Blog

  • The merry merry month of mead

    It’s the time of year when the weather and roads are foul and if I don’t have to go outside I don’t. Scrunched up under a blanket on the sofa with hot tea and bakery biscuits I was watching the Read more

  • Numbered days

    Been thinking about numbers lately as several friends have reached the half century mark, five sixths of the three score years that denotes old age, or once did. Ten years then left to the expectation of a lifespan. Threescore and Read more

  • Great-granddad Samuel and the Rudston Venus mosaic

    “It was a woman with a mirror,” said mum when we met up. She confirmed what I already had guessed, that the mosaic that I’d been looking up for research reasons was the same as the mosaic her mum’s dad Read more

  • Unrelatable Romans

    Writing and talking about Romans again and spending a lot of time thinking about Roman slavery. Mostly for my ‘Friends, Romans and Enslavers’ talk for the Vindolanda Trust that you can watch online on their YouTube channel. Few people who Read more

  • Salt sellers

    There is a scandal over a memoir I read some time ago. It’s a book called ‘The Salt Path’ and what it purported to be was a truthful tale of personal triumph over terminal illness and poverty, a hooky kind Read more

  • No Large Language Models were harmed in writing this.

    I am reading a history book that is so full of facts they roll away from my grasp like tiny kaleidoscope beads and I can barely see the pattern they make. It makes me think about the mirrored lines between Read more