

Claudio - delivered by Amazon Prime?
An exhibition about the Emperor Claudius with a sub-title dedicated to his women is currently on at the Ara Pacis, Rome. I tend not to go to these block-busters, imagining the rooms to be heaving with visitors. Claudius, however, lacks pulling power and so for most of my visit I was alone, drifting through an installation of shimmering marble busts, red walls and projections of slow-moving phantom Roman courtiers. The Emperor Claudius in a red setting The tone of the exhibiti


An extraordinary English cathedral of sorts.
Just off the busy Oxford to Swindon highway lies one of Europe’s great cathedrals. Great Coxwell barn is not of course a cathedral, but it certainly feels like it. This majestic building, dated by dendrochronology, was roofed with timbers felled in 1291-92 when the champion lands of the Vale of the White Horse were producing prodigious quantities of foodstuffs and wool. It is a metaphor of an economy at its zenith. Great Coxwell barn This Cistercian barn belonged to Coxwell G