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The Via Appia (for Paul-Jean Toulet)

Who else hath trodden those antique, paved ways,

Gone from distant seas to loftiest walls,

Through those sweeps of green lined with marble halls,

‘Neath shady pines, those abodes of manes^[1].

From within they watch, from within they gaze,

And to all who pass by, they calmly call,

Hoping to hold those strange souls in their thrall,

This now their life, these now their deathless days.

But who hath heard the silence of those stones,

Ever reaching for us with wraithlike arms,

Speaking to us in epitaphic tones,

Whispering so softly oracular charms,

“Seize the moment, whilst you still have some breath,Knowing that with this life, comes deathless death…”

^[1] The souls of the dead.

https://paultmjackson.com/2022/03/13/the-via-appia-for-paul-jean-toulet/

Our Prince of the Stars

It seemed somehow better, letting all go by,
When winter rained down on summer’s love,
In the blinking of an eye.
You just took to the air, when the day was done,
And winged your way through the black of night,
And sailed to the stars above.
No time to smile, or to do the things you might,
Now there’s no chance to start anew,
And no claims on your birth rights.
But safe now, now that you’ve made your way to blue,
So forget this cruel world where we belong,
But please don’t forget us too.
Taken so, so far away, from those who did you wrong,
The silence sits so heavy, the silence holds so strong.

https://paultmjackson.com/2022/03/13/1073/

As a pre-Christmas treat, marking the 150th anniversary of the death of the author, and providing a little taste of what is to come in the 2021 printed edition, Noumena Press have made the first part of Isaac Laquedem: A Tale of the Wandering Jew available as a PDF ebook for the month of December, this being the first volume of my Classical Dumas Series, a series of translations of works by Alexandre Dumas set in or about the classical world. In the author’s own opinion, this was the work of his life, his magnum opus, which he spent over two decades on. Your own thoughts, though, would be very kindly received. Sincerest thanks to my agent Robin Jones and Noumena Press for making this possible

Please click here for an article published today in Ad Familiares, Classics for All’s online journal

Click here for a little update…

A Scarab’s Journey

Check out my new publication on IthacaLit via the link above. Enjoy!

https://paultmjackson.com/2019/06/29/701/

Weekly Recipes (from the Epicurean Cookbooks)

Smoked Pork Side

Pork side

Smoked wood chips

• Soak your wood chips in cold water for half an hour
• Prepare your smoker with coals, and when they are white, sprinkle the chips over them
• Place a tinfoil container of water with some herbs and spices in directly on top of the coals, then set the smoker’s grill over this, and your piece of pork on the grill over the water. This will stop the meat from drying out and also prevent any dripping fat causing flames 
• As a rule of thumb, your meat will need roughly an hour to an hour and a half per pound of meat
• Close the lid tight shut
• Try to resist the urge to keep checking on the meat, as you will lose heat and smoke in doing so
• Keep the temperature between 225 – 250 degrees. You can regulate the airflow and thus the temperature by opening and closing the dampers. Opening the lower damper will allow more air to get to the fire and thereby increase the heat, opening the upper damper will let the air escape and so decrease the heat
• Turn the meat over half way through cooking, and at this time you could add some more chips, coals, and water to the container if required
• At the end of cooking, slice up the meat, and enjoy! You can of course do this with anything…

About Smoking

The smoking of food dates back to the Palaeolithic Era, for preservation purposes as well for flavouring

https://paultmjackson.com/2019/04/16/weekly-recipes-from-the-epicurean-cookbooks/

William Ralph “Dixie” Dean

2019 will see the opening of the Dixie Dean Hotel in Liverpool, a fitting tribute to the man who to this day towers above the city. His 60 goals in the 1927-28 season for Everton F.C. remain the most goals scored in a single season in the top flight of English football, and even at that time, before the dawn of social media, he was an internationally renowned figure: “F**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean”, military records show an Italian prisoner of war saying to his British captors!

