Dream of Rome Book
And here is the book
THE DREAM OF ROME
by Boris Johnson
Pub date: 6/2/06
Price £18.99
Format: Hardback
234x153mm
288pp
ISBN: 0-00-722441-9
Get it at the Amazon bookstore for under £12!
Also available at the Sunday Times Books First price of £17.09 on 0870 165 8585
Focusing on how the Romans made Europe work as a homogenous civilisation and looking at why we are failing to make the EU work in modern times, this is an authoritative and amusing study from bestselling author Boris Johnson.
In addition to his roles as politician, editor, author and television presenter, Boris Johnson is a passionate Roman scholar. A new television series, airing in March 2005, will see him travelling throughout the Roman Empire in order to uncover the secrets of the governance of the empire, and the reasons behind why the Romans held such power and prestige for so long.
Fiercely interested in Europe and the current issues facing the European Union, Boris Johnson will look at the lessons we could learn from the Romans and how we could apply them to our modern politics. This illustrated book, full of witty descriptions, insight, politics, and more than a few jokes, will accompany the television series.
HarperCollins £18.99 pp288
History: The Dream of Rome by Boris Johnson
REVIEWED BY GODFREY SMITH
What the Romans did for him
When Enoch Powell made his notorious speech in 1968 foreseeing the river Tiber foaming with blood, he caused outrage in liberal hearts. Not only had he warned of an unthinkable catastrophe that could arise from unbridled immigration, but he had done it by quoting a Roman poet writing 2,000 years ago. This was simply not on. The days when politicians spouted epigrams from Virgil at each other went out, it was affirmed, with Gladstone. Latin was the secret code of the nobs, learnt the hard way in places such as Eton and long overthrown by a new world encapsulating their thoughts in good old vernacular English. And now, nearly 40 years on, here comes another politician not only writing a book on ancient Rome, but having the chutzpah to try and show us what we could learn from the Romans about making one Europe from a plethora of discordant parts.
What’s more, he makes a pretty good fist of it. Had he not already shown his paces in a clutch of métiers — MP, columnist, editor, television pundit and wit — he would have made an admirable Latin beak. He knows just how to keep his class on the edge of their seats with a hail of modern allusions. His metaphors glitter; his similes soar. He can grow quite lyrical when roused on his passion for Rome and the Romans. “It is the memory of a peaceful and united continent that is so appealing,” he enthuses. “It tolls to us across the ages, like the church bell of a sea-drowned village. It is like a memory of childhood bliss.” It was the Latin language that acted as cement to this arcadia, “with its quality of clicking together sweetly and unforgettably like perfectly dressed blocks of stone”.
In that dawn, then, ’twas bliss to be alive — but not always. Sometimes the natives were restless. The Germanic tribesmen, for example, whom the Romans thought they had subdued, were in the habit of emitting a bloodcurdling war whoop called the baritus. When they all did it together, it produced “a roaring noise like a chorus of Rolf Harris digeridoos”. They did it when they fell on Publius Quintilius Varus, toady, careerist and, as Johnson tells us, ” monumental cock-up artist”. The Romans lost three legions that day. PQV had no choice. He buried the handle of his sword in the ground, then ran up to it “with the determination of a Twickenham try-scorer and skewered himself through the guts”. When the emperor Augustus heard about it, he bashed his head against the wall and refused to shave for weeks. Again and again he moaned the name of his dim-witted chum. “Quintilius Varus,” he intoned, thudding the imperial bonce against the jamb, “give me back my legions.”
Despite the odd disaster like that, the Romans did a neat job of running the greatest empire the world has ever seen. The mastermind behind it was that same Augustus who had wept for his legions. Brilliant, subtle, complex, calculating, slight (he stood only 5ft 6in), he did it by legerdemain. He was emperor 41 years, and in the end he was god. His cult was taken so seriously that priests would have his face sewn on the tops of their cowls “just as the women of Malawi would have the face of Hastings Banda emblazoned on each buttock”. Johnson goes into the great Roman theatre at Orange in France, looks up at the proscenium “and there he is, arm aloft like Shane Warne doing his flipper, effulgent in marble and larger than life”. By the end of his reign, the head of the emperor was more pervasive than Mao’s in China. Sophisticated families had him in their dining rooms: “Imagine the frisson of horror if you went to dinner in Islington and looked up to see a marble rendition of Blair or Thatcher.” You’d think it was a joke; but to the Romans it was drop-dead serious.
