Today we took the Classics School photograph for 2024-25. The sun came out on cue. On to a new academic year with much to look forward to.

Readers of the Odyssey will know the menace of a man called Noman Ali. The brilliant Pakistani spin bowler is currently making England's batsmen feel like the Cyclops after a very bad night.

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Yesterday the Classical Reception Reading Group studied Pygmalion in the Romance of the Rose and the Classics Quiz translated the lyrics of the Last Dinner Party and Miley Cyrus. This is a very cultured operation.

At 5.30 p.m. on November 7th our dynamic Plumer Visiting Fellow, Prof. Dorota Dutsch, will be giving the termly St Anne's Classics Society guest lecture. Her title is "Pythagorean and Confucian Women on How to Outsmart the System: Of Cicadas, Bees, and Flies”. We can't wait.

Many thanks to Emily Perkins in the St Anne's Development Office for designing this wonderful poster. Not so long ago Emily was a terrific Exeter College Classics student coming to Prof. Leigh's Neronian Literature seminars.

Thank you so much, Syma Khalid! You are so kind. Woof! Poppit xx

Many congratulations to our treasured Graduate Development Scholar and now colleague Holly Hunt, who passed her doctoral viva earlier this week. Dr Hunt, we salute you!

Prof. Leigh has been reading Sarah Harvey's article 'Bread and Bones: Feeding Roman Dogs', CW 114 (2021), 419-447. Last week Poppit somehow acquired an untouched Christmas turkey mayonnaise sandwich and proudly carried it half a mile on her way home. She dined on kibble instead.

Yesterday was the annual St Anne's College JCR puppy-petting session. Poppit joined forces with Jack, Tommy, and Rievaulx to spread some joy. She seems to have had a pretty good time herself.

We'll be hosting the termly Brasenose-St Anne's Classics Research Symposium at 5 p.m. on Friday November 29th with papers from Eve Harrington on Eclogue 2 and Plato's cave and from Simon Shogry on the Stoic good life. Feel free to join us.

On her last day as a Plumer Visiting Fellow at St Anne's, Prof. Dorota Dutsch led a memorable session of our Classical Reception Reading Group on the Ovide Moralisé and the rape of Proserpina. Here we all our after class.

Many thanks to Dr Francesca Beretta for organising our termly Lockdown Translations Unlocked. Members of the Classics School gave their own versions of a Vedic Hymn to Ratri, verse from the 1970s Brigate Saffo, a concrete poem by Besantinus with its own acrostich, and much more.

We are delighted to learn that St Anne's Classics alumna Laura Plumley is currently appearing as Mrs Brown and Mrs Bird in the Paddington Bear Experience in Waterloo. We will have the marmalade sandwiches at the ready for whenever Laura comes back to visit us.