Glory

WIDLS Introduction

January 26, 2009

We interrupt TID (Things I’ve Done) to bring you WIDLS (What I Did Last Sunday). TID is mostly ancient history. WIDLS is all Ancient History. I was lucky enough to be able to join Professor Jan Gadeyne and the undergraduates of Temple University, Rome, for a walk around the Aurelian walls of Rome. We started [...]

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Scenes from Roman Life 17

January 24, 2009

We went into a very local neighbourhood restaurant down in Trastevere, a Mom & Pop place, where Mom was a surprisingly apple-cheeked dame bustling around the tables in a colourful tomato-themed pinafore. In one corner — their corner — was a table of older gents; dapper, joshing one another, joshing Mom and her daughter the [...]

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No no god buses in Genoa

January 19, 2009

“It’s strange that in a country where ads depicting near-naked women wearing skimpy lingerie is permitted on buses that we can’t run ads about atheism,” Villella said. That’s actually one of the least strange things about this country.

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Cats and vegetation: a tale of two centuries

January 14, 2009

Exhibit A, from The Origin of Species, by C.R. Darwin, 1st edition, 1859, pp73-4: I am tempted to give one more instance showing how plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations. …  The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree [...]

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All hail the Nature subs

September 23, 2008

Or maybe it was Daniel Cressey hisself? No idea whether Nature’s story adds anything to what we already  know, and I don’t care.

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My canna

September 21, 2008

Six years ago now, I collected seeds from a nice enough red canna growing at my last apartment but one. I sowed some the following year, and they sprouted, which was satisfactory enough. Then I moved, and took just three plants — an orange, a lemon and a Brugmannsia — with me. The cannas, young [...]

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For friends

September 16, 2008

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war. From Federer as Religious Experience, by David Foster Wallace, which I would like to dedicate, posthumously, to DFW and my friend Dudley Doust. P.S. Dept. [...]

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Ill-equipped for walkies

July 21, 2008

It was going to be just an ordinary Sunday morning walk, but we were planning on about double the normal distance because our appointment for coffee was an hour away. The air was wonderfully fresh, a fine contrast to the night before’s heat which had mired me in lethargy. The streets were just about empty [...]

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Impatience rewarded too

June 27, 2008

Longtime readers will know that I am a patient gardener. Not for me the flashy allure of a large pot of instant floral gratification. I like to sow seeds, wait for them to emerge, pot them on, savour the passing time and the growth of the plant towards its final destiny. But even I suffer [...]

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Scenes from Roman Life 13

June 5, 2008

It had been a long, besuited day. I escaped and, being downtown already, wandered off in search of amusement. And then, as I was walking down towards the Piazza di Sant’Ignazio, I heard music. Not standard street-busker fare, but something nostalgic, something essentially English. A brass band. Playing show tunes. right in front of the [...]

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A boundary-appropriate workshop and social event …

May 12, 2008

Seldom have I been so keen to rush home and Google something. We were on a weekend jaunt away, and what with one thing and another found ourselves driving between Sansepolcro and Arezzo with a Los Angelena in the back seat. We were giving her a ride to the station, and exposing her to a [...]

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Who is that guy?

May 11, 2008

Sat in front of Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection, in a beautiful, spare space, I’m struck by the absolute directness of the gaze. He is looking straight at you, with no sign of having suffered except a minor piercing. “Oh, that? A flesh wound.” Then there is the casual drape of his left hand over this [...]

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Which way?

March 30, 2008

“We’ll be leaving in a moment. Especially if you can tell me the route.” I thought the bus driver was joking, an attempt to break the ice with his sole passenger early on Sunday morning. But no. He hesitated at a crossroads. “Turn left,” I yelled. More people were getting on, and when he attempted [...]

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How it started

March 29, 2008

There’s a struggle each morning. Walkers and cars, each trying to dominate the other. It probably started when Romulus told Remus not to jump over his wall. “Stuff that, I’ll jump over anything I like.” “Right. Then I’ll have to kill you.” There’s just no respect. Divers disrespect pedestrians. Pedestrians disrepect drivers. The result really [...]

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Unexpected pleasures

March 23, 2008

It has been windy and raining for three days, on and off, mostly on. We went to a friend in the countryside and spent the time indoors reading by the fire. Last night, in a momentary break, I took the dog out, and my jaw dropped. Big black clouds were sailing in stately manner past [...]

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Nun the wiser

March 14, 2008

The next time it happened, I wasn’t quite so surprised. It had been a Thursday. Now it was Tuesday. Roughly the same time, and there they were again; veils flapping, anoraks, running down the street. Theories began to form. Same time. Every day? Or every other day? No information on that one. Probably not late [...]

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What is that thing called?

March 14, 2008

In the course of my previous couple of posts I faced a huge mystery. Google “what is the proper name for a nun’s headdress” and you won’t be much the wiser. At least, unlike Robert Browning, I know that it isn’t a twat. “Veil” is the best I could come up, thanks to the OED [...]

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Cool running

March 13, 2008

The first time it happened I was unprepared. We were out walking early, me and the dog, when she came up behind us silent as a submarine. Then she was past, veil flapping softly. Not dressed athletically. Aside from the veil, the regulation dark anorak, blue skirt, black socks, black tights. (They couldn’t possibly be [...]

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I love scholarship

January 24, 2008

Not that I am in any position to judge, but it seems like another myth about Roman history has bitten the dust. The giant sundial known as the Horologium Augusti, out there by the Ara Pacis, is not a sundial at all. It’s a meridian. A what? Go read the whole post at Archaeoastronomy.

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Scenes from Roman life 10

December 19, 2007

Saturday night, on the town. An early movie, then a stroll through the centre of the city to an English pub where a friend’s band is to play later that night. Much later, it turns out. They are scheduled for 9.30, which suggests 10.30 will be nearer the mark. It is only 7.30. Normally it’d [...]

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Winter

October 25, 2007

Down by the river yesterday morning something in the sky caught my eye. This was not easy, because my eye was fixed firmly on the ground to avoid the shit, needles and other detritus of the raggle-taggle life. I glanced up to see two skeins of geese arrowing fast towards me. I whipped out the [...]

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Over-excited

July 3, 2007

This just in, thanks to Rob.

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Self Critical Mass

June 30, 2007

This is odd. Last night I went on the Critical Mass Rome bike ride again, and it was a very pleasant, sedate affair. We pedaled slowly along the Lungotevere and up the via Cavour (and elsewhere) notably to give people on motorized two-wheelers a hard time. Anyway, I was going to contrast it with last [...]

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Great Art

June 25, 2007

Down by the river this morning, a faint sweet whiff of aerosol spray paint alerted me that the Great Artist had been in action. Two pieces on the embankment. In the first, see below, a new twist on an old theme: To one side, in Italian, obviously: Il cane é il migliore amico della donna. [...]

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