A Don’s Life

Mr "Hot Sex": the full story

One of the real stars of "Meet the Romans" has been the innkeeper Lucius Calidius Eroticus ("Mr Hot Sex") along with his wife, Fannia Voluptas ("Madame Gorgeous"). We took a quick look at their tombstone.. and wondered about what the names (trade names, pretty obviously) said about ancient pub culture.

We didn't have time to look at the rest of the stone, which has more to tell of story. You can see the whole thing at the top. At the bottom, there is a little sculptured scene of a man with a mule (or whatever... small equid). He's dressed in a travellers cloak with a hood, and he's handing over cash to a man on the left, who's presumably Eroticus.

And between the names at the top and the picture at the bottom, there is a little dialogue of 'life in the bar'. A customer (the guy in the cloak) is settling his bill. It goes like this . . .

Meet the Romans, AA Gill and life's little ironies

Sorry that I have been a bit off radar these last few days, but I have been a bit swamped in Gill-gate. I've had my say on that, and dont need to go on about it any more. But as always there are some behind the scenes ironies, which I thought it would be fun to share.

First, the Dream School connection. I was sitting at home a couple of nights ago and the phone went. It was one of the kids from Dream School (who's now gone on to college)... he and another Dream Schooler had seen the Gill piece and wanted to check that I was OK. Think about it. On tv they sometimes looked like a bunch of tearaways.. but over a year later, they're still look out for their old Latin teacher!

Then, there was the point made to me by one of my colleagues who had taken part in Meet the Romans. I cant understand, he said, why they are saying you didnt brush your hair. I was there with you at Pompeii and the hairbrush was always coming out of the bag  . . .

Is podcasting lectures a good idea?

On the face of it, yes of course! It opens up what is being said, and the discussion, to anyone anywhere in the world. It's freedom of knowledge and information etc etc, and one of the real benefits of the internet.

And people have asked whether the conference I'm currently attending in New York (on new directions in ancient history) is being podcast or posted on the web. Answer: no. For good reasons, I think.

It's meant to be a free and frank discussion of where people think ancient history is -- or should be -- going (and I've already been rather too frank for comfort, I'm afraid). And the organisers felt that it would dampen the discussion if a record of it was preserved for posterity, and in fact there to haunt the poor speakers ten years later when they might have changed their minds anyway ("But in 2012, you said....")

TV and Twitter

20 years ago making a tv programme, at least at the final stages, must have been very different. The night the programme was shown you'd be sitting on your own at home, hoping people would like it. But the only way you'd actually know what they made of it -- reviews apart -- was when a few phone calls came, or when days later the letters of praise or blame came through the letter box.

It can't have been all that different 10 years ago, though email must have made the responses come a bit speedier.

Now you find out what people are thinking of it as the programme's still on, because they tweet instant reactions from their mobile phones. Which makes it all rather more of a shared experience. And I decided last night (which was D Day for my Meet the Romans) a good deal more fun.

And I'm not just saying that because most of the comments were extremely positive (though -- be  honest, Beard --  that was of course nice).

Exeter University .... SUCCESS, AMBITION, ENERGY & the Class. Ass.

I am just this minute back from the annual Classical Association conference in Exeter -- where, as I was reminded almost as soon as I walked in, the conference had last been in 1994. I ought to have been etched in the memory as I did a double act at that conference with Peter Wiseman, discussing his theories about theatricality in Roman culture. I was a pretty junior squit in those days and I recall that, after I had had my say, some elderly gent in the audience got up and asked me how I had the temerity to question the accuracy of some of the Prof's footnotes. The Prof kindly rescued me by saying that maybe some of his footnotes were susceptible to questioning....

I also remember that I only just made it to the debate at all, as it was the day that the son had (then very fashionable) grommets put in his ears. I waited till he had woken up for the anaesthetic, was clearly alive, and then jumped into a train that made it with a few minutes to spare (all the journey wondering if I really did have my priorities quite right).

Anyway the campus at Exeter hasn't changed much in the 18 years and still has those fantastic views. The only blot on the landscape are the motivational banners festooned around the place, saying things like SUCCESS, AMBITION, ENERGY etc etc. And the entrance to the campus was marked by a notice saying "Creating a world-class University together". It wasn't exactly clear who these were meant FOR. were they aimed at the students (you're late with your essay, and are then spurred into action by that word SUCCESS). Or were they to impress the outsiders and donors (in which case the implication that the Uni of Exeter is not already a "world-class University" seems ill-advised... And why the emphasis on "together"? Has anyone ever supposed that world class universities are one-(wo)man operations?).

What always puzzles me about things like this is how anyone manages to go through with the scheme of actually putting them up. I can see how it can seem quite a clever idea down the pub one night. But when you get into the office the next morning and start writing down your list of words, and getting a quote from the local banner maker.... well, doesn't the inner "delete button" come into action? And, besides, how can you possibly hang them round your campus, without knowing that one day you're going to have to take them down? And what would that say about your commitment to all those thrusting virtues? ("What are you doing today Doug?" "Taking the SUCCESS banner down?")

Certainly, the damn banners weren't responsible for the SUCCESS, ENERGY, and AMBITION of the Class Ass conference. For which congratulations all round to the organisers for a really great job.

Mugging up on Moses Finley

I'm suffering right now from a nasty case of "too much to do" syndrome. I'm sure your know it well (just swap your own particular obligations for mine).

At the top of the list are five new conference/public lectures to be written by the end of June. In no particular order: 2 lectures on different aspects of the Olympic Games (one ancient, one modern); a lecture on some aspect of Roman inscriptions in the nineteenth century; a conference paper on Moses Finley's journalism; and the lecture on Roman laughter . . . in French.