With the opening of the hotel, it is perhaps timely for me to share some perhaps lesser-known anecdotes about the great man, anecdotes taken from my late grandmother’s remarkable little book, Liverpool’s Sporting Pages. This is mainly a biography of her father, Louis Antonio Page, an England international footballer and baseballer in the 1920s, but also of his three brothers, Jack, Tom, and Willie, all professional footballers and international baseballers in their own right. Louis perhaps deserves special mention though. As a footballer, he remains Burnley F.C.’s fifth highest goalscorer with 111 goals, despite the fact that he was largely what we would now know as a winger, not a centre forward, and indeed the first time he played as centre forward for the Lancashire club, in a topflight game away to Birmingham City F.C. in 1926, he scored a double hat trick in a 7-1 victory, scoring three in each half, which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Soccer Facts and Feats! He would go on to play for Manchester United and later become a footballer manager, but he was also an all-round sportsman, as I mentioned representing his country at both football and baseball, being invited to run in the professional Powderhall Sprint, and was an extremely talented boxer too who allegedly could have made that sport his career rather than football!

Louis was also Dixie’s best friend, and the two of them made their England debuts together on Saturday 12 February 1927, away to Wales, a game in which Dixie scored twice in a 3-3 draw. Louis would play seven times for his country, scoring once against Belgium, and in all seven games he was playing alongside Dixie in the forward line. Dixie himself would play 16 times for England, scoring 18 goals! My first anecdote comes from their second game for their country, away to Scotland on Wednesday 27 April in the same year. Before the game, so the story goes, Louis and Dixie went for a stroll. Dixie bought himself an orange and, after eating half of it, stuffed the empty skin into his sock and over the ankle, making a huge ‘swelling’. It should be noted that in those days even England internationals had to provide their own shorts and socks for games as well as take care of their own travel arrangements to and from matches. Anyway, when they arrived back at Hampden Park, where the match was being played, there was absolute panic until the trainer removed the sock and realised that Dixie’s ankle wasn’t really ‘sprained’! Indeed, Julie Dean, Dixie’s granddaughter, assures me that this was typically mischievous of her grandfather! And perhaps they were right to have panicked, for Dixie would go on to score both of the goals in a 2-1 victory! Louis and Dixie would never play club football together, but they were incidentally both involved in an exhibition match the following year on April 10 at Burnden Park, Bolton. This was the Lancashire Football Association Jubilee Match between a Lancashire Select XI and an F. A. Select XI, and the two of them were in the Lancashire forward line!

My second anecdote comes from the world of baseball. As I mentioned above, all four Page brothers were England internationals, and Louis was responsible for introducing Dixie to this sport. On June 17 1929 a charity match was arranged between the English Baseball League and a team made up of footballers, including Louis and Dixie and also Tom and Willie. The match was played on the Police Athletic Ground in Liverpool in aid of St John Ambulance. The Baseball League, perhaps unsurprisingly, won, but the local newspaper did make mention of the performances of Louis and Tom, as well of Dixie being caught at long stop!There is also of course the story, told elsewhere, of the time Dixie met the American baseball legend Babe Ruth, after both had broke records in the same year, with the one scoring 60 league goals in the space of a single season and the other hit 60 homeruns, beating his own record in so doing!

Anyway, this was just one of many such matches played at venues up and down the country for charity, and indeed the charity of Louis and Dixie extended beyond baseball. Back to football now, and two years earlier, disaster had struck Fleetwood when a storm flooded the town to a depth of ten feet and took the lives of five people in October of 1927. The following month the Fleetwood Disaster Charity Football Match took place, with Louis playing outside left to Dixie, who scored four goals! Their generosity wasn’t reserved to charity either. In 1929, Louis, Dixie, and Donald Mackinlay, the former captain of Liverpool F.C., organised a boy’s six-a-side tournament for the August bank holiday, to be held at the St Edward’s Boys’ Orphanage in Broad Green, Liverpool. Dixie’s team came out winners, and so bought all his boys a medal and paid for their expenses!Living in a time when footballers are paid incredible sums, it is perhaps salutary to reflect on yesteryear, when England internationals had to provide their own shorts and socks for games as well as take care of their own travel arrangements to and from matches. Indeed, when Babe Ruth met Dixie, he was astonished to learn how little he was paid, and indeed later on, after their playing careers had come to an end and Louis was taking up his first managerial position at Chester F.C. – beating Everton’s legendary T.G. Jones to the post incidentally – Dixie was the licensee at the Dublin Packet Hotel in the same city! And yet this didn’t prevent the likes of Louis and Dixie giving something back to the people, beyond their performances on a Saturday afternoon. At this time football really was the people’s game. In recent years Everton F.C. has been christened the People’s Club, and quite rightly so, for their official charity, Everton in the Community (EitC), led by Dr Denise Barrett-Baxendale (MBE), has become a world leader in community schemes, winning over 80 accolades, nationally and internationally, including Best Community Scheme in Europe. In this respect Everton is living up to its motto, nil satis nisi optimum, but also to their history, with its standout player Dixie Dean not only to be remembered for his goalscoring feats but perhaps also for being a forerunner of its future charitable and community successes. With the opening of the Dixie Dean Hotel, both a football player and a human being ought to be celebrated, for Dixie’s legacy perhaps goes far beyond scoring 60 league goals in a season.

