The season of partying has begun! Io Saturnalia! ...although to be honest I’ve never been terribly confident about social occasions. Nothing illustrates my lack of prowess so well as the time I turned up to a party to find the hostess still in her dressing-gown with a towel around her hair. And that was in … Continue reading Coping with the party season, Roman-style
Jersey – plus ça change…
i've just been enjoying a few days in Jersey, an island which turns out to have hung onto some fine traditions of the past: 1. Stashing cash: The biggest hoard of Celtic coins in the world was found in Jersey in 2012 - and that's the ninth hoard from the Late Iron Age that's come … Continue reading Jersey – plus ça change…
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
A long way from Rome
Apologies for the blog silence. I've been travelling beyond the farthest reaches of the Empire. At least, that's what I thought, but one of the displays in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (which is well worth a visit if you're passing that way) was eerily familiar. "That," I cried to Longsuffering Husband, who thought he'd … Continue reading A long way from Rome
VITA BREVIS is (almost) out in the UK!
At last! The hardback of VITA BREVIS, the story of Ruso and Tilla's trip to Rome, goes on sale in the UK tomorrow (22 September). You can read the beginning here. This publication is less nerve-wracking than usual because the book's already been released in the US and in other formats here, and I'm grateful to … Continue reading VITA BREVIS is (almost) out in the UK!
How to pick a winner
Here in the Disunited Kingdom one of the latest squabbles over who's going to be Prime Minister centres on whether one candidate might have said she’d be better at the job than her rival because she has children. People are rightly asking why this is relevant, while the candidate who’s alleged to have said it … Continue reading How to pick a winner
Ruth Downie 