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Neville Morley

@nevillemorley.bsky.social

765 followers 608 following 954 posts

Classics & Ancient History at the University of Exeter; much Thucydides, Marx and decadence, but also beer, cats and obscure European jazz. STILL trying to keep the blog going: thesphinxblog.com.

Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Drop a ship not from Star Wars or Star Trek.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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But keep in mind that all their ejections have two rounds, and in the first it looks as if the forces of evil will triumph…

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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My jazz composition homework this week was inspired by a particularly funny bit of automatic transcription fail from a previous class: Debbie C and the Loneliest Monk. Practically writes itself.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Not to mention the hierarchy of activities. If you didn’t get on with football or rugby, you’re defined as unsporty no matter how well you do at badminton or cross-country; if you don’t know what to do on a vaulting horse, you don’t deserve to climb things.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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The torture will continue until morale improves.

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Rachel Moss's avatar Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social
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Rome useful for reminding us political nostalgia is not new or only purview of extreme right - has ancient origins. Also, Rome is often narratavised as falling due to “abandoning” its traditional values & being “overrun” by foreigners who don’t share its culture #politicisednostalgias

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Candidates demonstrate their fitness for office by completing an obstacle course of at least ten miles, while balancing an egg on a spoon, starting at different points on the constituency boundary and converging on the maypole that always stands at its centre - hence ‘first past the post’.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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A Tory party that has no idea about the correct usage of ‘decimate’ needs to be put out of its misery.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Solidarity and sympathy. And more cake for me.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Since I wrote a piece about the Roman steam revolution about twenty years ago, I have had at least five emails taking it completely seriously, so…

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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New professional development courses: How To Deal With Guilt. Your Work Ethic Is Not Your Friend. Baking for Stress Relief. Eat Less Cake, Drink Less Coffee.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Possibly we need a new sub-category: Motivated Realism.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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How long is your long run? Apart from Tacitus being critical and cynical, political thought under the Principate seems (perhaps for fear of consequences otherwise) to take power of emperor for granted, and focus on qualities of good v. bad emperors (and still more their advisers/wives).

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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In future I’m going to have to specify that at least 50% of the answer should focus on Rome.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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One of the essay topics for my Roman Political Thought module last term: “How did a political culture founded through the overthrow of monarchy and obsessed with the dangers of excessive individual power come to terms with the rise of unfettered autocracy?”

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Benjamin Straumann’s Crisis and Constitutionalism suddenly becomes a best-seller…

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Clearly the US Supreme Court has decided to run a real-time experiment to decide the question.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Arguably the most significant debate in Roman political thought and its modern reception is whether the wellbeing of a state is guaranteed by constitutional structures (balance of powers, formal constraints and institutions etc.) or by the virtue/character of political actors.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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It was unfortunately never quite as good as it could have been. They should have hired me as academic consultant.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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I think my theory that England’s performances need to be interpreted in terms of Peter Handke’s Publikumsbeschimpfung is gathering extra data points.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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When I’m 78 I want to be half as cool as Robert Fripp.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Thesis: we are entering an era of epitome, excerpts and anthologies rather like the 3rd century CE, only stupider.

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Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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The thing with these guys is they view communications media (speech, fiction, film, TV series, drama, you name it) as data transmission and nothing more. The Great Gatsby is a list of events and characters and if you can cut that down to 500 words, you're maximizing something.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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“Bringing ReformUK into disrepute.” Uh huh.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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We will fight them on the beaches… of Santa Monica. And we will never surrender our sense of entitlement.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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This would explain why Sunak was repeating the word ‘surrender’ throughout last night’s debate.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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I have been listening to a fair number of Schoenberg string quartets.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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I have now composed my first piece of twelve-tone jazz, and am feeling rather pleased with myself. Just don’t ask me to identify what the chords are for the solos.

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John Rogers's avatar John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social
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Our tech overlords would like to make clear that your fantasies of universal health care and affordable housing are childish while their fantasies of infinite energy to power their AI girlfriends are reasonable expectations and will come true imminently. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Including a short piece by me on Thucydides and the plague at Athens as a catalyst for critical historiography.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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No, simply that I should pay them to create a Wikipedia page for me.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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The subtle manipulation - “you know those people you were muttering about because they’re not so great and yet they’ve got pages? actually they cheated, so you should” - could be improved only by noting that for female classicists there’s a whole organisation dedicated to creating pages for them…

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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"Academics who have accomplished much less have Wikipedia pages because they have got them made. It's time you get one too." Aw, shucks...

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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I am struck by the fact that the latest Lib Dem election literature has a big picture of him, in the clear expectation that this will get more people to vote for them.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars…

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Is anyone here well informed on the culinary uses of Greek basil? I’ve sowed it for the first time this year on a whim, and it’s doing incredibly well - better than either the Thai basil or the traditional Italian.

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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Three bits of jazz composition homework reviewed; three sets of positive comments! Bitonality and Ornette-ish blues are clearly my thing. Plus I’m probably getting bonus marks for writing six or twelve bars at a time rather than 128-bar epics.

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Rachel Moss's avatar Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social
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Exciting news! Politicised Nostalgias online registration and programme are LIVE, please join us on 12 July (12-4.30pm UK time, timed to be vaguely ok for multiple timezones, sorry it's not perfect for all!): historyatnorthampton.com/2024/06/20/p... Also see the great in person list for 5 July! :) 🗃️

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Neville Morley's avatar Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social
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I continue to regret that Lord Frost ducked out of standing in this election, as that would have been very funny, and abject humiliation would not be undeserved.

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