Today’s match is on the very spot where Nausicaa and her maidens were surprised while playing cricket by the ship-wrecked & temporarily homeless Odysseus.
At the historic Spianada Square ground in the heart of Corfu, three of Nausicaa’s descendants stand on the wicket as @AuthorsCC prepare to bat.
To open for @AuthorsCC: me & my brother. The last time this happened, @James1940 ran me out...
Well, that didn’t last long. A blisteringly quickfire six, including a square cut boundary that generated an audible murmur of approbation from the knowledgeable Corfiote crowd.
Then I selflessly give away my wicket, so that @AdamRutherford can go out & hit 3 consecutive sixes.
Remember, folks, every run I score raises £££ for @PassageCharity!!!
And what does @AdamRutherford think about my cut? Remember - he’s a scientist, so everything he says is #FACT
In the historic heart of Corfu Town, where @AuthorsCC are currently 68/8, the match is developing not necessarily to our advantage.
We crawl our way to 118 all out. During the innings break, the deputy mayor welcomes us to Corfu, & salutes the 197 years of cricket played on this beautiful & historic ground. Their welcome - & the incredible generosity of @CorfuArts - will be an indelible memory of 2020.
As the Trojans were to the vengeful Achilles, so we were to Corfu. @AuthorsCC lose by 9 wickets within 11 overs. I get hit for 6 after 6.
However, on the plus side, & talking of Achilles, my inflamed tendon has successfully held up to 3 matches in 3 days, so woohoo!!!
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To the seas of Suffolk, there to embark tomorrow with @jamiembrixton on a journey across England to Blackpool: coast to coast, as directly as we can, stopping off along the way to admire & explore what may lie in our path...
And so it begins.
@jamiembrixton kneels in admiration before the spectacle of the river Deben, as it meets the North Sea. 2 Martello towers stand on sentry in the distance. #CoastToCoast
Bawdsey Manor: built in 1886 by thé splendidly named art collector & Liberal MP, Sir William Cuthbert Quilter; requisitioned in WW1; bought in 1936 by the Air Ministry to serve as a centre for radar research. Amazingly, it continued as a RAF base into the 90s. So Dr Who…
Huge excitement as we arrive at the first stop on our tour of #PreConquestKent: a Romano-British temple found during the building of a housing estate in Newington, just off Watling Street.
@jamiembrixton engages in some top archaeological research, scoping out the very site.
The remains of the temple were moved 70 metres to a neighbouring recreation area. It dates to the 1st century, & stood in what seems basically to have been a huge industrial zone, producing iron & pottery. Although massively developed under the Romans, it was originally Iron Age.
The readiness of faith leaders to ignore the evidence of history should it conflict with their doctrinal positions is always a bit depressing
No! By and large, we owe what survives of classical literature to Christian copyists. Christian emperors might order heretical & astrological books burned - but there was never any campaign to destroy pagan learning. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This, by @TimONeill007, is an excellent summary of why the notion that Christians destroyed classical learning is a myth of the kind that atheists pride themselves on opposing. (Whereas in fact they tend merely to be recycling Protestant anti-Catholicism) historyforatheists.com/2020/03/the-gr…
To the ancient city of Mandu, for a millennium and more a mighty stronghold, but also, in the 15th century, the scene of what @DalrympleWill has described as “one of the most singular experiments in pleasure that the world has ever seen.”
“Ghiyath Shahi filled Mandu with no less than 16,000 beautiful female slaves and the good-looking daughters of his feudatory rajahs; the walled hilltop citadel was defended by an army of five hundred armour-clad girls from Abyssinia.”
Ghiyath Shah’s other enthusiasms included: samosas (“don’t forget to add saffron, fried aubergines & ginger”); hunting; perfumes (especially aromatic oils); and aphrodisiacs (“sparrow brains fried in milk and ghee”).
H/t Hannah Robinson’s excellent @secret_unusual guide to Edinburgh
“The lodge is designated No. 1 in Scotland & it may well be the oldest Freemason lodge in the world. References are made to it in 1504 & it holds minutes of the oldest Masonic meeting on 31 July 1599, making it the world’s oldest Masonic document.” #Edinburgh
The birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell, without whom I would have been unable to post this tweet