Just back from travelling in the Scottish borders to find that Jean, Sam and Alice have kindly sent me a link to this story of Roman silver being discovered in Scotland. It's interesting that the experts think the silver is a bribe rather than a stash of plunder. The historian Cassius Dio tells us that … Continue reading Of Scotland and the price of peace
Wide-eyed in the Big City – visiting Roman London
Two trips to London since Christmas! Back in February I meant to do a blog post about seeing some of the Roman writing tablets found on the Bloomberg HQ site, but never quite got around to it. Besides, there were no pictures: perhaps to avoid fisticuffs around the display tables, it was a no-photography event. … Continue reading Wide-eyed in the Big City – visiting Roman London
Of high heels and trivia
I've been musing on Parkinson's Law. Not the famous one ("work expands to fill the time available") but another from the same book: Parkinson's Law of Triviality. "The time spent on any item on the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved." (If you're wondering what this has to do with high … Continue reading Of high heels and trivia
Badly dressed for the Bard
Big thanks to Fiona and the staff at the lovely Walter Henry’s bookshop in Bideford, who marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on Saturday with tea and cake and fine hospitality. The collective noun for a gathering of local readers, writers and historians should probably be ‘a gossip’ but we fell respectfully silent to … Continue reading Badly dressed for the Bard
Halloween: Strange goings-on at Downie Towers
“The Britain of today,” asserted Pliny back in the first century, “performs the rites of magic in manic fashion.” Given the piles of plastic Halloween tat in the shops here, it’s hard to see that much has changed. I’m normally as cynical as Pliny about this sort of thing, but at four o’clock this morning, … Continue reading Halloween: Strange goings-on at Downie Towers
The library of illegible books
Big news in recent weeks, as Ruso and Tilla have mentioned on their Facebook page. (They must be reading my mind.) It now seems someone's found a way to read the charcoal ink on the scrolls that were burned to a crisp by Vesuvius almost 2000 years ago. There really is a chance that Herculaneum's … Continue reading The library of illegible books
Writing – a spectator sport ?
A friend recently sent me this link to news of MASTERPIECE, a “reality show for writers” soon to be broadcast on Italian television. I read the article with mounting amazement, wondering, who on earth would go in for something like that? And then I remembered. It started with a conversation over the wine and peanuts … Continue reading Writing – a spectator sport ?
Meanwhile…
While I'm busy talking, two friends will be sending their new books out into the world this month. Good luck to Rebecca Alexander, whose debut THE SECRETS OF LIFE AND DEATH has just been launched by Del Rey. My copy hasn't arrived yet but I've read some of the early chapters of the book that … Continue reading Meanwhile…
Ham Hill
To my shame, I knew next to nothing about Ham Hill until it appeared on the news a couple of weeks ago. Turns out it's by far the biggest Hill Fort in the country, and it's day-trip distance from our house. So last week, prompted by this link sent by a couple of kind readers, … Continue reading Ham Hill
Fiction and Fakery
I was going to start this post with the Goebbels quote, "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed." Unfortunately it turns out that Goebbels probably never said it. According to this site, what he actually said was, "The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick … Continue reading Fiction and Fakery
Ruth Downie 