Charlotte Higgins on culture + Books | Culture

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} // ]]> </script> <ul id="blog-posts-excerpts"> <li class="first date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Wednesday 10 June 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/10/classics-history" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Well done Mary Beard}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Well done Mary Beard</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Last night <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/">Mary Beard</a>, professor of classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and one of the most brilliant communicators on classics around, was awarded the £20,000 Wolfson prize for history (purpose: "to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public") for her work <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pompeii-Life-Roman-Mary-Beard/dp/1861975163">Pompeii</a>.</p><p>Had I the work to hand, I would now quote a witty and insightful passage, but I have lent it to my boyfriend, which I guess tells you it's in demand. The book is also longlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson prize for nonfiction, and I have great hopes of its doing well there, too.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/10/classics-history?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Well done Mary Beard}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-348643247 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">09.27 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 2 June 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/02/ruth-padel-hay-festival" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Hay, Ruth Padel and the Oxford Professor of Poetry }&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Ruth Padel: the final word?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/02/ruth-padel-hay-festival" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Hay, Ruth Padel and the Oxford Professor of Poetry }&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Ruth Padel" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/5/30/1243707719562/Ruth-Padel-001.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">'Almost to a person I found women siding vehemently with Padel'. Photograph: Murdo Macleod</p> </div> <p>It's all been a bit of a dash and a rush: this is the time of year when I get flung from festival to festival with barely a moment's pause. This year's Guardian Hay festival was terrific fun – but hardly a moment to breathe, let alone blog. (And by the time you read this, I'll be en route to the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/venice-biennale">Venice Biennale</a>.) <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/02/ruth-padel-hay-festival">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/02/ruth-padel-hay-festival?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Hay, Ruth Padel and the Oxford Professor of Poetry }&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-348252607 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">13.21 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Sunday 24 May 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/24/latin-in-schools" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on why Latin matters more than ever}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Why study Latin?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/24/latin-in-schools" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on why Latin matters more than ever}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Christopher Plummer and Nikki M James in Caesar and Cleopatra, Stratford Shakespeare festival" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2008/09/11/plummer2460.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Latin lovers ... Christopher Plummer and Nikki M James in the Stratford production of Caesar and Cleopatra. Photograph: David Hou/AP</p> </div> <p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/22/latin-funding-state-schools">Who'd want to study Latin?</a> A dead language, good only for Caesar attacking the ditch with arrows (an old Molesworth joke) or honking like a pig as you decline your pronouns (hic haec hoc; hunc hanc hoc). Well, here's a simple, utilitarian point: because Latin is a dead language, because it is taught to be read, not spoken, because it is taught entirely through its grammatical rules not through its demotic use, as you learn it you gain an understanding of the mechanics and structure of language streets ahead of any you will gain from the study of a modern tongue. Any other language - not just Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, but German, Russian, Arabic - becomes easier for a child with a grounding in Latin. A student can use Latin to grasp the bones and sinews of any language. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/24/latin-in-schools">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/24/latin-in-schools?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on why Latin matters more than ever}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-347848102 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">17.28 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Friday 22 May 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/22/hay-festival-the-wire" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Hay festival: The Wire and Greek tragedy}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Hay festival: The Wire and Greek tragedy</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/22/hay-festival-the-wire" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Hay festival: The Wire and Greek tragedy}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Wee-Bey, Stringer and Avon in The Wire." src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/4/7/1239103886277/Wee-Bey-Stringer-and-Avon-003.