Back from Newcastle

Tumbleweed. Photo by Nogwater.

I’m back from the Classical Association conference at Newcastle and tired. I’m coming to the conclusion I’m not a conference person as I have trouble hearing conversation when there’s a lot of background noise. It means I can’t hear anything during lunch or coffee breaks and get frustrated. It’s a shame as I enjoyed papers at both conferences I went to and met saw interesting people.

I still made a bit of a fool of myself. If I see something or someone I like I can be expressive without thinking it through. Last year I yelled that’s “Robert Hannah’s book!” when I saw a copy of Greek and Roman Calendars for sale. It was probably the most enthusiastic sale the publisher made that day, but judging from the heads that turned round it’s not that common to express so much joy about a book.

This year I was told Brian Sparkes was the guy sitting in front of me. My reaction is simply “Wow! Greek Civilisation is a really good book for the Greek History first years.” It is a very good entry-level book that isn’t overwhelming, but at the same time doesn’t hammer flat the subtleties of ancient Greece. Admittedly it’s a book he edited rather than authored, so not the first choice of book if you want to flatter someone but the diplomatic side of my brain wasn’t around. Unfortunately neither was my memory. My enthusiasm kicked off with: “I thought your introductory Greek History book was really useful, I’m a big fan of…” and that’s when I realised there was a huge cavernous space in my memory where the title of Greek Civilisation should have been. Tumbleweed drifted gently through my mind as I tried to dredge up the title from somewhere. What was a knee-jerk reaction transformed into something that looked like a painfully inept attempt to creep.

You can read more about the CA meeting in the Times. I’ll write something on that and NAM over the next week after catching up with emails etc.