Color. Why we need it. Why we fear it. And where its future might lie.
Images and links at articlesofinterest.substack.com
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Being Roman with Mary Beard - 1. Loving An Emperor
Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire.
Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a slave to an emperor. Her investigations reveal the stressful reality of Roman childhood, the rights of women and rules of migration, but it’s the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she’s really interested in.
In the bloody chaos of civil war, a young bride witnesses the savage murder of her parents, fights for her inheritance and funds her husband’s flight from the brutal gangsters carving up the empire. On Hadrian’s Wall a Hertfordshire slave girl marries a Syrian trader. Is it a cross-cultural love story or a brutal tale of trafficking and sexual abuse?
An eleven year old boy steps on stage to perform his poetry to a baying crowd of 7000 and the Emperor himself. The political and financial future of his entire family will be decided in the next few stanzas.
Across six episodes Mary Beard travels the Empire and gathers first-hand testimony and expert comment, creating an extraordinarily vivid sense of Being Roman.
In the first episode we meet Marcus Aurelius, the very model of the ideal Roman Emperor. Strong and masculine, but a deep thinker with wise words for every occasion. Richard Harris played him in the film Gladiator as a great leader of men, determined that loyal Russell Crowe inherit the Empire rather than his treacherous son, Joaquin Phoenix.
As Mary discovers, Marcus proves much more complicated- and interesting- than his image in popular culture. Letters to his beloved tutor reveal a naïve, sweet and dangerously flirtatious nature, while his record of campaigning and persecution under his rule shows an Emperor as comfortable with brutal violence as stoic philosophy.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Amy Richlin, UCLA and Elizabeth Fentress
Cast: Marcus played by Josh Bryant-Jones and Fronto played by Tyler Cameron
Being Roman with Mary Beard - Welcome to Being Roman with Mary Beard
Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire. Mary Beard introduces her six part series on the people of the Roman Empire, from a slave to an emperor.
Articles of Interest - A Few Shoes [LIVE]
On stage in Toronto, with the help of shoe designer Aurora James and shoe historian Elizabeth Semmelhack, we go over a few shoes- and what they say about ourselves and the world.
Images of all the shoes discussed are at articlesofinterest.substack.com
The Cows Are Mad - 10. Zombie Deer
Online videos of crazed deer crashing through the American countryside are racking up views online. They have the deer version of BSE – Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD - and it's now spread to northern Europe too. Scientists are worried.
History repeats itself as hunters speculate on the origin theories of this deer prion disease. The US government insists people are safe, but conspiracy theories about a hoax or cover up are starting to spread online.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor
The Cows Are Mad - 9. Cow Eats Man
Did mad cow disease actually come from humans? Alan Colchester, the doctor who raised suspicions about the Kent meat rendering plant, has one of the most disturbing theories so far.
He publishes an academic paper that suggests a grisly international trade in decomposing animal remains could have brought the disease to the UK, after human bones picked out of the Ganges in India is unknowingly mixed with the cargo.
Will there ever be an answer to the origin of BSE? Scientist John Collinge is still looking.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor
The Cows Are Mad - 8. Reaction
Organic farmer Mark Purdey’s followers roll their concerns about pesticides into the public inquiry into BSE. A group of farmers who claim they were poisoned by pesticides join forces with green activists and work to get their own fears about neurological disorders in rural Britain onto the news agenda.
They fail to convince government scientists that pesticides are to blame for BSE, but their trust in mainstream science is destroyed forever – then Covid hits.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor
The Cows Are Mad - 7. Factor X
The BSE crisis becomes a lightning rod for other safety issues in the countryside. Organic farmer Mark Purdey becomes convinced pesticides are to blame for making cows go mad, and thinks they caused vCJD in humans too.
He sets out to prove his claims by crowd-funding for lab experiments. He becomes the star of the alternative mad cow disease community, for people who refuse to believe the official government narrative on BSE – or any other official narrative, for that matter.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor
The Cows Are Mad - 6. Stray Burger
Mother Christine Lord becomes obsessed with the now infamous episode of agriculture minister John Gummer feeding his daughter a beef burger on TV in 1990. She wants to know what killed her son - and beef is the prime suspect. But as she investigates, she finds all is not as it seems.
Three decades on from the incident, John Gummer casts doubt on the widely-believed story that infected beef is what caused vCJD in humans.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor
The Cows Are Mad - 5. D-Day
The truth finally comes out, as the government confirms a new brain disease affecting humans. In late 1995 eminent neurologist John Collinge is brought onto the government advisory panel on BSE. Cases of a new brain disease in humans are confirmed - and it looks the same as BSE in cows. Then the crisis hits.
John Collinge is brought into an underground situation room where the government and its scientific advisors are trying to work out what to tell the public. Everyone involved up to this point has to account for their actions.
Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor.