This week – just squeezing in before the new restrictions! – I found myself back in the classroom. It’s been a while. The Open University took an institution-wide decision to move everything online right at the start of the pandemic, and our work as tutors has stayed online ever since. That wasn’t particularly troublesome, since … More Weekend Reading: Fun with Basil

This week there’s a Digital Picket going on in the UK: in solidarity with the strike action, a lot of people have been pledging not to blog, tweet or promote education-related things. So this won’t be a Classics post! Normal service will be resumed next week, I promise – but this week I thought I’d … More Weekend Reading: A Precarious Hope

This week I’ve been tinkering with my Redbubble shop, adding new work and customising some things in response to requests. So I thought I’d use this week’s post as a shameless plug for my products! For those who don’t know, I set up a Redbubble shop in order to cover the running costs of this … More Weekend Reading: Shameless Self-Promotion

It’s been a busy couple of weeks – isn’t it always?! – including the production last week of my Classical Christmas Gift Guide. I’ve been doing this every year for a few years now, and it always takes much longer to pull together than I expect – mainly because I can’t resist browsing all the … More Weekend Reading: Festive Chaos

And here we are again, at that time of the year when I invite Classics and History enthusiasts to casually leave this page open on their computer for their family, friends or significant other to find. Here’s my round-up of top Classical Christmas gifts this year. As with last year’s gift guide, my focus this … More The Classical Christmas Gift Guide 2021

I should start this post with an apology – particularly to the October-intake students to whom I not long ago promised a weekly blogpost. Sorry for deserting you all! It’s been a tough few weeks. My son and I both caught covid (it’s been going round his school), and while he shrugged it off pretty … More Weekend Reading: Excuses, Excuses…

I hope you’ve all had a good week! Round here it’s all been pretty chaotic, which is the norm for the final week of September, when new students are being allocated and MA students from the year before are submitting their dissertations. The overlap makes life interesting for tutors, I suppose – although I’d happily … More Weekend Reading: Entering ClassicsTober

Technically I’m not back at work for another week (apart from finishing dissertation supervisions). I don’t really get paid for working in September. So it’s always a little odd when I find myself sitting at my computer all day, answering emails and sorting out problems, and late into the night too. Maybe I should draw … More Weekend Reading: Old Friends and New

I hope you’ve all had a great summer! This is, I think, the longest break I’ve had from this website since I started doing weekly posts three years ago. It’s been good to cut down on the pressure, in a way – but I’ve also missed it! Having to prepare a weekly post keeps me … More New Beginnings and Clean Slates

I was looking back over my archive of Weekend Reading posts (which is here, although I haven’t updated it for months!) and realised that I’ve been managing a weekly post with only a couple of gaps – for Christmas and other big occasions – for three years now. It’s time for a break. I’m not … More Summer Invitations