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">At the mercy of the fates ... Wee-Bey, Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale in The Wire</p> </div> <p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/20/wire-creator-allegorical-hurricane-katrina">I had the great good luck to interview David Simon</a> - co-creator of The Wire, co-author of Homicide and The Corner - the other day, ahead of his appearance at the Guardian Hay festival on 30 May. One of the nuggets that I couldn't quite squeeze into the resultant article was the influence of Greek tragedy on his wonderful TV series (the antidote to police procedurals, as you might call it). <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/22/hay-festival-the-wire">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/22/hay-festival-the-wire?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Hay festival: The Wire and Greek tragedy}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-347789173 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">16.01 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Monday 18 May 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/18/cannes-bright-star-scorsese" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Bright Star, Scorsese and Cannes}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Cannes: Bright Star - and movie heaven</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/18/cannes-bright-star-scorsese" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Bright Star, Scorsese and Cannes}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in Bright Star (2009)" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/5/15/1242396186952/Abbie-Cornish-and-Ben-Whi-001.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Hampstead Heath, with butterflies from the Amazon ... Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in Bright Star</p> </div> <p>You loved it or you hated it:<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/15/jane-campion-bright-star-cannes-film-festival-review"> the response to Jane Campion's Bright Star</a>, about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, was mixed on the Croisette. The pro camp – who were much more numerous than I first expected, with the film, at the time of writing, heading up the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.screendaily.com/cannes-competition-blog/5001196.article">critics' poll in Screen magazine</a> – loved the cinematography, the pacing, the gently, sweetly pitched relationships. Those in the anti camp were, perhaps pedantically, irritated by Fanny's anachronistically inexhaustible supply of new frocks; the fact that daffodils and spring leaves were in shot when the characters were discussing the imminent approach of autumn; and that some of the butterflies supposedly caught by Fanny's siblings on Hampstead Heath were, absurdly, tropical species, native to Venezuela and Brazil. For me that bit of nonsense struck such a false note it made me irritated with the film tout court – a shame. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/18/cannes-bright-star-scorsese">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/18/cannes-bright-star-scorsese?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Charlotte Higgins on Bright Star, Scorsese and Cannes}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-347526082 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted on</span> <span class="timestamp">13.17 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Wednesday 6 May 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/06/public-faces-harold-nicolson" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Its time to republish Public Faces}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">It's time to republish Nicolson's Public Faces</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/06/public-faces-harold-nicolson" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Its time to republish Public Faces}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/5/6/1241606475100/Harold-Nicolson-and-Vita--002.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Sir Harold Nicolson with his wife, the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, in 1960 at their home, Sissinghurst, Kent. Photograph: Corbis</p> </div> <p>Two friends – both of whom have worked as high-up civil servants – have lent me a novel they love called Public Faces, by Harold Nicolson. It is, in fact, a story about high-up civil servants, written in the early 1930s and set in the near future, 1939. More accurately, though, it is about the layers of confusion, bungling, misunderstanding, laziness, fear, pride and vanity that lead Britain into a hideous international crisis and to the brink of war. To begin with, the fuss is about mineral deposits in Iran, which everyone wants a piece of once they begin to realise how valuable they are. Then it spirals into something quite different as rockets are tested, a French government falls and the British foreign secretary starts behaving very oddly indeed. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/06/public-faces-harold-nicolson">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/may/06/public-faces-harold-nicolson?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Its time to republish Public Faces}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-346947674 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">12.09 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Friday 3 April 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/apr/03/classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{asd}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Cicero was the funniest Roman, says Mary Beard</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Mary Beard, professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge – and star <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/">blogger</a> – bravely took on the challenge of discussing Roman humour at the first session of the conference of the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.classicalassociation.org/Events/Diary.html">Classical Association/Classical Association of Scotland</a> in Glasgow this evening.</p><p>I say bravely, because her talk involved telling a number of Roman jokes, some of which were very bad indeed. (Though the rather good-natured classicists foregathered tittered gamely at most of them.)</p><p>For instance, the elder Crassus, a stern, stoical kind of a fellow, was said only to laughed only once in his life – when he saw a donkey eating thistles. That made him laugh because it reminded him of the famous ancient saying: "Thistles are like lettuce to the lips of a donkey."