Some passages (such as the steamy romance of Antony and Cleopatra) have been so expertly filleted by Shakespeare that they can seem over-familiar. Even here, Johnson is never dull; he goes to visit the spot at Actium where the doomed lovers “did some last-minute Taylor-Burton smooching before embarking”. He sees how hard it is for us to emulate Rome’s achievement in running 100m people spread over what are now 30 nation states “like a gigantic Moulinex”. He accepts that Europe will never recapture that huge and peaceable unity of races and nations “with the face ofevery citizen turned like a sunflower towards the political centre”. But he believes we are fated never to stop trying.
Exercises in likening then to now are invariably doomed to falter at the last hurdle. As Louis MacNeice, teaching the subtleties and ironies of Ancient Greece to students, concluded: “And how can one imagine oneself among them / I do not know / It was all so unimaginably different / And all so long ago.” Not so long as all that, though, nor so different, seen through the quick-silver mind of an entertainer such as Boris Johnson.
101 Comments
Idlex,
I have to agree with your observations. I was in Egypt last summer (I know I’m meant to be dead, but that enhances my ability to be here, there, and everywhere), and the concept of a triune deity certainly has Egyptian roots (Isis Horus and Seth being a principle one). There is also considerable theological evidence for the notion of ‘one true God’ being Egyptian, through the gradual emergence of the sun god Rah as supreme over other minor deities, which Moses, from his time in Egypt, adapted for the Israelites (there is clear Deuteronomic reference to minor deities, implying that Yahweh was chief among them).
You are right about the cult of Mary. The ‘conversion’ of Constantine resulted in the fusion of a religio-political movement, which became the Holy Roman Empire and the continuing Roman Catholic Church. Although the actual ‘divinity’ of Mary (as ‘Mother of God’)and her assumption into heaven are papal proclamations of the 1960s, the Marian legends are millennia old, and doubtless have roots in an equivalent of pagan Rome.
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O course there’s also Akhenaten’s monotheism, worshipping the aten solar disc.
And it is suggested by some that Christianity incorporated much of Mithraism into itself.
And the Vatican is built on top of the the temple of Magna Mater.
In many ways, this might be regarded as simply the continuation and culmination of the process, which Boris mentioned, by which foreign gods were incorporated into the pre-Christian Roman pantheon.
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I would like to correct an error. It is not, nor has it ever been, part of the Catholic faith that Mary, the Mother of Christ, is divine. To say so is a misrepresentation of actual Roman Catholic teaching (although I’m sure it was not the intention to do so). Similarities may exist between aspects of the Catholic faith and pagan cults, but in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church these dogmas developed over time with reflection upon the scriptures by the Fathers of the early Church as well as the great theologians of the Middle Ages, such as St Thomas Aquinas. To present aspects of Roman Catholic teaching as some sort of pagan graft onto the faith does not encompass the broader reality of how those beliefs developed.
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The question I’ve been chewing over is this: how did the profusion of different religions in imperial Rome somehow crystallise into one single religion within something like a couple of hundred years?
Or, how were devotees of Isis, Magna Mater, Mithras, Attis, Sol Invictus, etc, etc, converted to Christianity? And my suggestion is that Christianity adapted itself to include these beliefs. You worship Isis, my dear? Well, she’s our Christian Mary! You tell me Mithras had twelve disciples? Well, our chap did too! And so on. The devotees of these various cults, I am suggesting, were inducted into Christianity with their beliefs largely intact, but the objects of their devotion renamed. Indeed, it is rather hard to see how it could have been otherwise, given the propensity of most people to adhere to their beliefs.
