You will be disappointed/relieved to hear that there is no On Hannibal’s Trail this Friday night on BBC2. Thank you to all those people who got in touch and told us they couldn’t find the programme in the TV guide. We have since talked to the BBC and because this transmission of the series is […]
In Episode 2 of On Hannibal’s Trail we ride through Barcelona which just happens to be where I am right now. The city is famed for it’s architecture (among other things) and one of the most unusual, and perhaps my favourite architectural feat here are the ruins of the Roman temple of Augustus that are […]
We went to Wales recently for a short break knowing we were entering a part of the UK with some its most intact Roman ruins. The Romans invaded Wales in 48 AD. Some local tribes resisted but as far as archaeologists can tell the major forts in the south stopped being fully garrisoned by about […]
I returned recently from my first ever trip to the island of Ibiza. It has the well-deserved reputation of being filled with these: http://hotchickswithdouchebags.com But it also has some important Punic and Phoenician ruins. According to the locals the most important Punic/Phoenician necropolis in the World is here – Puig des Molins. But despite this […]
There is a really interesting conference coming up at Durham University: Conference on Carthage and the Punic-Phoenician world, sponsored by the Department of Classics & Ancient History, to be held at St John’s College, 5th-6th August 2011. http://www.dur.ac.uk/classics/events/upcoming_events/?eventno=10287
A big thank you to the girls in their final year at Oxford High School for having me come and talk to them last week. And to Rachael Pallas-Brown their teacher. A fun, perceptive and intelligent audience – I had a great time. At least until we were compared to the label of a peanut […]
Thanks a lot to all the year 10 and 11 students at Kelmscott school who sat patiently through my Hannibal talk the other day! A very generous and forgiving audience. One of the best questions of the day was “what was the most peculiar thing that you came across on your trip?” I had to […]
And so to the last stage of our trip. Tunisia – a land dominated by President Ben Ali who was fresh from winning a recent election with 90% of the vote. His picture features in every cafe and car and on every street corner. We arrived at the ferry terminal in Tunis under his gaze […]
On a long trip like this interpersonal relationships become very important and are often the cause of the most interesting bits of the journey. I imagine it might make a pretty good documentary following a crew making a documentary? A bit like the new show we are thinking of pitching to the BBC: “Entertainment Tonight […]
We were reunited once again with the film crew in Milan. Andrea is directing the final two episodes of the documentary – amongst her many attractive attributes she laughs at all our jokes – which is very rare as they aren’t ever funny. Francesco the fixer is full of concerned advice for us. His best […]