Skip to main content
Tagged by Bob from Brockley

I've been tagged. The game is to identify an individual, and then challenge them to grasp the book nearest to them, go to page 123, take the fifth line down, and write out the next three sentences.

I have four books on my cluttered desk; The Koran (M.A.S Abdel-Haleem's translation) the King James Bible, Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ, and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus's book (an old 1944 translation I love and have had for years) at page 123 is concerned with a letter to his old tutor and friend, Fronto. Five lines down it reads;

most delightful of men, most distinguished of consuls, sweetest of masters/ After this you are to be careful not to tell so many lies about me, particularly in the senate! Your speech made me cringe. O if only for every chapter-head I could give your own head a kiss

There you are. Classic fancy schmancy Roman stuff. Imagine what he'd do with a blog...

Comments

bob said…
That's quite some collection of books on your desk!

Popular posts from this blog

I resign from the Labour Party The likes of Andy Burnham, Hazel Blears, Mary Honeyball and Luke Akehurst are now representative of the Labour Party. They have at least given me a clear mind in recent days, and for that, I suppose, I should be grateful. I have been a Labour member since I was 16, in a steeltown. I can just about accept that student union hacks with no proper job experience can spend their time undercutting unions and selling public administration to their mates, because something could arise that may be better. I can also accept that some immigrants, because of a misplaced desire to avoid the appearance of racism, are more 'acceptable' to the Left than others, so my own family's Irish Catholicism can be something to be sneered at by the ranks of Labour activists. I can accept that there may be a fiscal case for not taxing the super rich with capital gains, but not for truckling to them or sucking up to the likes of Rupert Murdoch. I can accept that there mig...
A Jacksonian Republican Party Democrats in the United States frequently lay claim to the heritage of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. They present the two as tribunes of the revolutionary people, and Jefferson-Jackson dinners are often occasions at which aspiring candidates can strut their demotic stuff, as it were. Both Presidents were opposed to coalitions made up of those they saw as 'elitists' and federal empire-builders, in the Federalist or Whig Parties. J-J (to employ a short and composite form, a bit like the creators of San Trovaso in Venice) were nationalists, tough on foreign crime, sure of their often violent support, and ferocious in the support of presidents who protected the republic. They upheld gun rights and, those of the traditional holders of property, emphasised the rights of States, and an armed citzenry, and in general thought all opposed to them belonged to some conspiracy, probably associated with Europe, to take away their Scots-Irish and democrat...
In Defence of The Pope In recent days, wild allegations, and frankly mad chains of causation, have been constructed around Pope Benedict. I don't think that I have anything to prove on my attitude to the disgusting things that were done by men breaking their vows, who were often protected by Bishops who were also in a deranged relationship with their duty. However, I do intensely dislike the stupidity of some of the assault. England seems particularly gripped by antipapist feeling. This has been true in its past, when the country is under pressure, and has been a strand in its identity since 1533. It emerges at times of great pressure, like the 1850s or 1730s, often when the English people realise that someone is undermining and impoverishing them and fail to see that the culprits are their own elites. However, it now seems clear that Josef Ratzinger, when a cardinal, was involved in a process that extended the time in which victims of sexual violence could bring clai ms beyond tha...