Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. The Government need to pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country to make sure these can happen in a way that is safe.

Patrick Shaw-Stewart (1888-1917) wrote ‘Achilles in the Trench’ at Gallipoli, on the flyleaf of his copy of Housman’s A Shropshire Lad

A massive new research and innovation campus is proposed to bridge the A34 between Oxford and Kidlington – becoming a neighbour to Oxford United’s new stadium. EXOq, built on land owned by Exeter College, would be centred around High-Performance Compute infrastructure.

'Carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus': this mention of Horace in the record of the Augustan Secular Games (line 149) is the only mention of poetry in a surviving official act of the Roman state. Had a great time revisiting the epigraphic museum at the Terme di Diocleziano today.

Ewen Bowie's wonderful Donald Russell Memorial Lecture St John's College on the Greek imperial poet Mesomedes, his social milieu, his metrical innovations and his music is now available to watch online: youtube.com/watch?v=ex8DeU…

Question: what’s the right term for splitting a word between lines, like this? (I know that lines 3 and 4 can be considered one line; but when considered two lines, as in Horace or wherever, is there a name for doing this?)

Barnaby Taylor Not sure about England, but in Italy one would say “sinafia verbale” (as opposed to “sinafia metrica”, ie dovetailing)

Nearing forty as I am, hair thinning as it is, I take refuge in the second book of Kings

If Satan himself has some extra cash for philology, I'd take it. What is with this money-purity fetish?

Thank you, AI overview.

Is there any more beautiful Latin word than silvicultrix, ‘she who dwells in the woods’?

Came into College early for a full day of undergrad admissions interviews. Beautiful morning in Oxford

every public sycophant and world loser seems to love AI, majority of artists and other cultural figures with a modicum of intelligence is against it. it’s impossible to say who’s right

Many Oxford colleges can claim to be a home to fantasy lit but Exeter College, Oxford takes some beating: exeter.ox.ac.uk/exeter-college…

I had assumed US mediaevalists had calmed down and cheered up a bit since the epically destructive self-owns of a few years back (Bright Ages meltdown, can’t say ‘Anglo-Saxon’ any more etc etc), but doesn’t sound like it lol.

Attention all graduate students and researchers interested in Lucretius! I'm hosting a seminar series next Term with Barney Taylor Barnaby Taylor. Here is the call for papers, which will be given in weeks 3-8. Early in term, we will hear from a special guest-poet.

Oxford people: come speak at our cool seminar

The third book of Girolamo Vida’s Christiad: Joseph narrates the nativity in Latin hexameters, and reverses Virgil’s ‘ploughshares into swords’ (Georgic 1, fin) back into alignment with Isaiah

Staring into the abyss on the last day of my 30s