Comments on: House of Lords

By: shagger

shagger — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:44:38 +0000

“and is frankly a god amongst men.”

as Boris is, frankly, a god amongst women.

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By: David

David — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:46:24 +0000

The Dream of Rome gets quite a good review in the Spectator this week from Jasper Griffin. He taught Boris at Oxford, and is frankly a god amongst men.

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By: Jack Ramsey

Jack Ramsey — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:29:16 +0000

I understand that modern history at Oxford starts with the Roman invasion of the British Isles. Quite right too!

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By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 06:23:58 +0000

I did know. As far as I can tell, it’s fine to be snide on this blog as long as you do it either amusingly or with such erudition that there’s no chance dumb people have a clue what you’re talking about.

God, I hope I’m right about that (she says, looking nervously around).

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By: David

David — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 04:00:41 +0000

Sorry, that sounded snide; I didn’t mean it to be. I assume you know, but on the off chance you don’t, and for others’ erudition, “Greats” is the name given to the second part of the classics course at Oxford. It comes from its official title of Literae Humaniores. By and large the course is split in to three areas: Latin and Greek Literature; Ancient History; Ancient and Modern Philosophy. While some people do take papers from all three strands, most focus on two, and until recently that focus was enforced. In case it’s of any interest Boris focused on literature and history. Most people do.

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By: David

David — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:51:50 +0000

Yes. Hilarious.

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By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 07:45:16 +0000

Is Ancient History for Greats the UK response to the Americans’ Ancient History for Dummies?

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By: David

David — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 00:35:59 +0000

bill murray: “Vicus Scurra – you forget that the MP for Henley is regularly touted as an intellectual. Indeed, the puff for his recent book on Rome makes great play of this. But where is the original scholarly research there? There’s none whatsoever. The only thing that lifts it beyond yet another basic intro to the Romans – its ‘research’ taken from secondary sources – is the tie-in to the EU: and in terms of scholarship that has all the depth of a punt on the Cherwell…”

Actually I thought that the whole point of the book was to address a modern lack of enthusiasm to the EU by recourse to an historical exemplar. As such no new research is needed.

Whatever else he can be accused of, Boris has never given himself airs and wears his learning lightly. As it happens I think he’s phenomenally right, but he himself makes no claim to this.

I can’t really comment on his thesis – I dropped Ancient History for Greats – but I know that he consulted a number of fairly brilliant people when writing the book, and so if all it is is “yet another basic intro to the Romans”, at least it’ll be a pretty accurate and entertaining one.

I share Boris’ belief that one of the tragedies of the age is the slow death of the classics. While he was at the Spectator he instituted the “Classics Cup” to encourage composition, and in writing this book has introduced God knows how many people to elements of Roman culture and history that they would have remained in ignorance of otherwise. He’s been nothing but good for Classics – I’m sure his example has inspired some to pursue the subject.

Is he a profound scholar? Well no, but no one can be without devoting a sizeable part of their life to the subject. The last really good classical scholar in the Commons was Robert Jackson, and while a decent scholar he was a crap MP. I don’t think Boris is a lesser man for having failed to address seriously the surviving fragments of the great Greek lyricists.

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By: PaulD

PaulD — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:19:51 +0000

Been away for a while and rather lost track of things Bozzish. So two questions:

On topic: What did hereditary peers do wrong, apart from being hereditary peers?

Off topic: What is Gordon going to do when he’s taking 100% of our earnings in tax and is still short of money?

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By: Steven L

Steven L — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:30:53 +0000

‘Banning fox hunting was really just revenge – banning fun which largely consisted of galloping around, jumping over hedges, often without killing any fox at all (which said foxes would anyway get just as nastily killed by poisoning or shooting). The fox hunting ban was intended to hurt and punish fox hunters, not save foxes’
(Idlex)

Wasn’t this an original 1997 New Labour manifesto pledge? They pledged this to win votes, not amongst the small minority of eco-warriors who probably never vote anyway, but amongst ordinary people.

Why was there so much support? The green-eyed monster! People who hunt foxes have nicer houses, nicer cars and talk posher than most (or so we believe).

Personally I’d like to ban ‘Smoked-Salmon Socialism’ and hunt down those that practice this hypocritical belief.

The hunters would ride on the back of small motorcycles, armed with water bombs.

Entertainment would take place at the weekends. The Smoked-Salmon Socialists would be identified by ’spotters’ waiting in Waitrose car parks and other suitable locations, looking for people wearing sandals and carrying bags of ‘fair-trade’ bananas back to their Ford Fiesta’s.

There would be a closed season from the last week of April to the Third week in September. This would allow the Smoked-Salmon Socialists time to retreat to their holiday villas on the Spanish Costa’s and allow me to play some cricket on a Saturday afternoon during the warmer months, when no-one really minds being hit by a water bomb anyway.

Just a thought, maybe I should get on with my uni work.

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