Table of Contents
Map xii
31.12.10 1
Arrival in Alexandria
A yellow room at Le Metropole
Maurice and the Red Tents
How Cleopatra made it happen
1.1.11 9
Cleopatra the First
Mahmoud and Socratis
New Year bombing
The Dead Fountain cafe
Essex clay
I look myself up
2.1.11 35
Slightly poisoned
Muslims and Copts
Monty's bar
Jesus, the missing years
3.1.11 47
Cleopatra the Second
The rough-book
E.M. Forster and the Ptolemies
Boxes of tragedies
Death by needles and beaks
4.1.11 65
Partial eclipse
Sir Anthony Browne's foundation
Mr G and Mr W
She Who Must Be Obeyed
Blood from his nose
An arms salesman
5.1.11 87
V, the schoolgirl
Teenage years
Sodomy in Greek
Burning books
A boy called Frog
Paul Simon and Jimi Hendricks (sic)
6.1.11 107
Cleopatra the Third
Miss Taylor
Signs of a beard
Pompey's Pillar
A bomber and a carpet
7.1.11 127
Cleopatra the Fourth
In Oxford
A kiss from V
Julius Caesar's little war
A cruise down the Nile
8.1.11 143
Maurice gets Marowitzed
Lighthouse island
Mahmoud and the church bomb
Ides of March
9.1.11 163
A lesson from Holladay
Continuators
Watch the office men
Classicists do
A night at The Frogs
10.1.11 177
Cleopatra the Fifth
An actress at St Mark's
Sex with Crissie
Maurice's Nubian night
Socratis on Caesar
Aulus Hirtius, V and me
11.1.11 195
The Metropole red-and-green Ball
Tied down in the tents
Frog and the Mermaids
12.1.11 209
Secret seventies
The Latin for hangover
Alexandrian rules
Southern Bug
Somewhere on Love's Island
Alphabets in the sky
13.1.11 225
The middle of the story
Mark Antony waits at Tarsus
Perfumed sails
Successors to Caesar
A queen cannot choose her pimp
14.1.11 233
Cleopatra the Sixth
Grey days at Big Oil
Bureaucracy student
A different Antony Brown
15.1.11 225
Cleopatra the Seventh
Space barons
V in the Red Tents
Calthorpe Arms
The Thatcher who must be obeyed
F for Farouk
Duke's rout
16.1.11 289
The purpose of parties
Mark Antony s wars
Generous happenings for a general
The new Caesars
17.1.11 297
Queens by night and day
Dreams of dogs
Romans and Alexandrians in the newsroom
Leading articles
The Scargill gaffe
18.1.11 315
Last nights of an editor
Farewell to Calthorpe and other Arms
Lost notes
What happened at Actium
19.1.11 329
Mahmoud and the troops
Death of Antony
Socratis's mother sings
Coincident cancers
20.1.11 347
Maurice and Cleopatra reunited
How to die without pain
E.M Forster on the North Sea
21.1.11 357
V comes to Cheltenham
How to read a Latin poem
The afterlife of Romans
Drink and move on
22.1.11
Last night, last words
Farewell to Le Metropole
Noises from the border
the right choice of driver
Epilogue: Elizabeth Taylor and the Arab Spring 379
Acknowledgements 383