</p><p>Personally, I was not in stitches at that one.</p><p>Then there is what I might venture to call the worst Roman joke ever.</p><p>It comes up in Cicero; he is discussing a joke made to one Gaius Sextius, who had one eye. Gaius Sextius invites a friend to dinner, who replies, "All right then – I see you've got a place for another." </p><p>Right. Another place for an eye, apparently. Eye, place. Whatever.</p><p>Mercifully, Cicero tells us that this is not a good joke – it's the joke of a scurror (jester) and not the bon mot of a sophisticated, urbane orator such as himself.</p><p>Indeed Beard started her talk with the hilarious (no pun intended) claim that Cicero – yes that bloke long dreaded by schoolboys and with a reputation for self-serving pomposity – was the wittiest Roman ever.</p><p>Well, that's how he was regarded – his slave collected his jokes and published them in three volumes after his death.</p><p>She went on to talk about the ways in which theorists of oratory such as Cicero himself and Quintilian wrote about jokes.</p><p>Whereas we moderns tend to think about what it is that makes people laugh, the Romans were much more interested in the joker than the laugher. That is borne out by the rich Latin vocabulary concerned with the makers of jokes compared with the fairly small one relating to laughter – which is mostly confined to cognates of the verb <em>ridere</em>, to laugh.</p><p>There was, she said, a kind of anxiety about the joker. Laughter was seen as janus faced. The maker of a joke could easily find himself the butt of one. (This ties into that fact that it was not seen as a good thing to laugh at oneself.)</p><p>What were suitable topics for jokes? Well, apparently there was deadpan humour; derisory humour (ie laughing opponents down); and some words were just simply funny in themselves – such as, apparently, the word stomach. Baffling. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/apr/03/classics">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/apr/03/classics?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{asd}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-345507723 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">19.32 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 31 March 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/31/classics-janeausten" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{asa}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">In times of crisis, the solution is simple – send for the Nancy Mitford omnibus</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/31/classics-janeausten" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{asa}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Nancy Mitford in 1956" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/authors/2008/12/19/1229700207840/Nancy-Mitford-in-1956-002.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">The queen of comfort reading: Nancy Mitford in 1956. Photograph: Thurston Hopkins/Getty</p> </div> <p>Last night, just before going to sleep, I finished <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Mitford">Nancy Mitford</a>'s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Cold-Climate-Nancy-Mitford/dp/0140009841/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">Love in a Cold Climate</a> for, I don't know, the 20th time? The 30th time? I don't know it quite as well as <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pursuit-Love-Nancy-Mitford/dp/0140007113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238509659&sr=1-1">The Pursuit of Love</a>, adored by everyone in my family and pressed upon me at a tender age. That, I can quote reams from, and quite often do. "Les origines de la famille Radlett sont perdues dans les brumes d'antiquité"; the Kroesigs' garden was "a riot of sterility"; uncle Matthew's opinion that "abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends". Et cetera and so forth.</p><p>These books I come back to time and again when I am feeling stressed, tired, or miserable – or even when I don't have that excuse. It may be that I need a little rest, or a palate cleanser, between more serious reading projects – a prize shortlist I am ploughing through for work purposes, for instance, or a nice, fat 19th-century novel. I suspect the reason I am drawn over and again to these comforting books is that sometimes I need very badly to escape into another world – one where, unlike that which we call the "real" world, there are certainties. For, while even well-read books offer new discoveries, there are generally no heartstopping shocks to catch you out in a work you have read every year since adolescence. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/31/classics-janeausten">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/31/classics-janeausten?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{asa}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-345305521 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">15.50 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Wednesday 11 March 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/11/art-classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Shakespeare portrait latest}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Shakespeare 'portrait' latest</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Just a quick post to link to Andrew Dickson's interesting piece on <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/mar/11/william-shakespeare">the search for images of Shakespeare</a>, and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/mar/11/shakespeare-cobbe-portrait">my own piece</a> in which <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.npg.org.uk/shop/publications/searching-for-shakespeare.php">Dr Tarnya Cooper</a>, the most respected British expert on Tudor and early Stuart portraiture, pours a generous bucketful of icy water over the idea that the Cobbe portrait is a lifetime portrait of Shakespeare.</p><p>And for those who were debating the significance of the Horace inscription on the painting, another specialist in paintings of the period emailed me with the following thoughts.</p><blockquote><p>"Principum amicitias" is Horace (2 1. 