And so instead of a whole set of religious cults dying out, and being replaced by a brand new religion, these various cults instead formed tributaries to the single river of Christianity.
The beliefs of this emergent Christianity were probably not at all dogmatic, if they needed to be flexible enough to include so much else. They probably only became dogmas, endlessly refined by doctors of the Church, once the process of absorbing all these other religions was complete.
And the pay-off was that while the physical Western Roman empire disintegrated, it was replaced by a spiritual Roman empire that did not possess men’s bodies and possessions, but instead their hearts and minds.
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“I would like to correct an error. It is not, nor has it ever been, part of the Catholic faith that Mary, the Mother of Christ, is divine. To say so is a misrepresentation of actual Roman Catholic teaching (although I’m sure it was not the intention to do so).”
Well, not entirely. The veneration of Mary (hyperdouleia) is of a higher order than that conferred upon other saints (douleia).
When Mary is accorded honour ‘over’ God (by virtue of being his mother); is referred to as part of an ‘Earthly Trinity’ by Cardinal Manning; is ‘Queen of Heaven’ (Pope Pius IX); is prayed to; is believed to have been born without sin (Immaculate conception – 1854); is believed to have ascended bodily to heaven; is ‘co-redeemer’ with Christ…
Does not all of this amount to the very concept of divinity? With Christ, she can forgive sins. That, according to Scripture, is an attribute of God.
As Idlex observes, the Roman ‘Mary’ is developed from pagan goddess cults. The fusion was a political necessity (Christianity had no other ‘goddess’ to keep adherents to those cults happy) in order to hold a decaying Empire together.
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I first of all have to say that I am coming from Roman Catholic tehological background, so doubtless how a Roman Catholic and an Anglican will view and interpret Marian dogmas is going to be different. I was speaking in a strict sense of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and proposes for it’s members to believe. Nowhere within the body of work that constitutes the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is Mary referred to or acknowledged as being divine. A perusal of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will confirm this. Nowhere within that body of work is she accredited as having the power to forgive sins. In Roman Catholicism there is also the distinction between devotion (prayer said to Mary and the saints asking their intercession with God on behalf of the supplicant) and adoration (worship of God alone) – of course this is a belief of Roman Catholicism and is going to be a bone on contention with the Reformed Churches. Also there can be a divergence between what individuals within the Roman Catholic Church believe and what the Church actually teaches. I do hope I’m not coming across as hostile, and my apologies if I am, but I just wanted to put across that what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and what people think the Roman Catholic Church teaches are not always the same.
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“…what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and what people think the Roman Catholic Church teaches are not always the same.”
And neither is what some Roman Catholics say the Roman Catholic Church teaches!
If Jesus alone is our mediator (1Tim 2:5), it means he alone can forgive sins (Acts 4:12). If, according to the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, Mary is co-mediator and ‘co-redemptrix’, she manifestly has an efficacious role. According again to the official teaching of Rome, she was born without sin (‘Immaculate Conception’), yet according to my Bible, she made an offering for her sins (Lk 2:22f) and was in need of a saviour (Lk 1:47).
Rome’s ‘Mary’ has all the attributes of divinity. You may not find the term used, but the theology is implicit. Idlex is therefore right in his observation that ‘Mary’ is a pagan goddess by another name.
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I think we shall have to simply agree to disagree on this issue.
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Here is the International Marian Research Institute
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Agree to disagree?
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
I wanted to discuss much, much further, but if you have no response to my last point, I’ll create a Boris link on my blog. This is jolly interesting stuff that some may want to continue on there.
Tata!
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I was offering to agree to disagree as it seemed we were going to be going round in circles waiting for one or the other to finally admit we were wrong, which in reality was never going to happen – very much a microcosm of the ecumneical movement really. But as you wish to continue, then far be it from me to back away.