https://paultmjackson.com/2019/03/15/william-ralph-dixie-dean/

The Bouchons of Lyon

Curnonsky once referred to Lyon as “the gastronomic capital of the world”, and he knew a thing or two about gastronomy. Such was his reputation, legend has it that all of Lyon’s restaurants would reserve a table for him just on the off-chance that he would wander into theirs! Anyway, it was with his claim in mind that I went there myself to find out if what he said might be true…

Now ‘gastronomy’ is very much a loaded term these days, and in order to understand what the cuisine is that the famous Meres lyonnaises gave birth to here in the nineteenth century it is perhaps important to note that Curnonsky advocated simple food over the complicated, rustic over the refined, and two aphorisms that are associated with him are, “La cuisine, c’est quand les choses ont le goût de ce qu’elles sont”, “Et surtout, faites simple!” Now in Lyon the typical restaurants that you find are called bouchons, traditional places that serve local fare. Don’t expect haute cuisine in these. What you will get is ‘real’ food, and above all ‘good’ food, the type of food that led Curnonsky to refer to Lyon as “the gastronomic capital of the world”. These are the places I needed to visit. It is important to know though that there are lots of establishments here that call themselves bouchons now, but there are only in fact a handful of certified ones, and these are the ones you would need to get yourself to. The following link will help you find them: http://lesbouchonslyonnais.org

As with any weekend break, heading to the cathedral and the old town is often a good idea, and so it is here. If you base yourself in Le Vieux Lyon, or the 5^e arrondissement, you will find a good number of ‘real’ bouchons in walking distance. The College Hotel (http://lesbouchonslyonnais.org) is a decent place to stay at – especially for a teacher – with its ‘back to school’ theme, and it even has a Pablo Reinoso on display, specially designed for the hotel! Next door to the hotel you will find the affiliated Baràgones bar that has a very good selection of rums and whiskies for your nightcap later, but before that we must hit the bouchons…

Almost over the road – or the ancient cobbles of the Rue Lainerie at any rate – we found our first one, Les Fines Gueules (https://www.fines-gueules.fr), where I can strongly recommend the terrine de queue de boeuf, the cassolette de tripes, the pieds de cochons en crépinette, and the tête et langue de veau with sauce Gribiche. Indeed, I often found myself having to order two mains for myself rather than a starter and main so that I could taste as many specialities as possible! All this is washed down with good wine, either a light Beaujolais coming from north of Lyon or a more full-bodied Côtes du Rhône coming from the south, whatever your preference on the night.

As Keith Floyd quite rightly put it once, “No good cooking comes without good drinking!”

Oh, I maybe should have mentioned this earlier, but be prepared to get to know the owners and those eating around you in these places, for these bouchons are generally smallish, convivial places where you don’t have to worry about talking too loudly, waiting for the waiter to pour your wine, having your elbows on the table, or eating with your knife! It’s all rather relaxed, thankfully. And also don’t expect these places to be necessarily ‘cheap’ either, just because it’s simple, rustic grub. What you get is always done extremely well, and you will be more than happy to pay for it, but pay for it you will! It’s a funny old thing isn’t it? I’m thinking of other things, like conger eel, which fishermen used to threw back not so long ago, and oysters, which, as Dickens’ Sam Weller remarks in The Pickwick Papers, “Always seem to go” with poverty. But times change don’t they, as do people, places, markets, fashions, and tastes, and now some shrewd souls are making good money from recovering and rebranding such ‘specialities’!

