My tribute to Tony Harrison number 2 here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Prestigious Northern Uni Durham Crowned Britain’s University Of The Year 2025 By the Sunday Times timeout.com/uk/news/the-... So glad to work here

Extremely sad that my much-loved friend and ally of over thirty-five years, the great poet, dramatist, socialist and acerbic wit Tony Harrison, died yesterday morning, peacefully, with his devoted partner, actress Sian Thomas, at his side. I'm so glad I visited them last week.

Thrilled the Special Issue of Green Letters I edited with Alison Sharrock is now online if you have access to Taylor and Francis. Mostly on trees in epic from Homer to Nonnus

What have the Ancient Greeks got to do with the environmental crisis? Book your free ticket to come hear from @edithmayhall.bsky.social on this topic at our Late on Thursday 9th Oct. Plus loads more panels, a zine making workshop and exhibits www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/livin...

📣 ANOTHER EVENT! 📣 We are holding a book launch for the volume "Time, Tense, and Genre in Ancient Greek Literature", edited by Connie Bloomfield-Gadêlha and @edithmayhall.bsky.social. 🎟️ www.tickettailor.com/events/thein... ⏰4PM-6PM, 8/10. 📍Peel Lecture Theatre, University of Bristol. BS8 1SS.

www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/euripid... Excellent, hilarious and inexpensive productions of TWO Ancient Greek plays on in central London this week! I’m doing a post show talk tomorrow night. Do come !

My daughter has just found this in Istanbul

Yesterday at Ye Houses of Parliament my former PhD student and colleague Dr Peter Swallow MP hosted the launch of my book with Durham colleague Prof Arlene Holmes-Henderson promoting Classical Civilisation and Ancient History in secondary education. It was a joy.

I was interviewed by Ian HIslop on Radio 4 today about Juvenal but forgot all about having recorded it. It's short, fun and here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I was interviewed by Ian Hislop on Radio 4 today and you can hear it here: short but fun programme www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

On this day 44 BCE Cleopatra announced her son Caesarion co-ruler of Egypt. Since Caesar's propaganda equated Cleopatra with Isis-Venus, this Pompeii image of Venus & Cupid may be Cleo & son. However silly, it's not as bad as the choice of an uber-Aryan sprog = Caesarion in "that" movie.

On #InternationalCosplayDay, recall that Herodotus says when c. 566 BCE Peisistratus returned to Athens he hired a tall woman, Phye, to impersonate the goddess Athena as his escort to legitimise his claim to sovereignty. Worth a try if you crave absolute power: it worked for him

It's radio repeat day! Catch me and Prof @edithmayhall.bsky.social discussing the Nigella of Ancient Greece, goddess of hearth and home (and carbs and donkeys) Hestia, at 9:30am on BBC Radio 4 📻 🍞 🎧 Listen again on BBC Sounds: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Love him or hate him, classical tradition people can't ignore Jacques-Louis David, btd 1748, who ranges from ludicrous (Mars & Venus) to sublime: Brutus' face in The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789) grimly presages the gore & disillusionment of the Reign of Terror

These two Ancient Greek plays on in London mid-September are brilliantly acted and directed. Thiasos really know what they’re doing with comedy. I’m speaking on 17th. thecockpit.org.uk/show/euripides…

On #WorldLakeDay the lagoon at Kalloni on Lesvos where Aristotle invented marine zoology and his best friend Theophrastus studied wetland plants. I was there in 2016 with darling daughter Sarah Poynder m.youtube.com/watch?v=-moYjt… who made this film

Solidarity to all my US feminist friends of any gender in the face of misogyny on Women’s Equality Day, commemorating August 26th 1920 when the 19th Amendment became law and recognised women's right to vote. Time to bang them cymbals

On #InternationalDogDay a gorgeous Athenian drinking vessel in the shape of a beautiful dog's head, in loving memory of the only dog I've ever been best friends with, Finlay Poynder, who died almost exactly a year ago and I think about every single day @rickypo.bsky.social

The book images that inspired novelist Barry Unsworth, author of Iphigenia novel The Songs of the Kings, at age 5: Blanche Winder, Once Upon a Time: Children's Stories from the Classics. Images by Burslem boy Harry G. Theaker. LOVE his Medea and Pan with bunnies.

#InternationalStrangeMusicDay is a good excuse to post a couple of creepy sirens. The Victorians deleted the properly scary avian elements to indulge in soft-porn full human female nudes in their paintings.

On UNESCO #InternationalDayfortheRemebranceoftheSlaveTradeanditsAbolition commemoration of marriage of a butcher's ex-slaves, Lucius Aurelius Hermia to Aurelia Philematium. "She was the only one for me, and lived her life faithful to her faithful husband". Aww. 80 BCE From Lazio, now BM.