The Catholic Church has alway held beliefs which were and are severe bones of contentions for others, for example the doctrine of transubstantiation, papal infallibility, the nature and number of the sacraments, etc., and yet the Catholic Church has been explicit in its beliefs and has not shirked from clearly stating it’s beliefs. It seems incongruous to me then that the same Catholic Church would not be equally clear and forthright in it’s teaching and beliefs on Mary. I would imagine then that if you are claiming that the Catholic Church teaches that 1) Mary is divine, and 2) that she can forgive sins, that you will be able to supply references for the teaching documents of the Catholic magesterium where this is explicitly stated.
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OT: still no bloody book. Will have to wait till Tuesday till I can go back to the Post Office and bother them again to look for it. Our posties are pretty honest, so I don’t think it got stolen, but it might have been misplaced. Annoying.
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Triremes take quite a long time to get to Canada, I believe.
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Probably landed in Halifax and thought their job was done. If they put it on the dogsled before the spring icepack breakup, it just might get here in the next couple of days. If they gave it to the goddam voyageurs it could be months!
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I was reading the latest post in the Higher Education section as I was going through my mail. Interestingly, as I reached the part about “avoiding reliance on foreigners’ contributions” I came upon a delivery notice. Seems I’ve gotten a package from the UK…
postage due.
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I enjoyed Boris’s books so much that I hesitated to mention this at all. Because I don’t want it taken as a swipe at the author. It’s not. At all. It is, however, a slight swipe at the publisher.
Boris, I adore your books. I’ve recommended them, given copies to friends and referred back to them at various times over the course of a number of discussions. But Boris, dear Boris — why no indexes in Dream of Rome and Friends, Voters, Countrymen? Thank goodness for the index in Lend Me Your Ears because the idea of hunting through 500 plus pages for the odd reference here and there – well, not so much thank you.
I’ve brushed up against this vast emptiness where an index should be more and more lately (can one brush up against a void?). I know it’s now new but it is becoming more and more common. A worrisome trend that makes me wonder if more and more people involved in the process of book design and production are not, themselves, readers. Is it that the publishing “powers that be” now see indexes as luxuries of time or money that they cannot afford in the competitive battle for dwindling readership and the quicker turnover of shelf space? Luxuries? Pfui! Valuable, timesaving tools that enhance a book’s usefulness and appeal? Much more the thing.
It pains me – this growing indexlessness – not only as an indexer (an odd sort of job, I know – but mine own) but as a reader. Did they tell you there was no time, did they refuse to pony up for it? When you once again put non-fiction pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard), perhaps the case can be made to HarperCollins that the books can only be that much better when something as useful as an index is included. If they fuss about resources, tell them you know an indexer happy to oblige gratis and I’ll be on it like a shot.
Gads, that ended up being really long way of expressing a very small pet peeve. Still, I feel better having gotten it out.
And it in no way means I won’t be snapping up your future work and foisting them on all and sundry of my circle. I will. And they know it. And they also look forward to it.
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I second that. This is exactly the kind of book where one most keenly feels the need for an index. Generally, I avoid buying nonfiction that’s not indexed. And surely it’s got to be good for some course credit for some intern, no?
Haven’t picked up the book yet. Getting it this afternoon.
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postage due.
What? Melissa didn’t put a stamp on it?
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this growing indexlessness – not only as an indexer
Dunno much about publishing, but I’ve sort of imagined that it’s all done with computers these days, like most newspapers.
If so, I would expect it to be relatively easy to generate indexes (indices?), unless there’s a black art to indexing.
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The only time the black arts were invoked on one of my indexes was the 9/11 Commission Report and that was because it was monstrously huge and the deadline frighteningly close.
But there is an art to it. Wording in very short spaces is critical and the splitting of hairs between entries can make a huge difference – depending on the topic.
Computers, handy though they are and extremely good at alphabetizing, can generate only a concordance of words (or even words within a certain range in relation t other words) but can’t create the index entries that describe relationships between subjects or tell where a discussion of a subject starts and ends.
For example, not too long ago – I did the index for James Risen’s book State of War. A computer could list the pages where the phrase Al Qaeda appeared but would be less able to cope with populating the entry, “structural evolution of” unless the exact words “structural evolution” appeared along side the name Al Qaeda.
