has got fixated on universal applicable rules, rather the principles of what is reasonable  . . .).

The Roman Mysteries -- on DVD

A few years ago I was the consultant to a series of BBC drama documentaries which were filmed in Tunisia. One of the perks I got (but not a free one, I hasten to add) was a visit to the set -- Empire Studios-- at which the programmes were made. This is a 'rebuilt' Roman town, near Hammamet, and was launched by Tunisian film mogul, and friend I am told of Berlusconi, Tarak Bem Ammar.

It is carefully advertised as having a non-unionised work force, not just the crew, but also the talent.Though it is hard not to sniff a whiff of eurocentrism in the following note:

"Tunisia offers mainly Arab/Berber looking talent. There is also an expat community offering European and African looks suitable mainly for background roles. All other talent needs to be brought in from abroad.

No model or acting agencies exist so street casting is used to scout local talent."

All the same (OK a bit awkward, I admit), it was a tremendous place -- including a brilliantly reconstructed forum, at which all buildings were a bit out of line to allow the cameras to get in.

By the time I actually got to Tunisia with the husband, they had well finished filming my stuff, and were towards the end of filming a series of Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries -- Roman thrillers for kids.

 I hadn't then actually read any of the Roman Mysteries (an omission now rectified), but I remembered Caroline from when we were students at Newnham together. And I was curious to see how she worked a hugely successful version of the Roman world for the under 15s. (The answer is extremely well -- and, as I reported in this blog a year or so ago, she won the Classical Association Prize for a significant contribution to the public understanding of classics in 2009. Richly deserved.

Anyway, I have just got my hands on the dvds of the complete series (the ones largely filmed at Hammamet) . . .

Kings Cross to Cambridge: how nasty can a journey get?

I am afraid that this post will have most to say to those who travel by train between Kings Cross and Cambridge; but I suspect that my story will resonate with most other people who use London commuter  lines.

OK, first off Kings Cross -- and, I guess, a minor quibble. The underground station there serves both Kings Cross and St Pancras (now the Eurostar terminal). Until a few months ago, if you came into Kings Cross on the mainline train you went straight down to the tube -- and, within a minute or two, to whichever line (Northern, Circle, Piccadilly, Hammersmith and City) you fancied. The Eurostar-driven redevelopment of the station means that anyone wanting to get to (say) the Northern line from Kings Cross mainline station has now to walk through a labyrinthine series of passages by a circuitous route which seems to take you over to St Pancras, and then back to the relevant tube platform (10 minutes, briskly) -- even though you know the trains go from just underneath where you started out.

If anyone's worked out how to avoid this marathon, do let us know. I am sure there are some short cuts if you ignore al the forbidding notices saying "No entry to the Northern Line" or whatever (I think this means that there IS an entry to the Northern line this way, but we dont want you to use it.)

But the main whinge of this post (which is unashamedly a whinge) is the misery of the mainline train service, from Cambridge to London.

Should May Balls be banned?

Every year the local Cambridge paper runs a story about local residents complaining about May Balls --  the conspicuous consumption, the binge drinking and, most of all, the noise. May Balls were presumably (like most other things in Cambridge) a nineteenth-century invention, though they now come in various more or less politically correct forms.... those where you can buy a single ticket, for example, or those that call themselves a  "June Event" not a "May Ball".

But the basic principle remains the same. A lot to drink, a lot of noise, and a very late (or alternatively 'early') finish.

The campaign against this style of jollification has been led this year by the esteemed Professor of Palaeography at King's College London (who happens to live in Cambridge -- who would like all May Balls to end by 1.00 am).

There are some arguments against May Balls. Sure, this is after the end of our students' exams -- but there are still school students struggling with GCSEs etc. Why should they be kept awake by the uni students having fun? And it is also true that the DJ style (as pictured above) doesn't do much for out non-socially-elitist image.

But hang on. Can't the middle aged get a bit too curmudgeonly about the whole thing?

Should universities teach better?

In the 1980s, my clever friends who had gone into the Civil Service used to complain about the press they got. There they were, young people working 15 hours a day, trying to improve the conditions in prisons (or whatever); and there was Thatcher saying they were a load of expensive lay-abouts, and that they were a waste of space. My friends always said that, however much they had good arguments against that, the Thatcher rhetoric still got you down. It made you want to change your job.

Well, it isn't all that different in UK Universities right now.Mr Willetts is telling us that we should all teach better. As if we were all letting down our students with poor teaching. We are, in other words, doing badly. Or so the coalition says.  Really?

Summer bash at the Royal Academy

I am currently in the middle of examining and not covering myself with glory. I might have got a First when I was taking the damn things, but when it comes to exam administration I fear that I am in the running for a rather undistinguished 2.2. The less said about which the better.

So it felt as a bit of an undeserved reward last night to go to the Royal Academy's Annual Dinner, which happens just before the Summer Exhibition opens. It's one of those parties that you cross your fingers that you'll be still on the guest list next year (if anyone in the Academy is reading this, that is a hopelessly ill-disguised petitio benevolentiae).

Champagne flows in Trimalchian quantities (consumed in part by some of the very people who in public are telling us so fiercely to quit all this binge drinking), the food is not bad at all, and I've never sat next to anyone boring. Last night I fetched up, at one end of a table, between a Syrian cardiologist (could be useful), and pair of Academicians -- painter and sculptor -- and the Academy's Deputy Development Director. We had, as I recall, a great time, but the fug of champagne the morning after has rather blurred the precise topic of our conversation.

The point of the occasion, I should say, is not really to examine the exhibition in any detail. But I did find myself poring over one rather striking item.

Toga party (and figs) at the British Museum

I know that I am a Classicist rather than a real news hound, because I am too SLOW. Peter Stothard has already blogged, more than 24 hours ago, about the event I am about to share with the planet (or, rather, with such bits of the planet that choose to click on this site). Because yesterday was the hundredth birthday of the Roman Society - and we Classicists celebrated it by getting dressed up as Roman characters and parading in front of the British Museum.

I have spent all my adult life avoiding toga parties, but here I was in a skimpy red dress (thank god I've lost a bit of weight) pretending to be the empress Livia, to the accompaniment of a detachment of a recon Roman legion, plus Andrew Burnett (President of the Roman Society, Deputy Director of the British Museum and the emperor Vespasian for the day), Bettany Hughes (Classicist, television ancient historian  and the stunning Byzantine empress Theodora), Joanna Mackle of the BM, as the Barbarian resistance in the shape of Boudica, Jonathan Williams, head of Europe in the BM, as a splendid senator in shades, Lesley Fitton, head of Greek and Roman, as a feisty Roman matron -- and loads more.

Good fun, I'm afraid to say, was had by all.