Sphinx

No, not a heart-warming story about how the curmudgeonly old cynic came to be persuaded of the essential goodness of human nature and the unshakeable bonds of fellowship – okay, simply writing that out makes it seem like a really good idea, but probably not this year – but a reprise of @Thucydiocy’s little song from the Twitter, in case you missed it…

On the twelfth day of Christmas Thucydides sent to me

Twelve misquotations
Eleven dubious analogies
Ten IR Realists
Nine war college seminars
Eight Auden references
Seven exemplary catastrophes
Six brutal massacres
Tragic irony!
Four hundred oligarchs
Fear, honour and interest
A bipolar conflict
And a κτῆμα ἐς αἰεὶ