On the other hand, a human indexer can see that discussions on shifting chain of command, cell formation, etc. also belong there. Certainly we use computers but the only way to do in an index is a the very old fashioned act of reading the book (even if it’s quick read).
More than you wanted to know, I’m sure
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Got the book this afternoon. Am enjoying it with a carefully selected soundtrack: Diamanada Galas’ work on the Armenian massacre, much Enigma (Dutch, aren’t they?), and Gregorian chants. Almost halfway through now, and I have to say:
Melissa has the neatest handwriting known to mankind; probably has no neuroses at all!
Boris will always be a writer, rather than a politician, until he learns to write with more expensive pens!
Can’t wait till some smart publisher convinces Boris to do a Life of Cicero.
Gotta love a book whose acknowledgements include a man credited as “disgruntled farmer”.
I’m still chewing over the postage due thing; turned out it was CUSTOMS DUE rather than postage. The morons probably thought “House of Commons” was some bookstore in London. I shall be applying to get my money back, as the book was used! “See, it’s been written in!” Customs is only supposed to apply to new items imported on a marketing basis, and this very clearly falls outside that category. The actual GST (VAT kinda thingy) was two dollars and change, but the “handling fee” was five bucks. They certainly did manhandle the book and did a crappy job of using packing tape to stick the whole thing back together. Still, the book’s in good condition.
Anyway, LIFE OF CICERO. Think about it.
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BTW Vicus, I didn’t get a Christmas or Easter card, but I did get a nice beefcake shot.
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Very sweet of you raincoaster – can’t understand this ‘customs’ charge though. I got it weighed and stamped in the House of Commons Post Office for you and they should know the protocol for books sent over the pond.
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i More than you wanted to know, I’m sure
But interesting, all the same.
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I’ll be applying for a refund. I’m sure whoever levied the fee just assumed it was ordered online or whatever. The book should not have had GST charged, nor the handling fee. Don’t worry, I’ll get it back.
BTW there is now a lineup of people who want to borrow the book. They may give up on waiting for me and buy it themselves.
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Boris is better-known than I thought over here. I met a friend at a cafe today and pulled out the book and was explaining how it came to me; when I said the words “Boris Johnson” eight people swivelled around to look. Then again, perhaps they merely feared a bicycle attack.
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Yeah, bicycle attack.
Stay away from the palace of Westminster if you don’t want to come under severe bicycle attack from renegade Tories.
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I and my socialist brothers salute you. Thanks for the tip.
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Finished the book, and greatly enjoyed it, not least because Boris is in perfect agreement with me re: the cult of emperor and its centrality to the viability of empire itself. As usual with Boris’ writing I loved the writing and rejected most of the conclusions, but I’m used to that by now and suspect he’s over it too.
I only had to look up three words!
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Forbes magazine is calling for the re-introduction of gladiatorial battles and other blood sports. The author must not be a Texan quail hunter if he thinks there aren’t any around.
Of course, being American he is calling for sports they can watch, rather than participate in. It’s Being There for sports. I once had a lengthy conversation about sports with an American which stopped abruptly when we realized I was talking about doing sports and he was talking about watching them. This is a huge cultural battle in Vancouver, but maybe we’re just strange over here. No time to watch tv, we’re all out hanging off mountains.
Or posting on websites. Fine, one of you was gonna say it, I just beat you to it.
Anyway, the author of the article is a very fuzzy thinker indeed, and can’t tell his universal from his monoversal. It’s all Greek to him. But here’s a sample anyway:
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Just finished reading it and I must say I’m all for this Rome lark.
Sounds pretty cool, all wearing togas, sitting around heated baths eating olives.
I bet there’s a massive market for some kind of ‘authentic’ Roman bath, perhaps where you can get an olive oil massage off one of those celestial virgins. There’d have to be some kind of buffet too where you can lounge on one of those cool Roman settees and get fed grapes and stuff.
Maybe someone should go one step further even and open some kind of Roman themed holiday spa!
