Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Oxford. hæc comice dicta cave ne male capias.
Joined March 2017
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2 Feb 2025
The first temple of Apollo at Delphi was made of branches of laurel; the second of beeswax and feathers; the third of bronze, and was destroyed by the gods when the sweetness of the singing made people forget who they are
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Jun 12
Tusculans OCT now out, complete with 90-page critical commentary. Big day for Ciceronians
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Jun 12
Disestablishment now
A prayer for the World Cup 2026. ⚽
ALT A prayer for the World Cup God of glory, as the world gathers to celebrate the beautiful game, we pray for a harmonious and joyous World Cup. Bring safety and security for players and officials on the pitch, fans in the stands, and spectators at home. May we see and celebrate the hand of God in the creativity of every curving free kick, silky pass or impossible save. May we have compassion and perspective on the miskicks, missed penalties, and muddled VARs. Every winning team needs a losing team – even if you were the better team. Let the journey to World Cup glory be not only for the nation that wins. May we see something more of the world you want us to be: a gathering of every nation and people who share your glory. Amen.
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Most I’ve laughed at a CourtNewsUK tweet in over a decade
Jun 11
Judge advises professional burglar Glen Banks to try a different career after he left a photograph of himself at the scene. 'You're no good at it,' the judge tells him. courtnewsuk.co.uk/burglar-le…
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Barnaby Taylor retweeted
Out now! Kelly’s Homer: Iliad Book XXIII | An up-to-date commentary aimed at undergraduates and graduate students, focusing on language, meter, style, and literary interpretation.
Find out more: ☑️ cup.org/48uuUd3
#classicstwitter
ALT Cover image of the book titled 'Homer: Iliad Book XXIII', by Adrian Kelly.
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On the same theme I think this is the novel (or trilogy of novels) I've most thoroughly enjoyed reading this year. Completely gripping, full of atmosphere, funny, painfully sharp and realistic about people
Loved this. Reliable rule of reading fiction is that every time you pick up a book by a mid twentieth century British woman novelist it will turn out to be a banger. I think that era is of the under-appreciated peaks of the history of the novel.
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May 20
making me pay $60 for an OCT only to discover it’s a print to order should be punishable by public flaying
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May 20
So good so good so good. Worth dropping everything to read it. lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n23/…
May 19
It's so great. Begun in 1959, I believe still working on it at the time of his death in 2011. Published adapted sections of the Iliad, didn't know Greek, worked from other translations. And the titles! "All Day Permanent Red" so great.
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May 16
“This is one of the deep motives for literature, or for art of any sort: that one is defeating the formlessness of the world. One is cheering oneself up [and] instructing oneself by giving a form to something that is, perhaps, alarmingly formless.”
—Iris Murdoch on literature
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May 14
In Britain, supporting the British economy is illegal
May 12
Adverts encouraging people to back British farmers by buying beef and milk are banned after eco campaigner Chris Packham complains to watchdog trib.al/jovpqiE
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Barnaby Taylor retweeted
Join us today as Professor Christopher Peacocke, Exeter College alumnus and Honorary Fellow, explores how music expresses emotion and why it holds such distinctive power as an artform.
🗓 Today | 🕕 6.00pm
📍 Fitzhugh Auditorium, Cohen Quad
🎟 All are welcome
ALT Close-up of a violin with event details for a lecture titled 'Understanding Music' by Professor Christopher Peacocke at Exeter College, Oxford.
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May 10
reading Plato for the first time and i'm dying laughing cause whenever someone is all, "Socrates, what is justice?" he starts saying shit like, "is a horse not a horse?" or "what's bigger, a city or a man?" and then the guy he's talking to is like "oh fuuuck🤯"
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Look at Comrade Wordsworth over here.
May 7
Happy birthday Michael Rosen,
In the face of injustice, never frozen.
A man of peace, a man of history.
An international man of mystery!
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Eleanor Crook’s rather astounding memorial to the late Queen, in the Palace of Westminster.
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Only 9% of people in prison have 5 GCSEs and only 2% have passed 2 A levels. About 2/3 of adults in prison are functionally illiterate.
Academic attainment is one of the most powerful protective factors.
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Reading Petrarch’s bonkers 12th Eclogue, in which the dastardly Edward III (‘Arthicus’) spots Philip of Valois (‘Pan’) sleeping under a tree, and hatches a not-so-subtle plan to smash his head in. Thence the Hundred Years’ War.
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There are provincial museums full of Victorian tea sets covered in hand-painted, simpering field mice in smocks and bonnets which are less kitsch and played out than this.
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Pour a big one for all the lads who have spent the last 24 hours furiously arguing that Polanski had a point
May 1
NEW: Zack Polanski apologises
‘Everyone in leadership has a responsibility for lowering the temperature at a time of such tension, and I apologise for sharing a tweet in haste. Police responses to emergency situations such as these do need later reflection in the right forums, but I accept that social media is not the appropriate channel for doing so. I have invited Mark Rowley to meet with me to discuss the police response and the wider issues raised in his letter.’
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Apr 24
When you stop and think about it, assisted dying's a bit like salted caramel ice cream or shuffle dancing, because they're choices, too. Or Lynx Africa body spray - use it, don't use it, nobody else's business.
Kim Leadbeater MP has just likened the legalisation of assisted dying to legalising gay marriage
On Sky News: 'It is a choice, it's a bit like gay marriage isn't it? Marry who you want to marry, love who you want to love. It's nothing to do with anybody else'
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Apr 24
garlic
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Apr 23
Most poignant thing about the NYT interview is everyone involved is well past their 20s and is desperately trying to tirangulate their opinions on kindergarten-level moral questions so as to not run afoul of the most sociopathic 20-year-old leftists on social media
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