Sphinx

It’s been one of those years… As far as the blog is concerned, I’ve managed to keep up a reasonably steady routine of posts – it does help that the WiFi on South Western trains is pretty reliable, so I can get things written on the commute down to Exeter – and the viewing figures have been pretty steady (no weird public controversies, and I managed to resist the temptation to launch unprovoked attacks on any prominent media figures during the slow weeks). I have at various points wondered whether it’s worth it; on the one hand, this remains a great opportunity to write about things that would never make for a proper academic article (or which perhaps might count as groundwork for something more substantial in due course – I am committed to giving a paper about Thucydides on Twitter in February), but on the other hand it is a time commitment, and in a year when it feels like I’ve lacked both time and energy even for the regular work stuff, sometimes it’s felt like that ‘one more bloody thing’ which could turn out to be that one thing too much.

January: definitive proof that the Rev Prof Nigel Biggar doesn’t read my blog, as despite my discussion of how ancient historians need to get actively involved in combatting such attempts at excusing and sanitising imperialism, especially when it involves That Life Of Brian sketch, later in the year I got an invitation to participate in one of his secret seminars. Meanwhile, I have to contemplate being nearly a year further on from my All The Books I Haven’t Written (Yet) post, with more or less no progress made on any of them (except that I do now know what novel I would be trying to write if I had any time or energy…

February: I’m not setting out to choose two posts per month (though I am feeling quite pleased that, at least so far, there are more than two posts per month to choose from – I think this may have got a bit patchier later in the year…), but that’s how it’s panning out: on the one hand, a post on Werner Heisenberg, Michael Frayn, Thucydides and The Uncertainty Principle that was great fun to research, and on the other hand a pertinent bit of feline-related self-reflection as we headed into the UCU strike…

March: one of the reasons this was a less than wonderful year was the strike, which I found utterly exhausting – above all, mentally exhausting – in a way that wiped me out for months to come. I honestly don’t know if it helped to reflect on the situation via the institutions of Roman slavery – mostly it just brought the reality of one’s dysfunctional relationship with the university system into sharper focus – but this could at least be leavened with the opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of the Melian Dialogue to absolutely everything…

April: I wasn’t terribly interesting in April, was I? A bit of self-promotion and self-congratulation to mark the publication of Classics: Why It Matters, which never comes terribly easily; a bit of complaining about popular history and trade books, which comes rather easier; but above all the opportunity to get back to talking about teaching, arguing with a colleague about whether or not various essay-writing rules are useful.

May: yes, this was rather dominated by That Review of my new book – I am never going to remove “the Übermensch of the West Country” from my Twitter bio – but much more substantial was my contribution to discussions of the alt-right appropriations of Sparta, and potentially more significant in the long term may be my brilliant idea for a new television series that may even help to humanise academics…

June: I don’t actually remember very much about June, but judging by the shortness of the posts – apart from one long and heartfelt one about issues of student assessment and how it’s changed since my day – it was busy. Still, some quite fun posts that no one paid much attention to, on the need for clandestine support for conservative academics and on the songs from François Ozon’s magnificent 8 Women.

July: I am indeed incapable of going on holiday and reading an introductory book on the history of Croatia without getting cross and writing a blog post about it; and then I arranged to call in at a conference on the way home… Almost a relief to get back to more sensible work-related stuff, including reflections on Theatre of War and the staging of the Melian Dialogue – and of course The Ladybird Book of Thucydides…

August: a fairly quiet month, but a chance to reflect on my attempts at getting students to engage with social media in classroom settings via the concept of the Creepy Treehouse, and the fascinating topic of the ways in which Wilhelmine of Bayreuth had herself portrayed in classical guises…

September: the summer having been less relaxing than hoped or planned, the key post this month was a powerful sense that it really was all getting to be Too Much – but there was still a chance to reflect on Thucydides and Spike Millegsn’s Unreliable Memoirs and on Boris Johnson’s latest classical inanities…

October: not a great month, partly because things did now get a bit too much and partly because of the trauma endured by poor little Hector. But there was a chance to develop my theory of the enduring attractions of Thucydides in terms of the great Time Bandits.

November: in some way this feels too recent to have much sense of which posts it’s worth mentioning, and yet at the same time I can’t actually remember them. Like I said, it’s been one of those years… Still, I can remind myself of some ranting about the feebleness of Fables of the Reconstruction in historical documentaries, and about the problem of Classics’ Brexit problem.

December: and here we are… Again, I seem to have forgotten a lot of these already, but it was good to revisit some passing thoughts on the history of sausage-making, and the idea of the Melians having a Meaningful Vote…