Blog

  • Hearsay history

    I’m writing a generalist book about Roman life as it was lived on Hadrian’s Wall and it’s bringing up all sorts of methodological thoughts about how to write this kind of book. These type of books, the books that appear in Waterstones or in museum bookshops (as mine is more likely to) need to be… Read more

  • House haunting

    Splashing vinegar and sugar and warmed-then-cooled water resentfully into a vase. A recipe for flower preservation to ensnare a buyer for the house. I am moving and already the process is driving me out of my skull insane. The house is a dream – for someone else. It is now someone else’s house that I… Read more

  • Classical Staffordshire

    I had only a few minutes to look round the Royal Pump Room museum at Leamington Spa but I saw these Staffordshire figurines and wanted to find out more about them. The museum label gives a little information about their date and place of production, and that Andromache was bequeathed by Mr F H A… Read more

  • Nerd alert – Roman military households is published!

    This feels like a brag but my book is now in print, and there is little point in writing it a book if nobody is going to read it so I thought I’d post about it. This is an academic book – it does have some stories in it, biographies really, that can be picked… Read more

  • To green knights and men

    Shortened days and storm-blown power cuts call for stories, and the loss of my uncle, my mum’s step-brother, echoing the loss last year of Steve’s dad has put me out of tune for the familiar schmaltz of Christmas Victoriana.  But stories demand nothing but that I read with them; no need to rouse from sugar-slugged… Read more

  • Original words.

    My head is full of thoughts that are not my own. Since I could first understand words and language people have shared thoughts with me – in conversation, on the telly and radio, and most of all through writing. These thoughts are carried by words, as learning to become a researcher emphasises – plagiarism, not… Read more