4) addressing Pollio and warning him off from writing about recent history and advising him to concentrate on writing Greek tragedies because of the danger of causing offence to participants in the (civil) war. This is certainly appropriate to a writer, but surely not necessarily WS. I gather that the picture had long been thought of (equally dottily, I suppose) as Sir Walter Raleigh, who at the date of the picture (1610-15) was languishing in the Tower writing his History of the World. Such a history might well have been seen as dangerous for someone found guilty of treason. The sitter is too young for Raleigh himself in 1610-15, but why not his son Walter Jnr trying to persuade dad to concentrate on his poems and not modern history? I am certainly not suggesting this as an identification, but simply pointing out that<br/>the Latin tag could just as easily apply to someone else.</p></blockquote><p></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/11/art-classics?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Shakespeare portrait latest}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-344438216 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">11.26 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 10 March 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/10/art-classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Shakespeare “portrait”? Pull the other one}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">A true Shakespeare 'portrait'? Surely not...</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/10/art-classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Shakespeare “portrait”? Pull the other one}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Newly Identified portrait of William Shakespeare " src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/3/9/1236638626755/Newly-Identified-portrait-001.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">The Cobbe portrait, unveiled yesterday in London. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images</p> </div> <p>On the evidence adumbrated so far, it seems to me to be to be highly unlikely that the Cobbe portrait is a true lifetime portrait of William Shakespeare, as <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1883770,00.html">widely reported today</a>. </p><p>I'm assuming there's something that <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.shakespeare.bham.ac.uk/academic/Stanley.shtml">Professor Stanley Wells</a>, who has led the charge towards the identification, has something else up his sleeve – because so far the case seems rather unconvincing.</p><p>The story is that the owner of the Cobbe portrait attended the recent <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/searching-for-shakespeare.php">Searching for Shakespeare</a> exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, curated by <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.npg.org.uk/shop/publications/searching-for-shakespeare.php">Tarnya Cooper</a> in 2006.</p><p>At that exhibition he saw a picture at one time thought to have been of Shakespeare, known as the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=3179">Janssen portrait</a>, that resembled his own "Cobbe" portrait, and which he felt was probably copied from his own painting. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/10/art-classics">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/10/art-classics?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Shakespeare “portrait”? Pull the other one}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-344375610 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">10.50 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 3 March 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/03/classics-charlesdickens" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{To Dickens or not to Dickens?}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">To Dickens or not to Dickens?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>The world seems to split itself into two around <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/index.html">Charles Dickens</a>. There are those who have, and those who haven't. Read him, I mean. Views are strongly expressed on both sides of the gulf. For those who haven't – even otherwise very literate people – it seems self-evident that trawling through these great Victorian doorstops is a ridiculous idea, a stupendous waste of time. If you want realism (they say), turn to <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoré_de_Balzac">Balzac</a>, not this mincingly, effortfully comic world of semi-racist grotesques, angelic virgins and moustache-twiddling villains. For those who have, there's a large and happy club of believers in existence whose members can share jokes about <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/bleakhouse/9.html">Mrs Bayham Badger</a>'s late husbands and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkins_Micawber">Mr Micawber</a>'s circumlocutions – but more than that, who know that all of life is contained in these marvellous, all-encompassing books vibrating with almost corporeal vividness. Like the operas of Wagner, these greedy works of art swallow you up, and make you forget that there's anything else but them. Last week I swear I inhabited my own life only barely – it was the final third of David Copperfield that seemed truly solid and real. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/03/classics-charlesdickens">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/03/classics-charlesdickens?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{To Dickens or not to Dickens?}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-344078987 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">15.17 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 24 February 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/24/classics-classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Battlestar Galactica revealed as the new Virgils Aeneid}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Battlestar Galactica revealed as the new Virgil's Aeneid</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/24/classics-classics" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Battlestar Galactica revealed as the new Virgils Aeneid}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Battlestar Galactica" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/2/11/1234355573430/Battlestar-Galactica-001.