Anyway, after eating well you might want a few pints to wash it all down with – before that nightcap that is – and you will find plenty of decent Irish pubs in the vicinity to cater for just that, and an English one right next door called The Smoking Dog, which will do nicely for tonight, it being not too far back to the hotel, and the hotel’s bar…

Now the weekend isn’t just about bouchons so the next day we are off to do a little visiting, up Fourvière Hill to the ruins of Lugdunum, once a provincial capital of the Roman Empire where the emperors Claudius and Caracalla were born! Anyway, you don’t have to be a classicist like me to appreciate all this. The ruins are extensive and well-preserved and there is a wonderful little museum alongside, and it is all free too!

Afterwards we head back downhill and then over one of Lyon’s two rivers, the Saône, and stumble across a wonderful food market stretching right along the farther bank which makes us feel peckish again! We head to another gastronomical landmark, Les Halles de Lyon-Paul Bocuse (https://www.halles-de-lyon-paulbocuse.com), named of course after the city’s famous chef who passed away only last year and who remains the longest-standing recipient of three Michelin stars (that being over 40 years!) Now even a stroll around les halles is enough, but while you are there you may as well eat, and so it was that we took a seat at the bar at Les Garçons Bouchers and enjoyed a most succulent poulet de Bresse, a chicken which that other epicure Brillat-Savarin once described as “the Queen of poultry, the poultry of kings”, which has appellation d’origine controllée status, and which is now generally regarded as being the best table chicken in the world, and which commands a premium price too…

But boy it was good!

Things are heating up a little nearby in La Place Bellecour (which Everton fans took over a couple of years back before we were beaten 3-0) due to a run in between rival gilet jaune gangs, so we head back across the Saône and back to The Smoking Dog to watch a game…

I forgot to mention, there are Six Nations matches being played this weekend, and one of them is England v France!

After a good few pints watching us win 44-8 and somehow winning the sweep in the process we make a hasty retreat from the doubly-unhappy locals and head to our second bouchon just down the way, Le Laurencin, which occupies a quaint, sixteenth century building! Now this wasn’t our favourite bouchon, perhaps stemming from the moment when the rather surly owner told us to wait outside until a table became available, or from then tasting that other Lyonnaise speciality, l’andouillette, which, unlike that favourite cheese of French kings, Maroilles, really does taste as bad as it smells, and I won’t tell you what it smells of! This is the only thing in the whole wide world I won’t eat again, and the only thing on this trip that I wouldn’t recommend! Anyway, we finished off at The Big White down the road which has an unbelievable stick of world beers, and we soon forgot about andouillettes!

Other good bouchons in the old town include Daniel et Denise Saint Jean (http://www.danieletdenise-stjean.com) and Les Lyonnaise (https://restaurant-lyonnais.com), but we decided to be slightly more adventurous the next day and head back over the Saône again to the Café Compoir Abel (http://www.cafecomptoirabel.fr) in the 2^e arrondissement, Lyon’s oldest bouchon which has been here since 1726, and here we enjoyed a truly wonderful experience, rognons de veau with sauce Madère, gratin d’écrevisses, and the star of the show, ris de veau aux Morilles à la crème!

In conclusion then, I can’t know whether Lyon is “the gastronomic capital of the world” or not, and I don’t know whether that can even be said. I’ve heard, for instance, that there’s rather good eating to be had in San Sebastián over in Spain (note for future weekend break). But what I can say is that I did have a very good time trying to find out…

P.S. All recipes for the meals mentioned here can be found in my Epicurean Cookbooks

https://paultmjackson.com/2019/02/21/565/

Weekly Recipes (from The Epicurean Cookbooks)

Canard au Sang

Duck

Butter

Cognac

Port / red wine

Madeira

Lemon

Salt and pepper

Shallots

• Clean and then partially roast the duck
• Take off the legs and breasts and set them aside
• Remove the liver, grind it down, and season it
• Put the rest of the meat, bones, and skin through a ‘duck press’ to extract the blood and the juices. Thicken this with the liver and combine with butter, shallots that have been peeled, finely-sliced, and fried in a little butter, Cognac, port, Madeira, and lemon and then season
• Slice the breast up and serve with some of the sauce
• Broil or grill the legs and serve as the next course with the rest of the sauce

