All in a Don's Day

Mary Beard

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781846685361
• eBook ISBN: 9781847658630
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Her central themes are the classics, universities and teaching - and much else besides. In this second collection following on from the success of It's a Don's Life, Beard ponders whether Gaddafi's home is Roman or not, we share her 'terror of humiliation' as she enters 'hairdresser country' and follow her dilemma as she wanders through the quandary of illegible handwriting on examination papers and 'longing for the next dyslexic' - on whose paper the answers are typed, not handwritten.

Praise for It's a Don's Life

'Delightful... it has the virtues of brevity, eclecticism and learning worn lightly... if they'd had Mary Beard on their side back then, the Romans would still have their empire' Daily Mail

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• How rich are Cambridge students?
• Dixon of Dock Green on-line
• Transparency is the new opacity
• The laughter lover
• Hestons Roman feast
• Should schools teach Twittering?
• The history girls vs. David Starkey
• Pirates? Try the Pompey-the-Great solution?
• Literary ladies at Cambridge – and who’s minding the baby?
• Does College need a new grace?
• Christianity banned
• Exam nightmares
• How do examiners mark exams?
• Graduation: no animals killed
• Was Alexander the Great a Slav?
• Ten Latin quotes for the underground
• What were job references like in the old days?
• WHO says British universities are complacent?
• Ten things you shouldn’t believe about A levels
• Sex with students? Is Terence Kealey as misunderstood as Juvenal?
• Did Portnoy’s Complaint deserve the ‘Booker Prize’?
• Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo: what was Catullus on about?
• Should the Rosetta Stone go back … where?
• What to cut in universities?
• Are you at risk of plagiarism?
• How many references do you write in a week?
• How to lose an election – the Roman (or Nicholas Winterton) way
• Lecturers – beware germs
• Why ‘good practice’ can ruin good practice
• And the prize for the worst manifesto goes to …
• Ten dotty (well-meaning?) ideas from the party election manifestos
• Do we need bad teachers?
• Civilian casualties, leaks and the ancient view
• The politics of Britain’s brainiest cemetery
• Museum parties: balls, dances, conferences and the great and the good
• World-class universities vs. the Human Resources Compliance Unit
• Bedding down in the Library
• Students occupy the Senate House
• Student occupation: the dilemmas
• Can black kids get into Cambridge?
• A pig for a present
• What’s wrong with government by petition?
• To tweet or not to tweet?
• The Colossi of Memnon? When are graffiti not graffiti?
• Universities, despots and plagiarism
• BAFTAs and Emmys
• The sentence for ‘serious’ rape?
• Not winning a BAFTA ( … phew???)
• Young minds … and the dirty bits (in Aristophanes)
• Dream School goes to the Education Select Committee
• Exam speak
• Why bother to visit the Colosseum?
• From El Bulli to Apicius
• The Cambridge Chancellor election – in 1847
• The Africa Museum in Brussels – and David Starkey
• Why does the Manneken Pis?
• Fed up with the REF … and what about the babies?
• What Tony Blair should have written to Saif Gaddafi
• Nisi dominus frustra: why ditch a motto?
• Filming: the boot on the other foot
• AD VS. CE
• First-year Ancient History at Newnham. What do we do?
• Who gives a stuf about the Act of Settlement?
• Better a dictator than a technocrat
• Online etiquette
• Educational tourism
• Juliet’s balcony
• Christmas tradition – and innovation
• Five thoughts on getting to 57
• Other eBooks available from Mary Beard
• Aferword
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Credits