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Geek tragedy? A scene from Battlestar Galactica: Blood</p> </div> <p>Before I embark on this blog, can I point out that I am a box-set person, not a Sky person, so I am at only the halfway point of the final series of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.battlestargalactica.com/">Battlestar Galactica</a> – and really don't want to know what happens next?</p><p>Right, that's done.</p><p>Now, am I the only person who regards the sweep of the story of the sci-fi series <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/">Battlestar Galactica</a> as a kind of re-reading of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/aeneid.htm">Virgil's Aeneid</a>? I am talking, of course, of the great Roman epic poem that recounts the flight of Aeneas and his followers from their conquered city of Troy to Italy, where, it is prophesied, their descendants will found Rome. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/24/classics-classics">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/24/classics-classics?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Battlestar Galactica revealed as the new Virgils Aeneid}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-343704538 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">11.12 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Friday 20 February 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/20/classics-philosophy" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{“Top philosopher” Plato turns Sun writer}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">'Top philosopher' Plato turns Sun writer</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>I'm loving <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2255989.ece">this piece from the Sun</a> about the putative discovery of Atlantis (yet again) in the Atlantic Ocean north-west of the Canary Islands. (It's a sort of grid, or in Sun-speak a "perfect rectangle the size of Wales" spotted by an aeronautical engineer as he browsed Google Ocean.)</p><p>Deliciously, the main piece is accompanied by a commentary from "top philosopher" <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato">Plato</a>. ("This exciting discovery on Google Ocean backs up the theories about Atlantis I outlined in my dialogues <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaeus_(dialogue)">Timaeus</a> and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critias">Critias</a> back in 350BC..."). Yet again is fuelled my suspicion that the Sun is secretly staffed entirely by people with philology PhDs from Oxford.</p><p>Sounds like a lot of cobblers to me (to employ a Sun-appropriate phrase) – but lots of fun.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/20/classics-philosophy?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{“Top philosopher” Plato turns Sun writer}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-343542057 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">12.01 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 17 February 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/17/classics-cambridgeuniversity" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{The myths of “ancient Greece” dispelled}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The myths of 'ancient Greece' dispelled</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/17/classics-cambridgeuniversity" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{The myths of “ancient Greece” dispelled}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="300" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/10/08/300460.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Greek tragedy ... Zack Snyder's 300</p> </div> <p>If <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview19">Mary Beard</a> is Cambridge University's doyenne of ancient Rome, a vigorous promoter of the understanding of Roman culture and history and a brilliant <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/">blogger</a>, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/staff-bios/academic-research-staff/paul_cartledge/">Paul Cartledge</a> does a similarly effective job for the Hellenes (bar the blogging). The author of many scholarly and extremely approachable books (I recommend <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0192803883/ref=s9_sdps_c5_s1_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=13MFWHWFK2J6EG6X24AW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463374933&pf_rd_i=468294">The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others</a>, but there are many more), not to mention an adviser on the swords-and-sandals film <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/">300</a>, Cartledge has just been made the first AG Leventis professor of Greek culture at Cambridge, and yesterday I popped over to hear his inaugural lecture (to be podcast in due course, and published in old-fashioned print). I nearly fell off my chair when I read the bibliography on the lecture handout – among Eagleton T, Leigh Fermor P, Osborne R and Scruton R, sat proudly <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-All-Greek-Charlotte-Higgins/dp/1906021430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234890110&sr=1-1">Higgins C</a>, although as I suspected I was there to provide at least partial evidence for the perpetrating of various "myths" about ancient Greece which he then took care to take apart.</p><p>These myths numbered four. <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/17/classics-cambridgeuniversity">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/17/classics-cambridgeuniversity?