Nice Guy Eddie is dead!

Yep. Chris Penn is officially an ex-nice guy.

Meanwhile, the gas wars are hotting up, with the Ruskies accusing the Ukranians of gas-hoarding. The Ukranians object that they are using more than anticipated as it is, in fact, very cold!

And you thought British trains were bad? In China, long distance commuters have no toilets and have to wear nappies!

Right, I am off to teach a class about that charming chap Pliny the Younger. What could be more pleasurable? as the man himself would say. I will as a result miss George Galloway discovering what the public really think of him.

Don't persue culture - you'll scare her to death.

Ah, the urbane world of academia. PJ Rhodes has retired as Professor of Ancient History at Durham and been replaced by Edward Harris. Harris came to London yesterday to speak to the Institute of Classical Studies seminar on the promising sounding topic "Who enforced the law in Classical Athens?" So now we all know. So far, so mundane. What elevated this particular paper was the novelty of a speaker announcing, with the style, pomp and gravitas of a Catholic archbishop intoning "This is the Word of the Lord" that unanswerable assertion of supreme authority:

"...that is a QUOTE from Professor Ernst Badian!"

I had not realised that over the pond that man had been elevated to the status of a font of unquestionable knowledge. Here he is better known as a vehement anti-Marxist, as might be expected of a man whose University career began in 50s America. His great early achievement, Foreign Clientelae, is punctuated every few pages by the assertion "...and at this time there was no class antagonism in [locus]..."

All of which made me wonder whether my generation will at last be able to take a step back from the impact Marxism has had on historiography. Will it ever be possible for Marxist analysis to join the ranks of other analytical tools, and become another interesting way of looking at a problem, used by historians without a prior ideological committment? Perhaps, but the generation of historians about to retire will continue to bemoan the fact that we have not been taught Marxism properly at school. This is perhaps indicative of the fact that such a process has already been irreversably set in motion.

Tenuous as the link is, the producers of Big Brother are to be congratulated for incarcarating George Galloway and Jodie Marsh together, if only for the priceless moment when George said to Jodie: "You're a wicked, wicked person." Whereas Mr. Hussein, George...

Finally, a 'Migrane Boy' strip that made me laugh.