 So I have spent the last couple of days, trying to get my head round this rather pressing list, trying to work out which one is MOST pressing ... amazing how long you can spend adjusting the order in your head (Ok, I've done a lot on laughter, so that should be under control... but it IS in FRENCH.. and so on).

I've even taken the plunge and done a bit of actual work on one of the list, only to find that after an hour or so I was beginning to worry more about one of the ones I had relegated to lower down the list. And so on, and on.

Tonight, I've tried to get a bit more of a grip. For one reason only, I've vowed to get on with Finley. The reason is simply that I have a date next week with a friend who knew him, and his writing, well (indeed commissioned a good deal of it) -- and that will be a waste of time if I haven't done my homework. So wish me, and my resolve, good luck.

But why a paper on Finley anyway?

"All in a Don's Day" and "Meet the Romans"

Today is the day that All In a Don's Day -- the new selection of posts from this blog, plus an enlivening selection of comments -- is published. Publishing dates don't mean very much any more, so far as I can see. It's hardly as if the wraps suddenly come off the book on a single day; in fact there have been some Don's Days on sale in my local bookshop for a while, "published" or not.

All the same, it's the symbolic moment, so please raise a glass to us all. (I'm stopping Lenten abstinence a couple of days early to do just that!) And I hope that some people will buy it too. A  nice little book is still a handier thing to dip into than a laptop (or a Kindle), and I can promise some good classical stories in the new collection, plus some real life glimspes into the University business. (I think Peter Carson, who first had the idea of publishing these blog books, is particularly keen on the behind the scenes description of how actually people go about marking exams, and more to the point how they read all that damn illegible handwriting . . . a mystery elucidated, he felt.)

Sorry, advert over -- but if you are around Cambridge on 17 April come along to Heffers at 6.30 to toast the book and mingle, plus a short chat from me, I'm afraid. All free, but you need a ticket. Details, if you scroll down here.

As chance would have it (and it really was chance) that's the day (17 April) that my new tv mini series on the Romans (Meet the Romans) has its first episode, at 9.00 on BBC2 (so no carousing too late at Heffers, please!). There are three parts in the series.. and each one is going to look at different aspects of life for ORDINARY ancient Romans, from the child brides to the pushy parents, the hairdressers to the ancient equivalent of the ASBO boys.

I have to say that it's a weird feeling, when you've made a programme, and you're waiting for it to be shown (not on original analogy I'm sure, but it's a bit like the last weeks of pregnancy). And it's oddly similar to, AND different from, that limbo period with a book.

Gove's "new" A' level scheme?

Now we shouldn't make too much of this as yet. So far, all that's happened is that Michael Gove has sent a letter to "Ofqual" suggesting (according to the reports) that Russell Group Universities should be involved in devising A' level courses. But it's caused a lot of talk... and a good deal of that is not quite hitting the nail on the head.

Ok. I've only heard the reports that have been on the radio etc, and I'm only speaking for myself here... but this is how it seems to me.

First, as Wendy Piatt, the chief of the Russell Group, said on Newsnight last night, there isnt exactly a crisis in A' levels. But it's certainly true that you will hear a lot of academics complain about the gap between what is expected in the sixth form and what we expect at uni. One very strong line in arts subjects (and no doubt a bit of a nostalgic one) is that new students have very little experience of independent working. They are so used to "being taught" that they dont really know what it is to "learn", and how some of that learning must happen on your own. And they do tend to have a bit of a tick box culture to the whole process. What criteria must I fulfil in order to get a First?

But quite whether these, as yet very vague, proposals are going to hit that spot, who knows. But a lot of myths have already been spread in less than 24 hours discussion on this.

First: the idea that currently university academics have nothing to do with A' level courses. Well I don't know how it is in other subjects, but on and off throughout my University career (and that is over 30 years now), I have been consulted by exam boards and (along with school teachers and others) I have advised on course content etc. Indeed some of the current classical A' levels were originally devised by groups including a good number of academics. (One of M. I Finley's greatest legacies was the work he did with A' levels -- and that tradition of involvement still continues.)

Second: the idea that this is really a matter of curriculum content.

Maybe in some subjects it is (there was some discussion last night of whether calculus should be in or out). But, for me, it isn't the content that is the problem.

What kind of 'friends' should a Prime Minister have to dinner?

I'm not a great fan (to say the least) of the soft skinned millionaires who seem to make up a good proportion of the cabinet. And, true or not, the idea that Peter Cruddas could have even implied that he was able to broker a "cash for dinner with the prime minister" deal seems to me somewhere between outrageous, pathetic and grubbily laughable.

But who do we think that David Cameron and his family should hang out with? If not those who have paid to share a "kitchen supper", then who?  Well, we dont like much like it when they are his rich "real friends" -- no less rich, for the most part, than the "cash for dinner" people, but not actually having bought the meal ticket.

We don't like that much more than the supposed Cruddas contacts, because we know that who you spend time with (or who your kids or your wife spend time with) inevitably -- even if indirectly --  influence the way you think,  what you deem important, and how your priorities are weighed up. If you mix with the toffs, you'll think with the toffs -- so the logic goes.

We could, I guess, have a lottery to send some randomly selected citizens round to the Camerons to play with the kids and share the pasta with Dave and Sam, a kind of social focus group. But more often than not we tend to talk as if the Prime Minister and the cabinet colleagues would be better off if they didn't have any friends at all. They would solve the problem of undue influence at a stroke.

At that point, of course, the objections would pour in from the other side. How could the Prime Minister know what is going on in the country for the rest of us, if he's completely cut off from the real world etc.