About Canard au Sang

Pressed Duck is a traditional French dish, a speciality of Rouen, and its creation is attributed to an innkeeper from Duclair called Père Denise!

https://paultmjackson.com/2019/02/21/canard-au-sang/

Alexandre Dumas’ Isaac Laquedem: A Tale of the Wandering Jew

Coming soon in 2019, my translation of Alexandre Dumas’ sweeping epic Isaac Laquedem: A Tale of the Wandering Jew, a work which the author spent two decades writing and considered the capital work of his life, and yet which has never been rendered into English in its entirety. Over 165 years since first being published, this scandalous oversight will finally be set right, thanks largely to @noumenapress and @AgentRobinJones for their belief in this project

Le Mercantour by Paul Jackson

A Greek Odyssey by Paul Jackson

The Château de Monte-Cristo and the Panthéon, Paris

The Château de Monte-Cristo

Alexandre Dumas, père, had the Château de Monte-Cristo and the Château d’If – this his writing studio – built in 1846, in the midst of vast grounds with grottos, rockeries, and waterfalls which were once full of monkeys and parrots and even a vulture called Jugurtha! When the architect Hippolyte Durand pointed out that what Dumas hand in mind would be extremely expensive, Dumas coolly relied, “I certainly hope so!” Balzac described it as “one of the most delicious follies ever created!. However, only two years later, the extravagant spendthrift had run short of money and was forced to sell it, and over the ensuing years it fell into a state of disrepair. It was until over a century later, threatened with demolition, that the three local communes and La Société des amis d’Alexandre Dumas came to its rescue and restored it, the Moorish room with the support of King Hassan II of Morocco, and then turned it into a museum.

The Panthéon, Paris

Dumas died on 5 December 1870 at the age of 68 in Puys and was laid to rest in Villers-Cotterêts, but in 2002 his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris, the resting place of the likes of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola, with the then president Jacques Chirac saying that an injustice was being corrected with the proper honouring of one of France’s greatest authors.

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/11/02/449/

Weekly Rhymes (by Paul T. M. Jackson)

Rainbows (in Wales) (For Yarisel)

Though snowflakes fall down throughout the squall,

The sun still comes a-shining through,

Though clouds gather and rain pitter-patters,

A rainbow comes arching through the blue.

From hedge to hedge, and across the sedge,

It straddles this murky meadow,

And as we move on into the next one,

It follows us over there in tow.

You cross the lea, and away it flees,

But you have found your pot of gold,

For it was full o’ life, and cut through all strife,

With you whenever the gloom takes hold.

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/10/11/431/

Launch of Impressions at the English Book Centre, Valbonne

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/06/03/336/

Some More Words on Poetry

“If you listen carefully you will hear that the words are underneath the water”, says Norman Maclean, who was the William Rainey Harper Professor of English at the University of Chicago and author of A River Runs Through It. “The water runs over the words…under the rocks are the words”.

Like Maclean’s father, I think that’s right. We don’t form poems out of what we see; poetry is already there, an intrinsic part of the cosmos, woven into the fabric of things and linking it together. We just need to be aware of it, to open our eyes to it, to look for it, to see it, and to enjoy it. It is there for everyone to share in. We all have a ‘poetic eye’; we just need to train it on the poetry of things, the essential nature of things, for ‘Within all dwelleth poesie’!

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/19/319/

The English Book Centre

Impressions is a small collection of traditional formal poetry by Dr. Paul T.M. Jackson, inspired by quiet moments and observations – whether they occurred while cycling through Provence, rambling in Wales, trekking through Galicia, hunting for castles in Corsica, or even on a pirogue in the Amazon. Jackson enjoys sharing these moments with his readers, and hopes these carefully crafted poems helps them find their own ‘poetic eye’.

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/14/314/

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/12/303/

Bussana Vecchia

Bussana Vecchia, or Old Bussana, in the Italian region of Liguria is perhaps one of the strangest places you could ever happen upon, with one of the saddest and yet most surprising of stories.

Like so many hilltop towns and villages along the Mediterranean coast, Bussana Vecchia came about in response to the Saracen invasions of the late ninth century. The town continued to grow and most of the buildings we can see there today date back to the fifteenth century.

