O tempora! Our new Latin crossword, which had its first outing last Saturday, seems to have been a success with Latinists of all levels. “This is the first time ever that I am sending a letter or email to The Times,” wrote Christine Stapleton of Cambridge, “but I had to let you know how much I enjoyed the Latin crossword. I have come to Latin late in life, so was very pleased that I could solve most of the clues armed with a dictionary and grammar (for one or two I’ll have to wait for the solution on Saturday). I liked the mixture of slightly cryptic clues, more straightforward grammar questions and quotes. I hope you will continue with it.”
Gavin Bateman, from Edenbridge, Kent, didn’t divulge whether he resorted to a dictionary; I suspect he didn’t need one. “As someone whose Latin was studied 50 years ago it really got the old brain cogs whirring. Many thanks, I’m looking forward to the next.”
The only negative response we’ve had was from Ireland where, apparently for space reasons in our Irish edition, the puzzle is not available. Eight hundred years of oppression and now we can’t have the Latin crossword; infamy, infamy, as Julius Caesar didn’t say. Well, we’ve passed on the message and will report back in due course.
Also in Ireland, a report on the draw for next summer’s European football championships accidentally including the Republic of Ireland among the “home nations”. This was put right in later editions but not before being spotted by Seb Marr, in Cheltenham.
“Eire/Republic of Ireland is not one of the home nations (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) in either political or sporting terms except in sports like rugby union where north and south combine to form one team. One might as well include France under this logic, as it’s close and large parts of it were once ruled by England.”
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Don’t tempt us. The style guide has detailed advice on this subject: “Britain is now widely used as another name for the United Kingdom or Great Britain, and pragmatically we accept this usage. Strictly, Great Britain = England, Wales, Scotland and islands governed from the mainland (ie, not Isle of Man or Channel Islands); United Kingdom = Great Britain and Northern Ireland; British Isles = United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands”.
Tarzan’s telling off
Timothy Downes thought we’d over-egged the story about Michael Heseltine having to “grovel” when he was defence secretary and Margaret Thatcher found out he had nodded through her exclusion from the ceremony to unveil the Falklands War memorial in St Paul’s Cathedral. “It is a journalistic distortion,” Mr Downes wrote, “to claim that Mrs Thatcher ‘hauled’ Heseltine to No 10 for a dressing down. As the illustration of her message to her private secretary shows, she asked to see the Secretary of State following a Cabinet meeting which he was routinely attending. There was no question of ‘hauling’ him to the building.”
Well Mr Heseltine may not have managed to escape the premises in time, but I don’t suppose this was a confrontation he went to with glad heart and a spring in his step. The scribbled note has just been released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust and even 30 years on it would send a chill down the back of anyone who was ever summoned to the headmistress’s study: “Kindly ask the Sec of State to see me immediatel y [underlined twice] after Cabinet”.
I don’t think journalistic distortion comes into it here. If there ever was an atlas down the back of the trousers moment, this was it.
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Caught out in court
We’ve been taxed in the past with using pictures of a gavel to illustrate court reports. Thanks to vigilant readers, picture editors, chief subs, and the style guide — “gavel used in Britain by auctioneers, not by judges, so often an unwise choice of illustration. Beware” — we’ve more or less stamped out this solecism, but now Michael Cole wants a new offence to go on the charge sheet.
In a recent headline we said that someone “took the stand” in a court case. “No court in the United Kingdom,” writes Mr Cole, “has a witness stand. They have witness boxes. People go into the witness box to give evidence. They do not ‘take the stand’. Could you have been watching too many American cop shows and legal dramas?”
No doubt we have. There’s never an end to the fun in complaining about America wrecking our language, and now it’s luring our talent across the pond. The news that our political columnist Tim Montgomerie is to write about politics from the US caused wailing in Wensleydale, from Sylvia Crookes: “Tim, you can’t leave me! My very favourite iPad moment is when your velvet tones introduce the weekly Opinion podcast. OK, Matthew Parris is fine and Ann Treneman even finer, but you are the master, the gentle giant. Your soothing voice lulls me to sleep every Tuesday. Please, don’t be in the US for long.”
The sun is shining on our cricketers in Abu Dhabi, and Anthea Richardson writes from SW19: “How pleasant to see a smiling Alastair Cook on the back page today. Why do jubilant footballers always have to scream with their mouths wide open? So unattractive.”
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Note to football managers everywhere: please ask players to scream with their mouths shut.