If you are like me and haven’t learned about the Romans since you were nine years old then the book is different and interesting. The comparisons with the EU are kept concise and to the point, the book is certainly not a ‘rant’ but very informative and confers some interesting ideas.
Some kind of glossary of the Latin used would have been useful however, and although interesting enough enough the book is probably as short as you could get away with for £18.99 (I did get £2 off mine mind). Serious readers might want to wait for some more hefty reductions or even the paperback.
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Bugger! Hit the wrong key and blew up a masterpost.
What I was saying was:
First off, I don’t review. I opine. This will hopefully excuse much.
As an introduction to the Roman Empire and the reasons for its long-running success, The Dream of Rome is perfectly marvelous. Boris obviously loves his subject, knows it fluently, and isn’t afraid to go to the experts when he’s at a loss. Picks interesting experts, as well. And of course the writing flows like the river in a Hudson School painting. It’s quick, it’s beautiful, and it’s sometimes challenging.
And, like the contemporary Hudson river, it’s sometimes full of crap.
As an explanation of why the EU is doomed to failure, however, The Dream of Rome fails to prove its case. Really, it must be said that it doesn’t seem to try very hard. Boris has some policy points to make, and he makes them, but any examination of the EU is glaringly incomplete without mention of our apparently limitless desire to form meta-states like the UN, NATO, G7, NAFTA, etc etc. There is a reason behind this, and it’s not mere economic advantage. Nor is it mere ego.
The only emperor-manque the world has who has any sort of real power is Osama bin Laden. So it’s easy to see the point of the Americans who don’t want his videos and audio broadcast, lest they start a cult of personality. His power comes from the fact that he writes the cheques. Once that stops, he’s over.
William S. Burroughs, who had a knack for being as right as he was wasted, wrote a fascinating piece on why we don’t have grand Augustus figures anymore. Here it is:
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I’m glad a few people have read it now too.
It’s certainly a good read. But I agree with raincoaster when she says, “As usual with Boris’ writing I loved the writing and rejected most of the conclusions…” There’s nothing pretentious about Boris’ writing. He’s someone who seems to write exactly as he speaks.
What I found a bit implausible was the idea of all these barbarians wanting to join the Roman empire, like it was the EU or something. They didn’t want to join, and fought like mad for the most part to stay out of it, because its purpose was to funnel wealth to Rome and Roman citizens.
As a history of Rome, it misses out the first 750 years, and quite possibly the last 200 years or so. It’s a history of Rome from Augustus to Constantine. And the Roman world held together pretty well for 500 years before Augustus showed up as the first emperor.
In some ways, when I’d finished reading it, it struck me as much more appropriate to America than the EU. America has been a Republic, much like Rome, complete with Senate and stuff, for 230 years. And now George W. Bush is starting to behave like an emperor. And Iraq or Vietnam might be regarded as equivalents of the Varian disaster.
Anyway, has anyone read 72 Virgins? I got half way through it (I don’t read much fiction these days), and put it down, but thought afterwards that it was a book that in many ways predicted the London bombings before they happened. Which is a bit profound.
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I read the 72 virgins in the expectation of some sort déja vu discoveries .
In a way I suppose the fictional terrorists were British born did realise,to some degree, my expectations.
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When I left off reading, the US president, the terrorists, and the MP on a bicycle had converged upon Parliament. What happened after that? And why was the MP so worried that his name would be appearing in a newspaper any day?
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How does the writing style translate to fiction? It works perfectly for nonfiction, but does it get self-indulgent or dry when it’s stuff he’s just making up? I mean, like NOT Tory policy…
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Awesome coolness: Greek shipbuilders are recreating the Argo!
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Sorry, Link Here
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How does the writing style translate to fiction?
Here’s a taster. Page 64. Any spelling mistakes my transcription error.
