Ancient and modern
Beauty and the beasts
Doctors have analysed how the mucus of a certain type of slug gives it protection against its being levered off…
‘Cuts’ to blame for dementia? How Plato and Galen would have scoffed
Public health specialist Sir Michael Marmot has blamed ‘the cuts’ for the rise in dementia among the elderly, resulting in…
What the Romans thought about death in childhood
Charlie Gard is incurably brain-damaged, blind, deaf, cannot cry, and cannot move or breathe without help. At the request of…
Property’s not theft
Sir Trevor Nunn is directing a play called ‘Dessert’. It seems to be a virtue-signalling riff on the evil of…
Age need not weary Jeremy Corbyn and the rest of our pensioner politicians
Prime Minister May is aged 60, the Labour cult-personality Jeremy Corbyn 68, and putative Lib-Dem leader Sir Vince Cable 74.…
Does Prince Harry think he's doing us a favour?
Asked about the monarchy, Prince Harry said his aim was to ‘modernise’ it. Not that any royal wanted to be…
Plato and Aristotle would have understood Corbyn’s appeal to the young
Whether the youth vote had any serious impact on the result of the general election or not, Jeremy Corbyn knew…
The post-truth is out there
In a political ‘post-truth’ world, currently the subject of a slew of books, emotions and personal belief are said to…
The Nero in Donald Trump
Donald Trump, whose word no one can believe and actions no one can anticipate, looks to blame anyone but himself…
Theresa May take note: Aristotle knew power lies with the middle classes
The Labour party’s tagline for the forthcoming general election is: ‘For the many, not the few.’ Aristotle, who understood this…
Socrates would know why Jeremy Corbyn is a certain disaster
Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘It is the job of leadership to hold open the space for dissent, new thinking and fit-for-purpose…
The cult of the prima doctor
Ian Paterson, a ‘charming’ breast surgeon with a ‘God complex’, has been found guilty of intentionally wounding patients by carrying…
Vladimir Putin should look to ancient Rome for tips on building an empire
President Vladimir Putin, who still supports Bashar al-Assad in Syria, needs help if he wishes to be seen as a…
Cicero, the Ancients’ lagomaniac
A year ago, the Danes reached into their groaning cracker barrel and pulled out ‘hygge’ as their own solution to…
Ancient and Modern: The Athenians’ verdict on George ‘Five-Jobs’ Osborne
As a result of George Osborne taking up five jobs on top of his role as MP for Tatton, an…
Thucydides had Martin McGuinness’s number
When Gerry Adams rose to announce at his funeral that Martin McGuinness was no terrorist but a ‘freedom fighter’, the…
What it really means to cross the Rubicon (Theresa May’s about to do it)
Last week many commentators drew on the Ides (15th) of March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BC, to…
How ancient Athens made the rich love taxes
Now that Philip Hammond is promising yet more tax hikes, he might consider how Athens managed it. During the whole…
Plutarch: the father of anti-democracy
Hardly a week goes by without someone applauding Thomas Carlyle’s objection to democracy: ‘I do not believe in the collective…
Greek or Roman crowds would have chased the SS-GB cast off the stage
In the audience-free world of TV, where ‘acting’ and visuals have become of far greater importance than the actual words,…
All the President’s yes-men
Donald Trump takes it as read that any criticism of his words or actions is an assault on the truth.…
Justin Welby is the victim of some very old-fashioned dirty tricks
Many are still questioning the enthusiasm with which newspapers have implicated Archbishop Justin Welby, as a young man, in the…
How Socrates judged experts
The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, raises his growth forecasts and suddenly everyone believes the ‘expert’. So…
Donald Trump could be America’s Nero — if we’re lucky
A Washington Post interview with ‘senior officials’ in the Trump White House reveals that ‘Trump… feels demoralised that the public’s…
What Donald Trump doesn't get about rhetoric
In his inaugural speech last week, the new President Trump said, among much else, the ‘American carnage’ of poverty, ignorance…
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