Liguria, however, is a region of moderate seismicity, and though the people of Bussana Vecchia were able to keep the Saracens at bay, they found themselves defenceless at 6.21 on February 23, 1887, when an especially big earthquake hit. Ironically, February 23rd was Ash Wednesday, and the large part of the community happened to be in church, in the Chiesa di Sant’Egidio. As it happens, this was also the first earthquake recorded by a true seismograph. The quake lasted over 20 seconds, killing more than 2,000 people, many of whom were in church. Most of Bussana Vecchia’s buildings were severely damaged and all of its buildings declared dangerous, and so the survivors abandoned Bussana Vecchia, thinking the place cursed and disowned by God like Sodom and Gomorrah, and rebuilt their town at the foot of the hill, calling it Bussana Nuova, or New Bussana.

And yet Bussana Vecchia’s story, which had accounted for a millennium already, wasn’t over just yet. Some 50 years or so later, immigrants from Southern Italy started settling – illegally – in this ghost town. The authorities evicted them, destroying all first floor stairways and rooftops in order to dissuade anyone else from doing likewise in the future. But this didn’t dissuade people. In the Swinging Sixties a group of artists calling themselves the Community of International Artists moved in. Despite the state of the town, and despite there being no electricity, running water, or sanitation, the community grew, with hippy artists from all over Europe coming here to join them, to live simply and work artistically. The authorities returned but found themselves unable to remove this new community, and so the International Artists’ Village was truly born. The residents have tried hard to renovate the town, though the authorities continue to insist that all buildings are the property of the Italian government, and they sell their produce to tourists who happen upon this unusual, unique even, place. Though these people have kept Bussana Vecchia alive, the new Bussanesi still face opposition from the authorities and live their lives from one day to the next not knowing whether they are going to lose their homes.

A visit to Bussana Vecchia is a must. You will find a town such as you have never seen before, half in ruins with buildings standing precariously, the roofless church never having been repaired and its bells standing silent, and yet filled with interesting folk with their little workshops and abodes squeezed into every nook and cranny. You can even stay the night and dine there at the Bed and Breakfast Li or visit the more bohemian community at the back of the village who will invite you into their premises – which is a really just a hotchpotch of antiques and bric-à-brac – and feed you the fare of their barbecue and the produce of their kegs, and show you around their quarters where they all live together in bunkbeds. There is even a jazz bar you can visit in the evening, where the music, and beer, is surprisingly good!

Bussana Vecchia is no longer a ghost town. Let’s keep it that way, and prevent the present Bussanesi from being displaced by ghosts. As for me, my own season in Bussana Vecchia awaits, and you will hear more from me afterwards…

Bussana Vecchia Website

Bussana Vecchia Google Street View

Bussana Vecchia Google Street View 2

The Earthquake of 1887

Artists Fight for Bussana Vecchia

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/04/235/

Weekly Roams (from Roman France, Germany, and Sardinia)

Roman Trier

Trier, formerly known as Treves and Triers, was founded by the Celts in the late fourth century BC as Treuorum and later conquered by the Romans in 16 BC and renamed Trevorum or Augusta Treverorum, ‘The City of Augustus in the land of the Treveri’. It became the capital of the province of Belgic Gaul, and after the Diocletian Reforms the capital of the prefecture of the Gauls, overseeing much of the Western Roman Empire. In the fourth century AD, it was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, and the largest north of the Alps, with a population of somewhere between 75,000 – 100,000. From AD 367 it was also the residence of Valentinian the Great, and later Theodosius I until his death in AD 395. In AD 407 the Roman administration moved the staff of the Praetorian Prefecture to Arles, however Trier continued to be inhabited, though it was never as prosperous as before, though remaining the seat of a governor and continuing to have state factories for the production of ballistae, armour, uniforms for troops, clothing for the civil service, and high quality garments for the court.