The centre page feature was a tremendous why oh why piece by Sir Trevor Hutchinson, a former editor of the Daily Telegraph. Entitled ‘Our Shameful Surrender to Terror’, it dilated on the various erosions of liberty entailed by the current obsession with security. Was it not outrageous, whinnied Sir Trev, that the Queen was being served with plastic cutlery, aboard the royal flight, all these years after 9/11? He gave a vigorous description of the Metropolitan Police Maginot Line around the Palace of Westminster. He railed against the frogmen in the Thames, the boom that had been constructed across the river, to protect the Commons Terrace from a riparian boarding party, the glass barrier in the chamber, that shielded the elctors from their representatives, or vice versa, for the first time in our island story. And then he related his almost insane irritation, when boarding a flight from Heathrow to Inverness to fulfil an important shooting engagement, at being asked to produce his passport. There being 300 words to supply after this opening lungful, Sir Trev went on to deplore the general phobia of risk in today’s namby-pamby society, alighting on such diverse themes as the near cancellation, on insurance grounds, of the climactic firework display at the Henley Regatta, and the use of cup-holders and – splutterissimo – air-bags in the new American tanks which the army, in defiance of his advice, was on the verge of buying.
‘Good stuff, good stuff,’ chuckled Adam, who had written his own share of bilge in his time.
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Wow, it’s almost as if he knows what that’s like. Amazing!
And, scrolling through, I see that I never said a proper “Thank you” for the book. So first, I apologize for my lateness (a quality rarely found in a writer) and second I thank Melissa for sending me the book, and third I thank Boris for writing it. It was a great read.
And fourth, I thank idlex for the snippet. Very informative.
BTW was in chat today with a woman from Australia, and she gave me quite a lecture about this fish sauce the Romans used. That book/show has gotten around.
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Yeah, someone post the recipe for Garum
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That’s a direct descendant of garum, post stolen from eGullet.com. And if that’s not enough, here is an authentic scholarly paper on the subject. As with all scholarly papers, it’s a PDF because academics are bloody control freaks who enjoy freezing my computer. Not that I resent the losers for it. It may well be in The Dream of Rome’s bibliography, but the fact is I put the book away and now cannot find the bloody thing.
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Raincoaster, it’s under that pile of stuff in your hallway – your laundry!
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Garum? Is that what that smell is?
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I think Mr Boris Johnson very fine man, I don’t care what he been up to with ladys. This book is work of genius for person like me in HK. Please come back to China and tell truth.
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Not when you consider the amount of cash being creamed off by some MPs in the form of expenses (apart from their salaries and fees for after-dinner speeches, tedious television appearances and the repetitive, writing-by-numbers weekly column). Nice gravy train, if you can catch it…
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Only the LAST THIRD is written by the numbers. The first two-thirds are the sort of charming rambles tourists in the Lake country pay good money for.
C’mon, be fair.
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Let’s be honest, though – it’s the same sort of ramble every week, like being taken out through the same lovely bit of countryside over and over again. Great the first time, perhaps, amusing the second and third, possibly. But yo, it’s May 2006 – are we living in Groundhog Day?
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In Tory England, though, nothing ever changes. It’s like Neverland! Who ever gets tired of reading Chesterton, really?
The policy position is that things are bad now because things changed. So if you’re looking for a revolutionary firebrand, perhaps Conservatives are not the best place to start. At least the Americans used to be passionate about their conservatism; apoplectic, slavering, and spittle-spewing, but undeniably passionate. They, also, were wrong.
As a lefty, I welcome the complacency, the nostalgia, the folded hands and the thoughtful “Hmmmmm,” because it makes them so much easier to work around.
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Don’t be fooled by the nostalgia and the folded hands. They are Thatcher’s children, and she wrought untold damage on revered British traditions (gosh, even our beautiful red telephone boxes went up in smoke because of the privatised British Telecom…; and if you want to look for where Presidential-style rule entered the homely British political scene look no further than that whisky-swilling old loon.) No, they masquerade under bogus self-deprecation (who am I thinking of? They are his own words and used to describe himself, funnily enough)and cuddly tweed-jacketed parpings about the past. But they are ruthless in the pursuit of power and to be treated with the greatest of care…
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