Finally published and Open Access to read for free via this link by anyone interested in introducing classical subjects to secondary education. A delight to see my co-author Arlene Holmes-Henderson today. liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/.../97818008...

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, born 19/08/1621, saw humour in the myth of Juno demanding the cow into which Jupiter had transformed her love rival Io as a gift. Top god looks pathetic; Juno totally in control; Io gorgeous but bemused. I love the spikey coronet and usurped pet peacock

On #WorldElephantDay let's appreciate these gorgeous creatures. Isaac Brun Animalium quadrupedum variorum typi (1624)--Engravings of various quadruped animals

For #sonsanddaughtersday, just Leto, the proud single mum, in proper mum headgear, her fingers saying "you nailed it" as Apollo strums and Artemis, quiver on her back, listens. Pets at hand. Made in Athens, now in British Museum, amphora ca. 520 - 500 B.C.

Back after a month recovering from nasty accident: blog to come. On #WorldLionDay a spectacular mosaic from Uzzita in Bardo Museum, Tunis, dedicated by the Leontii confraternity: "O LION, YOU PRESUMED, YOU EXPEDITED, YOU DEDICATED".

I want like to hear from anyone who has information on history/current practice of teaching Classics-related subjects in prisons internationally. Please email me at my two names separated by a dot @durham.ac.uk. See novus.ac.uk/news/working...

Favourite cat, favourite gnomess, favourite plant. Life looking up slightly

Inspiring #Euros2025

Heartbroken to hear of the death of Professor Christopher Rowe, beloved twinkly eyed father of @durhamclassics.bsky.social, outstanding scholar and philosopher who walked the Virtue Ethics talk. He was also chair of the Advisory Board of our research project in Aristotle’s styles. Bleak day

Hilarious. Life imitates book covers!

So when we weren’t having fun, Connie Bloomfield-Gadelha and I edited this enormous book, published today

So I had terrible fall down lunatic stairs inside my room in a Polish hotel 15 days ago. Unconscious for 8 hours. But how long does it take for haematomas to recede? I can’t go on looking like this indefinitely!

The special issue of RHETORICA I edited, with superb articles by Rosie Wyles, Phillip Horky @profarlenehh.bsky.social & Alessandro Vatri, "Aristotle's Rhetoric and its Audiences", is out! My chapters survey history of its reception and what Thomas Hobbes made of it muse.jhu.edu/issue/55165

My Anti-bucket list. Never: Visit a Polish A & E Marry a Kantian Phone Wizzair Helpline Attend Italian conference sans hipflask Trust a Mortgage Broker Drink Cherry Brandy Hire someone on basis solely of interview Put work before family Expect OUP not to import errors Yours?

Not often I get to speak in quite such an opulent frame as at Uniwersytet Wrocławski. I needed more blingy ear rings to be frank

Held up at Stansted Security for FIFTEEN MINUTES by this suspicious object in my underseat bag. They swabbed nearly every page, especially where I had underlined that snakes are immoderate wine drinkers!

Off to Wroclaw to speak at International Federation of Associations of Classical Studies (FIEC) megabash. @profarlenehh.bsky.social has got there and already located Aristotle.

On #WorldDayOfForgiveness, Michael Longley's greatest poem, 'Ceasefire', inspired by Irish troubles and the meeting of Priam and Achilles in Iliad 24. The last two lines reduce me to tears every time.

Happy World Kissing Day!

Happy World Kissing Day

Best pint of Ghost Ship anywhere and in the best company @rickypo.bsky.social

This stunning vase in Berlin shows Thetis' serial transformations into a lioness and snakes simultaneously. Peleus could only wed her if her held her fast until she stopped morphing: look at the interlocking of the fingers to convey this. Human Key Pattern.

Author of Epic of the Earth, @edithmayhall.bsky.social  sat down with us for a Q&A. She talks about environmental motifs and natural disasters in the Iliad, her ecocritical approach, and lessons for today.  

What on earth is going on here? Grown man, licked by two snakes, hold up portrait (or is it a mirror?) of Athena/Minerva. Detail of a mosaic at the Bardo Museum, coming from the Trajan Baths in Acholla. I'm somewhat flummoxed.

If you missed the brilliant Janet Suzman in conversation with Edith Hall at the Ioannou Centre, you can now watch this public lecture's recording. Fascinating snippets of her life acting and directing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfIS... www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/events/2025/...

Saw Edith speak @hayfestival.bsky.social last week & bought her book which is wonderful. Classics can teach us a great deal. EPIC OF THE EARTH: Reading Homer's Iliad in the Fight for a Dying World #Classics #TheAnthropocene #TheIliad

Fun! Sophocles Euripides Aeschylus Aristophanes Aristotle Plato Lucian Plutarch Demosthenes Xenophon

On #internationalfishermansday a stunning mosaic from Bardo in Tunisia. The detail of the different fish and cephalopods is tremendous.