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{The myths of “ancient Greece” dispelled}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-343388398 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">17.42 GMT</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Wednesday 28 January 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jan/28/costabookaward-poetry" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{How Adam Foulds was a breath away from the Costa book of the year award}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">How Adam Foulds was a breath away from the Costa book of the year award</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <div class="blog-image-caption"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jan/28/costabookaward-poetry" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{How Adam Foulds was a breath away from the Costa book of the year award}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="small mask"> <img alt="Adam Foulds" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2009/1/28/1233134886917/Adam-Foulds-001.jpg" width="460" height="276" class="image-in-trail "/> </a> <p class="caption">Adam Foulds poses for photographers before the Costa Book awards. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters</p> </div> <p>Well, so much for what I thought: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jan/26/costabookaward">I imagined that Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards the End</a> would be at least down to the last two works in contention for the Costa book of the year award, announced last night. I wasn't, in fact, surprised that Sebastian Barry won for The Secret Scripture (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/27/sebastian-barry-costa-book-award">my report is here</a>), but it was certainly unusual, unheard of, even, for a chair of judges, in this case Matthew Parris, to be so very candid about how it nearly didn't get the prize – and how Adam Foulds's narrative poem The Broken Word just missed out on the £25,000 cheque. </p><p>In fact Parris, speaking to journalists last night, was almost brutally honest about the flaws that the judges had seen in Barry's novel. "The Broken Word jolly nearly pipped it to the post," he said. "The judges nearly all agreed that there was a lot wrong with it, that it was flawed. Almost no one liked the ending." <a class="continue-reading" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jan/28/costabookaward-poetry">Continue reading...</a></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jan/28/costabookaward-poetry?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{How Adam Foulds was a breath away from the Costa book of the year award}&lpos={trail}{3}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-342426108 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlottehiggins" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Charlotte Higgins}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Charlotte Higgins</a> <span class="timestamp">09.00 GMT</span> </div> </li> </ul> <ul class="pagination"> <li class="first"></li> <li class="last"><a name="&lid={blogTagAutoTrailblock}{pagination-next}&lpos={blogTagAutoTrailblock}{1}" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog+books/books?page=2" rel="nofollow">Next</a></li> <li>1</li> <li><a name="&lid={blogTagAutoTrailblock}{pagination-page}&lpos={blogTagAutoTrailblock}{2}" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog+books/books?page=2" rel="nofollow">2</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div id="promo"> <div id="rightslot1" class="hide-on-popup"> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ if(isExternalSystemOn("displayads")) { var src = 'http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://ads.guardian.co.uk/js.ng/spacedesc=rightslot1&comfolder=notcommerciallyuseful&keywords=%2CBooks%2C&site=Culture&bandwidth=broadband&url=%252Fculture%252Fcharlottehigginsblog%252Bbooks%252Fbooks&rand=1470296044&series=&system=tagcombiner&tile=5149211&blockVideoAds=false&'; 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href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog+music/classicalmusicandopera" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Classical music}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Classical music</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog+festivals" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Festivals}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Festivals</a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="capsule ed-zone external-links"> <div id="" class="tri trail trailblock"> <ul class="tri trail trailblock"> <li class="major-heading first"> <h2> Charlotte's web </h2> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.newyorker.com/arts" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{New Yorker}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">New Yorker</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.lrb.co.uk/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{London Review of Books}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">London Review of Books</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.therestisnoise.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{The Rest is Noise}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The Rest is Noise</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://theater.nytimes.com/pages/theater/index.html" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{New York Times}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">New York Times</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://operachic.typepad.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Opera Chic}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Opera Chic</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Culture Grrl}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Culture Grrl</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{About Last Night}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">About Last Night</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.aldaily.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Arts &amp; Letters Daily}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Arts & Letters Daily</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://artforum.com/news/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{artforum.com}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">artforum.com</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.theartnewspaper.