Weekend Reading: Happy Lockdown 2!

Things haven’t been particularly pleasant online this week in the world of Classics: there’s been a lot of drama. Perhaps it’s something I ought to talk about. But honestly I’d rather not, and this is my website! So this is a scandal-free zone today, full of happy things to make your Second England Lockdown more entertaining.

One happy thing I welcome in particular is the return of the fabulous Twitter initiative #MuseumsUnlocked. It kicked off today with The Sea, and here’s the schedule for the next few weeks.

You don’t have to be on Twitter to follow along every day: just keep an eye on the MuseumsUnlocked account for all the wonderful pictures that people will be posting. If you are on Twitter you can contribute your own pictures.

For those new to #MuseumsUnlocked, here’s how it works.

The museums may be closed—but we can still share our photos, memories and favourites of art, heritage, architecture and places.
Interpret the theme any way you want, and tweet images with the hashtag #MuseumsUnlocked.
We’ll archive each day’s contributions in Twitter ‘moments”.
It’s about remembering & sharing places, exhibits and art we love—while also planning for places we’ll visit and things we’ll see when this is all over.
And don’t forget the hashtag in each post! #MuseumsUnlocked.

The Actors of Dionysus also have something exciting planned for lockdown next week – although I don’t know exactly what it is yet… I do know that next week’s theme is ‘Leadership, Tyranny and Democracy’ – so that could be interesting! They’re also selling tickets for an event in December.

Oh… and there’s the Being Human Festival, which starts towards the end of next week. There are Very Many Things happening (a lot of them online), so do check out the programme: https://beinghumanfestival.org/events/.

There’s also the Hellene School Travel Competition, in which you could win £100 for books, wine or chocolate: instructions below. Just don’t try too hard, please – I want to win this!

Don’t forget to send in your Entry !!!HELLENE SCHOOL TRAVEL COMPETITION!!!
£100.00 Prize – closing date Tuesday 10th November
i – Check out the new Web Page: https://helleneschooltravel.com
ii – Identify Sources / pictures used in Contact/Addenda Sections
iii – Explain why these pictures are apt, e.g. Why are there Frogs on the Privacy Page? Most are tongue in cheek, but not all
iv – Send your answers to Sarah@helleneschooltravel.com by 10/11/20
v – ***Winner and best responses announced Friday 13th November***
vi – £100.00 for Books (wine or chocolate) dispatched by post
GOOD LUCK!

Another happy thought for you this week… a little book that the Latinists among you might enjoy. Over the last month, as I mentioned last week, I’ve been drawing dragons, for reasons which I don’t entirely understand. Well, once I’d finished, the wonderful Anthony Gibbins of Legonium fame created his own little Latin story to go with the drawings! I didn’t know anything about it, so it was a lovely surprise – and has apparently been very popular! So do share the link to the book (http://www.legonium.com/smol), if you know anyone who might like it. I’ll be putting it up on this website soon too.

Finally… I’ve been adding more dragon merchandise to my little shop, and I’d like to encourage you all to visit it, buy stuff and share widely, because for the whole of November I’ll be donating any Smol Dragon profits to Sportula Europe. This is a brilliant organisation which gives out microgrants to classicists and classics-related people in need. Do check it out – it’s a wonderful and much-needed initiative, and I would have been very grateful for it when I was a struggling student. So if you know of anyone who might like a cute little dragon for Christmas, now would be a great time to buy them one. Buy a dragon: help a classicist!