Mary Beard: ‘I don’t think you’re right, and this is the evidence’

There is a seat in the House of Lords with Mary Beard's name on it.

Also blessed with a head of long grey hair and attendance at an all-girls school, possibly one of the most memorable classes I took at school was "Classical Literature in Translation" - attending the lessons was mandatory in lower sixth, although taking the associated O-level was not (I did and passed with no more effort than having paid attention in class!) - even though I was a scientist through and through, and went off to read botany at university before a dramatic change that's ended up with me teaching Computer Science... but I still enjoy the classics, and have taught myself Latin (from textbooks thrown out by a school that had dropped Latin from the curriculum, I literally retrieved them from a skip) and picked up Greek (a mix of a class in New Testament Greek run by a university chaplain who was a classicist and learning the modern language over several holidays) along the way. The Classics enrich all of us whatever it is we want to do for a living!

I understand Boris Johnson read classics (and Michael Gove English Literature). Humanities might not be cut across the board, only made less accessible for many.

overrated.