Mary Beard is marvellous

[TheYuleLogLady]

i love her. i want to go to pompeii and sare a botle of wine with hr.

Here is AA Gill's latest offering:

Mary Beard really should be kept away from cameras altogether. She?s this far from being the subject of a Channel 4 dating documentary. In Meet the Romans, she?s caught the imperial empathy all classicists are prone to and invited us to come and visit her Rome ? someone should take her aside before she starts directing the traffic. Her new take on the eternal city was another piece of self-serving social correctness: Rome was really an international, homogeneous funky berg. Rather as Gibbon wanted the English to draw analogies with his Rome, so Beard wants us to see hers as a sort of antique Shoreditch. In one blissful moment, she turned chummily to the camera and said: ?We are always asking, what did the Romans ever do for us?? But you see, we?re not always asking. That was John Cleese. Then it struck me who Beard reminded me of: she?s Michael Palin as Obadiah the boring prophet in Life of Brian. Look it up on the Book of YouTube.

you could go off a person...

hey mary, i've watched all three, really loved them, first thing i turned to on my tv feed thingybob. particularly loved the block of flats, for some reason. must've walked past them myself heaps of times, but now can't wait to go searching for them again. ignore the critical peanut gallery in the meantime.

Thanks AitchTwoOhOneTwo.. I sort of know that's right... but cripes, when youre knackered it gets to you... I really dont think that men have to take this crap!

they don't, of course. or not in the same way, i guess. but then if you look at the mail etc (as i said a while back, very much the driver in newspaper terms, now biggest global newspaper presence etc), things are getting worse for women, not better. it's a disaster, tbh. very worrying. wonder if leveson will have time to address it?

anyway, i must go to sleep. tbh you appear perfectly lovely to me but bottom line is i don't really give a shit what you look like, i'm watching what you want me to watch, which is, i think i'm right in saying, the ancient roman shizzle...

THANKS.. good sense much appreciated, m

Hi Mary, loved this show! Would you consider doing an mn web chat?

I see that Mr Gill feels that you are unsuited to TV presenting not only because you don't use hair straighteners, Mary, (neither do I, although I do have some) but also because you appear to subscribe to some 'socially correct' model of Ancient Rome. I note this is also described as 'self-serving', although I am not sure how you personally benefit from suggesting that not all inhabitants of Rome were old white men with a stick up their arse. (I draw no comparisons to anyone else mentioned elsewhere).

Perhaps not in Mr Gill's world, but the phrase 'what did the Romans ever do for us?' is quite widely used, not just to refer to the Romans but in the more general sense of examining resistance to change. The phrase has been used at work in reference to the end of a major government project and a withdrawal of staff from that - with some people getting genuinely quite irate at the suggestion that what followed the end of the Roman Empire was a 'dark age' when in fact there was a flourishing of local innovation.

I would take the Palin comparison as a compliment - everyone loves Michael Palin. He presents in an accessible, humorous way and no-one ever worries about whether he is looking 'haggard'.

And finally thank you for your excellent TV programme. It is wonderful and the insight into the lives of ordinary people - not to mention the surprising wealth of evidence about them that still persists - a fantastic antidote to the more traditional presentation of history.

SIL was taught by her at Cambridge Uni and there was no love lost twixt them at all - SIL is rather disparaging about her - sorry to burst the bubble...

Oh but do think the programme is god and if it inspires anyone to do Classics that's all for the good

AA Gill is a wanker, isn't he.

Think AA Gill prefers a svelte, blonde, tall, leggy filly which is why he hasn't got the attraction of Mary Beard - it's all about the BRAIN, AA!!!

happy to do a webchat.

Sorry about SIL.. feeling can only have been one way. The funny thing about having students, for me (don't know what others think) is that you really do manage to love and cherish them all in their different ways. Even if it's clear that the feeling isnt mutual. It sort of comes with the territory..

