Did you know that most Roman festivals began on odd-numbered days because even numbers were considered infelicitous? (The word felix means "fortunate" in Latin and was the agnomen the Roman dictator Sulla added to his name in 82 BC to indicate his luck.) Last Tuesday's date, 24 August, is a fine example of just how infelicitous even-numbered August days could be for the Roman Empire, since it was on the 24 August 79 AD that Mount Vesuvius erupted, devastating the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and it was on 24 August 410 AD that the end of civilization as the West had known it began when Alaric I, King of Visigoths, sacked Rome.
Alaric then marched southwards into Calabria, where death, in the form of fever, awaited. Using many commas, Edward Gibbon, in his magisterial Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, described Alaric's burial thus:
"The ferocious character of the Barbarians was displayed, in the funeral of a hero, whose valour, and fortune, they celebrated with mournful applause. By the labour of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Cosentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils, and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel; and the secret spot, where the remains of Alaric had been deposited, was for ever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners, who been employed to execute the work."
By the way, 27 August was the date upon which the Romans celebrated Volturnalia. The festival was dedicated to Volturnus, the god of the Tiber and the father of the goddess Juturna. Father and daughter were honoured on this day with feasting, wine-drinking and games. Then, as now, the Barbarians despised such civilized behaviour.
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The Internet makes it as easy for my constituents to do business with a company in New Zealand as with a company in Belgium. Easier, indeed, because the Kiwi company shares our common law, accountancy practices, commercial traditions and language... The Internet, as Douglas Carswell argues, is ironing out a kink in our cultural and political alignment, whereby a small elite artificially reoriented our foreign policy, our trade and even our news cycle away from our old alliances and towards Europe. That's the great thing about the web (or, from a Europhile perspective, the disagreeable thing): it democratises."