A Guardian report today - yes, with its fair share of spin; Guardian readers evidently cannot be trusted to make up their own minds whether   more »

Another star to add to the galaxy coming to the ARLT Summer School this July. Professor Stephen Harrison (Corpus Christi, Oxford) has agreed to come and talk on Aeneid 10 (A Level Set Book from Sept 2005).

That's in addition to Prof Jonathan Powell, Dr Lene Rubenstein, Dr Nick Lowe, CA News editor Dr Jenny March, and best-selling author Lindsey Davis.   more »

Almost every post on this blog so far has been positive, helpful (I hope) and often practical. So pardon this rant.   more »

Al Ahram weekly on-line has an article on ancient Alexandria that might turn out useful. Or confusing, who knows?   more »

�Homework, like the national curriculum, is a dinosaur. It is repetitious, generates marking that is often just a load of ticks and causes conflict at home.�   more »

These article what I read in todays guardian must seem to you and I to be a load of poppycock. It's writer do know proper grammar and if its good enough for he why cant the rest learn to.

And what does the research say about the claim of Latin teachers that learning our language gives students an advantage because they learn to think grammatically - and logically?   more »

The Times has a list of UK universities with Classics departments, and some indicators of how demanding and successful they are. The link is here, for reference. The Guardian's rather fuller table is here.   more »

Just a little whoop of joy! Yesterday, 16th January, was the first day that ARLT blog had more than 1000 page views. There were 1014 to be exact, by 721 different people ...   more »

Here's the first part of a piece in Lancaster Online - that's Lancaster PA, by the way. The article is followed by comments from an internet discussion, including this:

" It is a shame the local public schools don't see the value of Latin.   more »

ATHENS - The National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece's main venue for its collection of ancient antiquities, is set to fully reopen this spring. The museum was damaged in a 1999 earthquake.   more »

A review in the Christian Science Monitor describes an historical novel about Hannibal that might be of interest to those tackling Livy Book 30 this year.

Pride of Carthage by David Durham Doubleday   more »

Mary Renault was the first historical novelist I read whose stories were set in ancient Greece. They still in my view, take a lot of beating. I have recommended my sixth formers to read The Mask of Apollo to get an idea of Greek theatre as a living enterprise, and The Last of the Wine for a convincing account of the Peloponnesian War. I heard the author say in an interview that the epitaph she craved was: "She got it right." It feels as if she did get fifth century Greece right.   more »

Most online books are older, out of copyright texts. This one was published in 1996. I haven't read it, so can't comment on its value, but it's there, freely available.   more »

This is taking me into a new realm. When I sent out the latest ARLT newsletter I got a number of automatic messages telling me that it hadn't reached certain teachers. I e-mailed several of the people, to see if an ordinary personal e-mail would get through, and one American teacher got her computer expert husband to investigate. This is what he found - I feel rather hurt at Verizon's lumping me - and the whole of Europe - in with spammers, particularly as a lot of the spam I receive seems to come from the US!   more »

I have added more events to our calendar of Classical events.   more »

JACT and the Hellenic Society have joined forces to put on an INSET Day on Teaching Greek on Saturday 12 February - yes, less than a month away.   more »

No, really. All I'd like you to do is have a look at the ARLT calendar for February and March

Did you ever see such a wonderful collection of Greek drama performances, film and lectures?   more »

First Bacchae, with the Odyssey hot on its heels! Bristol Old Vic is doing its bit for the Classics between January and March 2005.

Kneehigh Theatre is putting on The Bacchae between 25th January and 12th February, and then comes The Odyssey from 18th February to 12th March, with a number of special events:   more »

I'm reminded of that Breton fisherman's prayer when I trawl the net and come up with something that must have been there for years, and I just haven't seen before. This morning it's the Guardian's page of links for Classics.    more »

Mrs Kelly had some words that I find interesting, on breaking free of Bill Gates and his attempt to take over the world.   more »

Our Education Secretary made a speech today about computers in education, and said, among many other things:

I am also announcing that Teachers' TV will be launching on 8 February.   more »

The National Committee for Latin and Greek in the USA has made available a large set of posters that I would be happy to use to decorate my classroon walls. I have put small, fuzzy versions of some of them on this Blog, but the originals are high quality pdf files. The posters are of three main types:   more »

The Friends of Classics regularly feature news about the Classics on their website, and this month they present, in full, an article on Cicero and the law courts, which is preparing for a TV programme on Cicero.   more »

I found out from 'Explorator' that the USA is designating 2005 the Year of Languages. A web page by the Seattle public radio KUOW (I'm told that these radio station names are allocated centrally and the letters mean nothing) gives four links, two of which concern Latin. In addition the page gives access to a 54-minute radio programme on language learning, with an interview about the Latin revival from minutes 42-50, and shorter mentions at minutes 23 and 31.   more »

The History of Rome (five-book edition), by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William P. Dickson, is now on line. You can access it here at the moment.

Thanks to David Meadows and his wonderful weekly newsletter 'Explorator' for this information.   more »

Could this article in the Guardian of January 4th be about the shortage of Latin teachers and the way the professional bodies, JACT, ARLT etc, are coping? (Answer at the bottom of the article extract)   more »

Two pieces from The Times are worth consideration, as post-GCSE students plan their university careers. The first points out possible advantages in studying in the United States, for British students faced with top-up fees here in the UK. The second points out the rather different ethos in one particular American university - to put it bluntly, you have to work rather than drink!   more »

The Summer School/Inset is the high point of the ARLT year. This year's course director, Linda Soames, has just sent me an update. I set down here the outline information. For the full details and a down-loadable application form, please go to the Summer School page on the ARLT site.   more »

I was sent this link: http://www.pagina.de/lvpa/ - thanks, Brian!

It will take you to an extensive site, all in Latin, of the   more »

Twelfth Night is coming all too soon, and we shall have to stop our revels and celebrations. What. you've stopped already? Shame on you! Anyhow, it seems a good time to offer some really, really classical music.   more »

If you are putting on a Greek play and are puzzling about how to get bums on seats, take a look at this:

So, you think your family is bad? Having some trouble recovering from whatever low-level trauma they've inflicted this year?

The Gaslight Theatre Company has just the thing to make your clan look like the Cleavers in comparison. Under the direction of Justin Costello, Gaslight is preparing to tell a little family tale full of   more »

The article concentrates on Arabic, but gives the figures for Latin and Greek. Latin comes 8th in the list, and Greek 11th. The order is:   more »