Tag: Pericles

Thucydides on the plague in Athens

March 13, 2020 0 Comments
Thucydides on the plague in Athens

In the bath the other morning I happened to catch an interview with the novelist Kamila Shamsie.  She was asked what books she’d want to have with her if the coronavirus forced her to self-isolate for a lengthy period.  She had some interesting choices.  And she recommended that, instead of raiding supermarkets for toilet rolls […]

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Barbarians and idiots

April 20, 2014 1 Comment
Barbarians and idiots

It’s Saturday evening, and the three of us are sitting round the kitchen table after a meal, with the remains of a bottle of cheap but perfectly good red wine from Bulgaria.  Its label says, ‘from the Thracian lowlands’. A. recalls that he went to Bulgaria on holiday, many years ago, in communist times.  All […]

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