Peter Stothard blogs

I am an ignorant fellow, in many ways, and I did not know that Peter Stothard -- actually Sir Peter Stothard -- is the current editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Perhaps I was unaware of it because that is a journal which I finally gave up on about ten years ago, after having read it every week since I was about sixteen. I eventually grew weary of trying to find anything in it that I could understand or enjoy.

Anyway, it turns out that Stothard has started a blog. Its layout is somewhat curious, giving you only a sentence or two of a post before inviting you to click on, and he has apparently only just set up shop. The content, however, seems less highbrow than one might have feared. Indeed some of it is quite... well, shall we say explicit?

Should you be so inclined, you can read all about girls in ancient Sparta who (allegedly) had their heads shaved, were dressed in boys' clothes, and were then subjected to 'institutionalised sodomy'. However, Stothard goes on to point out, as you would expect from a scholar and a gentleman, that the evidence for this is a bit thin. Though I dare say the book in question will sell a few copies, despite that.