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{The Art Newspaper}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The Art Newspaper</a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div id="blogs-calendar"> <div class="capsule"> <h2>Charlotte Higgins on culture weekly archives</h2> <div id="calendar-container"> <table title="Calendar for July" summary="Calendar for July" id="calendar"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="7" scope="col"> <strong class="month">Jul 2009</strong> <a title="Previous month" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Previous}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{1}" class="previous"> <img src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/static/77051/common/images/calendar/left_arrow.gif" alt="Previous" height="18" width="19"/> </a> </th> </tr> <tr class="month-nav"> <th scope="col" title="Monday" class="first">M</th> <th scope="col" title="Tuesday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Wednesday">W</th> <th scope="col" title="Thursday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Friday">F</th> <th scope="col" title="Saturday">S</th> <th scope="col" title="Sunday" class="last">S</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="not-this-month first">29</td> <td class="not-this-month ">30</td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 1}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{2}">1</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 2}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{3}">2</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 3}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{4}">3</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 4}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{5}">4</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 5}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{6}">5</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 6}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{7}">6</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 7}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{8}">7</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 8}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{9}">8</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 9}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{10}">9</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 10}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{11}">10</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 11}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{12}">11</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 12}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{13}">12</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 13}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{14}">13</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 14}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{15}">14</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 15}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{16}">15</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 16}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{17}">16</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 17}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{18}">17</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 18}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{19}">18</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 19}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{20}">19</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 20}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{21}">20</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 21}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{22}">21</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 22}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{23}">22</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 23}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{24}">23</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 24}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{25}">24</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 25}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{26}">25</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 26}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{27}">26</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 27}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{28}" class="today">27</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 28}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{29}">28</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 29}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{30}">29</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 30}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{31}">30</a></td> <td>31</td> <td class="not-this-month ">1</td> <td class="not-this-month last">2</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> </div> </div> <div id="listings-search" class="capsule"> <h3>Listings search</h3> <div> <form action="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardianlistings.press.net/results.php" method="get" id="listings-search-form"> <input type="hidden" name="reset" value="1"/> <input type="hidden" name="when" value="7days"/> <fieldset> <label for="title">Search for:</label> <input type="text" id="title" name="title"/> </fieldset> <fieldset> <label for="maincat">Event type:</label> <select id="maincat" name="maincat"> <option value="all">All</option> <option value="Clubs">Clubs</option> <option value="leis_com">Comedy</option> <option value="leis_dan">Dance</option> <option value="leis_art">Exhibitions</option> <option value="mus_jazz">Jazz</option> <option value="music">Music</option> <option value="mus_rock">Rock</option> <option value="leis_the">Theatre</option> </select> </fieldset> <fieldset> <label for="region">Enter UK postcode:</label> <input type="text" id="listings-postcode" 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src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/static/77051/common/images/guardianjobs.gif" alt="Guardian Jobs"/></a></h3> <ul class="tab-toggle javascript-on"> <li id="global-jobs-1-link"> <a href="#global-jobs-1" class="active">UK<b></b></a> </li> <li id="global-jobs-2-link"> <a href="#global-jobs-2" class="inactive">USA<b></b></a> </li> </ul> <div class="pane-wrapper"> <div id="global-jobs-1" class="global-jobs-pane tab-toggle-pane"> <h3 class="js-hider">UK</h3> <div class="capsule jobsbox"> <form action="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/searchjobs/" onsubmit="return doSearchAllSubmitUK( this );"> <fieldset> <input type="text" class="text plain-search" id="freetext-searchalljobs" name="freetext" value="Search all jobs" onfocus="this.value='';"/> <input type="hidden" name="keyword" id="keyword-searchalljobs" value=""/> <input type="submit" class="submit" name="go" value="Go"/> <input type="hidden" name="gusrc" value="gu_jobs_box_Culture"/> <input type="hidden" name="link" value="Culture_jbx_go"/> </fieldset> </form> <p class="find-a-job"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/?gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Culture&link=Culture_jbx_brsesec" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Browse all jobs}&lpos={jobsBox}{1}">Browse all jobs</a> </p> <ul class="jobs"> <li class="odd"><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/894381/scheme-managers?