Tom Gavin 🧈

I reckon I can force a student to write one for November...

One of the people I always thought should have a Substack actually now has one - very much worth a follow.

dic, age, frigoribus quare novus incipit annus, qui melius per ver incipiendus erat? First musings, on the old and the new year

My first substack post can be found here: open.substack.com/pub/astrocla...

(I also very much enjoyed this)

Club where we read Ovid's Fasti as 2026 progresses?

The Open University The 6th Annual GOTH Symposium welcomes scholars from within and outside The Open University for productive interdisciplinary discussion and debate. The Program Committee invites proposals for presenta...

#CFP plug for this exciting annual symposium on gender and/or otherness in creative writing or pre-modern drama. Having attended last year I can confirm firsthand what a lovely bunch of people the GOTH team are!

fass.open.ac.uk/research/cen...

I learnt a lot from this, including which early modern nation was associated with butter consumption. It's none of the ones you think.

‘Here’s Company’: Fractured Englishness and Conflicted Communities in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V - Shakespeare Survey 78 Shakespeare Survey 78 - October 2025

Wonderful surprise to see that Shakespeare Survey 78 is now out in the world, including a piece by yours truly on inter-English conflict in The Merry Wives of Windsor that I am actually quite proud of!

www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

Always strive to have the confidence of Apollonius of Tyana in writing to Vespasian after he had the temerity to demand Greece pay taxes.

Adding this as the epigram to the doctoral thesis

Many thanks to Dr Francesca Beretta for organising last night's Classics School Lockdown Translations Unlocked event. We heard creative translations of Plautus, Ovid, Lucan, Rabelais, Huysmans, Pavese, Borges, Suskind, Ritsos, and Goldman. We were joined by VIP guests Michael Hall and Emily Hayes.

I've been studying Roman history for almost a decade, and it's only now that I've come across the claim that Roman general and dictator L. Cornelius Sulla had only one testicle (Dig. 49.16.4).

The conference attendees pose at the front of the lecture theatre

*Such* an enjoyable weekend after so much preparation, hosting New Voices on the Polis here in Oxford

So grateful to our excellent speakers, to the inimitable @nakhthor.bsky.social, and to my fellow organisers for making this all possible

And now: an early night and a lie-in, I think

Tonight was the termly BNC-STA Classics Research Symposium. Many thanks to Scott Arcenas and Tom Gavin for very exciting papers on Stasis and Economic Growth in Classical Greece and on Koina and Cooperation between the Greek Poleis of Asia Minor.

Also note:
Good, upstanding Brit - pencil
Bad, no doubt loutish American - pen

Ordinarily I despise people who write in library books - I will make an exception here.

Short but (in my opinion) fun note on plague, kissing, and Aelius Aristides by me in here - enjoyable merely for the question of ancient 'social distancing' if nothing else!

come along for some excellent seminars this term, all either online or in hybrid format! especially excited for this week's paper given by @brendankanect.bsky.social!

What is a UNIQ+ Research Internship? | University of Oxford What is UNIQ+?UNIQ+ Research Internships are designed to provide students from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds who are ordinarily resident in the UK with the opportunity to experience

Applications are now OPEN for 2025 UNIQ+ postgraduate research internships at Oxford University. Find out more about UNIQ+ open to UK undergraduates from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds (and spot the Greek vases opportunity!) – apply by 19/02/2025: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g...

The Google Maps page for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre giving some real wisdom.

Some really solid work in one of the Oxford Classics Faculty basement rooms.

Nah I need it to be a dog and dolphin just going ham on each other.

Chunkage is an important metric in the evaluation process.

Day 12: 4 Fruits. The name is a lie. This was one fruit. This was just strawberry. A good strawberry but we have to demand more. Inklings of other flavours but not substantial at all. 6/10.

Day 11: Mango, Raspberry, Lime. Just all raspberry, no lime at all, very little mango. Even eating a chunk of mango gave no mango taste. Not bad tasting but ill conceived. 5/10.

Day 10: Caramel with Madagascan Vanilla. The bourgeois decadence of eating caramel for breakfast was going to get this one far, but this was just absolutely delightful; the vanilla flavour is natural and comes in strong. Very much canelé vibes. 10/10.

Day 9: Blueberry and Maple Syrup. Really surprising here, nicely acidic and fresh. Maple flavour actually comes through, big blueberry pancake vibes. Actual chunks of blueberry really put this over the top. There's a little room for improvement but we love to see a creative risk. 8/10.

Day 8: Cherry and Honey. Horrible, no good, very bad. Honey overpowers here to the jam's detriment, some chunkage but the flavour is actually just a unpleasant. Cherries deserve better. 2/10.

Day 7: Rhubarb and Spices. Pleasant but I feel the pleasure of rhubarb (tartness) is lost, very mild; perhaps thinking a really good rhubarb jam is possible is potentially hubristic. 6.5/10.

Day 6: Orange, Yuzu, and Grapefruit Marmalade. Grapefruit still comes through at the end, despite it being up against two strong flavours in the melange; yuzu is a wonderful addition, not too sweet and intensely citrusy. 9/10.