As I now seem to remark at the end of every December, and yet persist in the belief that things will now be different: it’s been one of those years… I suppose the basic motive for persisting in that belief is that the alternative is uncomfortable; both that I will continue to feel tired all the time and uninspired – but on the edge of inspiration, if only I could get a couple of decent nights’ sleep – most of the time, and that I would then need to take some difficult but necessary decisions about whether I can really spare the time and energy to persist with this blog and all the other random stuff that tends to seem more attractive than solid, sober scholarship…
The balance has tipped slightly this year, simply because of the sense – which I’ve moaned about on several occasions – that blogs just aren’t being read as much as they used to be, and maybe I should switch to writing fewer, longer essays for Medium and/or for curated/edited publications. Viewing stats are down over 25% on last year, which was down 25% on the previous year, after all. But I still enjoy the opportunity for humour and sheer randomness that a ‘proper’ publication could never offer, and writing up this ‘best/favourite posts of the year’ is always a nice reminder that I did write some decent stuff (even if I then get sulky about the ones that were largely ignored…). And what else am I going to do on long train journeys in the evening?
January: ah, those happy days when one could mock the vacuity of the Brexit debate, rather than groaning in despair that the winning answer turned out to be “let’s just pretend we can ignore it and it’ll stop bothering us”. Otherwise, this was a month for discussing different aspects of the project to make Thucydides relevant and accessible to contemporary issues and debates in the good way, with the release of a Melian Dialogue Video and my attempts – for game design purposes – at calculating the probability of a Spartan rescue for the Melians…
February: I’ve listed Andrew Reinhard’s musical experiment piece in Epoiesen in my ‘blogs of the year’; here I get to recall the fun I had in developing a musical/remix critique – and to be reminded that I haven’t made any progress at all with the project to turn Thucydides (or at least Book 1) into a programmed modal jazz piece. Otherwise, I’d completely forgotten about a couple of posts on political subjects other than those that can easily be related to Thucydides: on the ideology of citizenship, and on the pernicious persistence of belief in ‘Western Civilisation’.
March: a much quieter month, partly due to illness and intimations of mortality not unconnected to a significant birthday, but I did discover the existence of Thucydides Day, which should now be celebrated by all right-thinking people, and commentary on the rise of the European “Research” Group ‘Spartans’ seemed unavoidable…
April: a particularly ingenious bit of university press office over-selling, linking a Roman-period rabbit bone to the Easter Bunny; and I don’t know why Tolkien was so prominent around this time – some sort of anniversary, maybe? – but I had great fun going down the rabbit-hole of his reception of Thucydides – the strong seize the Silmarils, the weak get swallowed by the waves…
May: one of the nice things about having a blog is that it’s easy to write updates to already-published pieces (albeit it would be even nicer to add a link from the original), such as a 1918 Spectator piece that explicitly referenced Thucydides in relation to German behaviour in the Great War that would have been good in my CRJ article. Rather less positive was a response to a request to offer tips on academic writing that rapidly became a reflection on why I fail to get much writing done…
June: a lengthy lament on the decline of blogging, which was followed by the first of what was supposed to be a monthly podcast series that then ran out of steam in the early autumn – I have the ideas, I just haven’t had the time, and am not sure whether the potential audience justifies the additional effort (given that I can’t just scribble it on a train, unlike the blog posts). The fun thing this month was engaging with Will Pooley’s creative witchcraft project with a bit of The Naming of Parts…
July: a quiet month, with some random reflections on pictures from my holiday in Romania – so quiet that I could even Imagine No Thucydides.
August: okay, I’m starting to see why the viewing stats were down this year – yet another depressed reflection on the impossibility of writing, albeit filtered through a bit of Anthony Powell. But the big news – albeit prefaced by melancholy thoughts on academic life – was the premiere of the Thucydides the Heavyweight Champion animation, THE thing that I managed to achieve this year.
September: two long pieces this month, one trying to escape the ghastliness of British politics by reflecting on the Kosky production of Die Meistersinger and one diving into the heart of the ghastliness by exploring Dominic Cummings’ reception of Thucydides.
October: was struggling a bit to keep on top of teaching load at this point, but did find time to explore the Thucydidean poetry of Zbigniew Herbert, and to reflect on what the choose-your-own-adventure version of the Melian Dialogue might be able to tell us about time pressures in negotiation – an issue which will continue to be pressing next year…
November: one reason for the limited number of posts in the autumn, and their relative brevity, has been the work involved in preparing two-hour classes on Greek History – but that has been a great opportunity for messing about with pedagogical games. Much more cheering than further reflections on Cummings and Thucydides.
December: and here we are… One painfully autobiographical piece that will, I think, be timeless: my escalating series of explanations/excuses for why that article/chapter/review is late. One painfully autobiographical piece that is probably just stating the obvious. And another game, still looking for play-testers…
Sphinx 
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