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Culture&link=Culture_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Scheme Managers|Culture}&lpos={jobsBox}{2}">Scheme Managers</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">servite houses limited.</span> <span class="location">east and west midlands.</span> <span class="wage">£19,717.60 per annum.</span> </p> </li> <li><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/891654/senior-exhibition-sales-executive-technology-portfolio?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Culture&link=Culture_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Senior Exhibition Sales Executive - Technology Por&hellip;|Culture}&lpos={jobsBox}{3}">Senior Exhibition Sales Executive - Technology Por…</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">dragonfly.</span> <span class="location">senior exhibition sales executive - technology por….</span> <span class="wage">£25000 - £30000 per annum + Bonus.</span> </p> </li> <li class="odd"><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/891545/associate-director?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Culture&link=Culture_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Associate Director|Culture}&lpos={jobsBox}{4}">Associate Director</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">think search and selection.</span> <span class="location">associate director - public affairs for top ten co….</span> <span class="wage">up to £70,000 + bens.</span> </p> </li> </ul> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ function doSearchAllSubmitUK( form ) { var jobsSectionToSearch = ''; var freeText = ''; var searchTextField = document.getElementById( 'freetext-searchalljobs' ); var keywordElem = document.getElementById( 'keyword-searchalljobs' ); var isSectionSearch = function() { return jobsSectionToSearch != ''; } var textIsModified = function() { if( isSectionSearch() ) { return ( searchTextField.value != 'Search all ' + freeText + ' jobs' ); } return ( searchTextField.value != 'Search all jobs' ); } if( !textIsModified() ) { keywordElem.value = ''; if( isSectionSearch() ) { form.action = 'http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/null'; return true; } form.action = 'http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/'; return true; } keywordElem.value = searchTextField.value; if (isExternalSystemOn("hbx")) { _hbLink( '{jobsbox-searchalljobs}', '{jobsbox-searchalljobs}{1}' ); } return true; } //]]> </script> </div> </div> <div id="global-jobs-2" class="global-jobs-pane tab-toggle-pane initially-off"> <h3 class="js-hider">USA</h3> <div class="capsule jobsbox"> <form action="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.guardianjobs.com/" onsubmit="return doSearchAllSubmitUSA( this );"> <fieldset> <input type="text" class="text plain-search" id="freetext-searchalljobs" name="q" value="Search all jobs" onfocus="this.value='';"/> <input type="hidden" name="keyword" id="keyword-searchalljobs" value=""/> <input type="submit" class="submit" name="go" value="Go"/> <input type="hidden" name="gusrc" value="gu_jobs_box_Culture"/> <input type="hidden" name="link" value="Culture_jbx_go"/> </fieldset> </form> <p class="find-a-job"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/?gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Culture&link=Culture_jbx_brsesec" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Browse all jobs}&lpos={jobsBox}{1}">Browse all jobs</a> </p> <textarea id="jobs-box-usa-textarea" style="display:none;"> {for result in results} <li> <h4> <a href="${result.url}">${result.jobtitle}</a> </h4> <p> <span class="description">${ result.snippet }</span> <span class="location">${ result.state }</span> </p> </li> {/for} </textarea> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ var userip = '207.241.235.66'; var country = 'usa'; var isUSA = (country.toLowerCase() == 'usa') ? true : false; var jobsBoxView = new guardian.r2.JobsBoxView('jobs-box-usa', 'jobs-box-usa-textarea'); var jobsBoxService = new guardian.r2.JobsBoxService('', userip); /* category, location */ var jobsBoxController = new guardian.r2.JobsBoxController(jobsBoxView, jobsBoxService, isUSA); //view, service, locationIsUSA //]]> </script> <ul id="jobs-box-usa" class="jobs"> <li class="javascript-on">Loading jobs...</li> </ul> <p class="attribution javascript-on"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.indeed.com/">jobs</a> by <a title="Job Search" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951/http://www.indeed.com/"><img alt="Indeed job search" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090730064951im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/static/77051/common/images/icon_usjobs.gif" width="54" height="19"/></a></p> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ function doSearchAllSubmitUSA( form ) { var jobsSectionToSearch = ''; var freeText = ''; var searchTextField = document.getElementById( 'freetext-searchalljobs' ); var keywordElem = document.getElementById( 'keyword-searchalljobs' ); var isSectionSearch = function() { return jobsSectionToSearch != ''; } var textIsModified = function() { if( isSectionSearch() ) { return ( searchTextField.value != 'Search all ' + freeText + ' jobs' ); } return ( searchTextField.value != 'Search all jobs' ); } if( !textIsModified() ) { keywordElem.value = ''; if( isSectionSearch() ) { form.action = 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