Its Own Morbidity

Eric's doctor summoned the family to a meeting yesterday afternoon. We were anticipating something upsetting, but all he wanted to do was consult us about taking him off warfarin- an anticoagulant that protects against heart attacks and strokes but increases the danger of internal bleeding.  It's a big choice, yet hardly a choice at all.  As the doctor said in his doctory way, "Old age creates its own morbidity."

Rory And Mary Do The Romans

Rory McGrath's Pub Dig is Time Team with added blokeishness (as if the original wasn't blokeish enough). Actually I rather like it. The premise may be jokey but the archaeology isn't. In last night's show Rory and his team found a Roman hotel (mansio) under the car park of the Six Bells at St. Albans- a discovery of national importance.

The Romans Mary Beard wants us to meet aren't the emperors and generals and blue-bloods, but people like the nouveau riche Eurysaces whose enormous tomb is built to look like a bread oven and whose epitaph she translates, loosely, as "Here lies Eurysaces the baker- geddit!"  It is, she says, as if a modern footballer chose to be buried under a huge marble replica of a football boot. Great fun. If a woman can be blokeish, Mary is- but she's also erudite and original.