Gill is a bit of an irrelevance really. He didn't even seem to understand what was being said. He had a kneejerk reaction to the word 'multiculturalism' and somehow seems to have missed the point Mary and Greg Woolf were making about how Rome wasn't what we understand by a multicultural society (God knows how, it wasn't that hard ).

The thing is the internet is absolutely full of people who loved the programme and can't wait for the next one. It was a hit however you look at it and people have responded in a very warm way; I think people are enjoying the feeling of not only learning something new about the Romans but also having their brain stretched a bit. And the warmth and humanity of the programme is lovely and contrasts with the clever clogs approach of some tv historians.

also, for me, it takes what is the window dressing of rome (those inscriptions are jammed higgledy piggledy into walls everywhere) and puts them centre stage. i lived in rome, got married there etc and now i can't wait to go back again and look closer at what i'd previously considered to be just decorative. so i really gained a huge amount. i might dig out my wedding photos, the church where we got married had heaps of those tombstone things plastered into the archways etc.

God Aitch I am super jealous that you lived in Rome. I've always wanted to visit but my dh is a wheelchair user and I just don't think it is practical (although Mary has demonstrated that you can run riot on two wheels at least!).

hmm, yeah i think you're probably right. we went back to visit pals, just with a buggy, and even that was an eye-opener. what a shame, though, it is a bonkersly brilliant place. how about when i win the lottery i'll let you and dh stay in my magnificent roman apartment..?

That would be very reasonable, Aitch, assuming it will be wheelchair accessible :) However, I think it's somewhere I shall be visiting anyway, just without DH. Don't know whether to wait until ds is older (he prefers dinosaurs to Romans).

it'll be wheelchair accessible, but i'm not promising child-friendly...

That's okay, I was meaning I might visit with ds in real life, rather than to your fantasy apartment

am I imagining this thread? I thought my love for Mary made me special and different

I'm feeling rather now...I've managed to put my foot in it twice this week on Mumsnet

Sorry Mary Beard, nothing personal! We can't all like everyone can we?

Anyway I meant good not god but maybe that was a massive Freudian slip!

gazzalw - I don't think you need worry about your post at all. I was banging on about Lauren Laverne on a thread a few weeks ago and then thought 'oh crap, she did say "hello Mumsnet" on 10 O'Clock Live last week, I wonder if she's reading?!'. Never a bad thing to talk about other people, even famous ones, as you would right to their face - and there's nothing wrong with your SIL not having got on with Mary, or not rating her as a lecturer. There's nothing wrong with that wanker Gill (and yes I would say that to his face with pleasure) not rating her as a presenter, commentator, writer or historian if he really must but his review starts "She?s this far from being the subject of a Channel 4 dating documentary".

As if her appearance has the SLIGHTEST relevance to her knowledge and expertise. She may come across more personably in the media than in person - in which case, god help Gill in real life given what a wanker he appears to be in the press; one can only hope it is a constructed persona of wankerishness a la Clarkson because it sells papers and keeps his name in business. So: not unlike the realms of AIBU, criticism is fine, personal attacks are not.

Thanks for making me feel better.... Better not tell my SIL - it wasn't that she didn't rate her as an academic - it was purely a personal 'didn't get her' but she never said anything slanderous about Mary Beard at all...It's not as if everyone gets on with everyone anyway...

As I said, think AA Gill has a type - a Tatler employed 'type' (as I think I am right in thinking his wife is) and obviously Mary Beard is not his - but there again, he's probably not hers either!

What exactly does AA Gill inspire one to do (except possibly avoid various eateries he's reviewed) whereas Mary Beard assuredly could do much to ensure that the Classics Faculties, the World over, have a continued lease of life from young people inspired by her passion and expertise.

It just amazes me though how many famous people are 'lurking' on here and then pop up as if from nowhere...

Mary is lovely in RL and has a large tribe of grateful and admiring ex-students!

Chacun(e) a son gout I think is the answer to that.... Sure she has got lots of admiring ex-students just not quite all of them

I personally think she's great