The Porta Negra

The Porta Negra is the best-preserved and largest Roman city gate north of the Alps. The name originates in the Middle Ages, due to a darkening of the original colour of its grey sandstone, and the original name remains unknown. Constructed sometime after AD 170, it originally consisted of two four-storied towers projecting as near semicircles on the outer side, and a narrow courtyard separated the two gate openings. However, for reasons unknown, the gate remained incomplete. For example, the stones at the northern (or outer) side of the gate were never abraded, and the protruding stones would have made it quite impossible for the installation of moveable gates. Nonetheless, the case remained in use for several centuries, until the end of the Roman period in Trier, and served as an entrance to the town. It was also originally only one of four gates, one on each side of a roughly rectangular city plan, with the Porta Negra to the north, the Porta Alba­, or ‘White Gate’, to the east, the Porta Media, or ‘Middle Gate’, to the south, and the Porta Inclita, or ‘Famous Gate’, to the west, next to the bridge across the Moselle. The gates stood at the ends of the two main roads through Trier, one going north-south and the other east-west. Only the Porta Negraremans, and to its south side stand remains of Roman columns lining the last 100m of this road leading up to it.

Roman Baths

The ruins of three baths lie in Trier, among them the largest remaining Roman baths outside of Rome – the second century Barbara Baths, which was begun by Constantine but completed in about AD 314 – and the fourth century Trier Imperial Baths.

Constantine Basilica, or Aula Palatina

The huge Constantine Basilica, or Aula Palatina, was the 220-foot throne room of the Emperor Constantine. It was built in around AD 310 by Constantine as part of a palace complex, and originally was not a freestanding building but had other smaller ones – a fore hall, vestibule, and service buildings – attached to it, plus it was equipped with a floor-and-wall hypocaust system. The hall itself, measuring 67m (l) x 26m (w) x 33m (h), is the largest extant hall from antiquity!

Roman Bridge

The Roman bridge over the Moselle is the oldest standing bridge in Germany, with nine pillars dating from the second century AD!

Elsewhere

There was an amphitheatre in Triers, built shortly before AD 100, a stadium, and a circus was constructed in the first half of the second century. Constantine also added a mint, the principal mint of the Roman West.

Zum Domstein

No trip to Triers is complete without a visit to the ‘Roman Restaurant’, Zum Domstein, which serves dishes from Marcus Gavius Apicius’ De Re Coquinaria. During construction works in its basement, an upright column was found, which turned out to be the south-western pillar of the basilica, and many other artefacts, many of which are now featured in the restaurant, including tiling, hypocausts, glass from between AD 150 and AD 350, cookware, amphorae, and food remains and bones in pots!

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/04/233/

Weekly Rhymes (by Paul T. M. Jackson)

O Mia Bambina Cara

Your little arms and little legs,

Those little limbs like little pegs,

So delicate and small you are.

And your little toes and little nails,

As brittle as little shells of snails,

So delicate and small you are.

Your little nose and little lobes,

Your little eyes, those little globes,

So delicate and small you are.

And your little brow and little lashes,

Those very fine, ashen flashes,

So delicate and small you are.

And your sweep of hair and silv’ry stare,

As absorbing as a Gorgon’s glare,

Absolutely perfect you are,

And your little lips and slender hips,

You’re nothing but a little slip,

Absolutely perfect you are.

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/04/231/

Weekly Recipes (from The Epicurean Cookbooks)

Lamprey à la Bordelaise

1 lamprey

8 leaks

2l of wine

1 onion

2 cloves

2 cloves of garlic

2 shallots

4 spoons of flour

Thyme, laurel, and quatre épices

1 or 2 squares of chocolate

2 slices of Bayonne Ham

5cl of Armagnac

Salt and pepper

Butter

Olive oil

• The night before, clean the leeks, only keeping the white parts, and chop them up
• Place them in a mixture of butter and oil, sprinkle the flour over, and brown off. Soften them with a litre of wine, add the onion studded with cloves, the garlic, a pinch of the quatre épices, the thyme and laurel, seasoning, and a cube of chocolate, and leave to reduce for a couple of hours
• In a fish kettle, bring water to the boil and poach the lamprey for a few seconds, then scrape off the mucus with a knife, but don’t peel off the skin. Open it up and clean it out, and then wash it completely under the tap
• Chop up the lamprey and marinate in half a bottle of wine, herbs, and seasoning in the refrigerator for 2 hours
• Warm up 2 diced shallots with 2 slices of ham in some olive oil, add the lamprey, and it there over a lively heat, and flambé with Armagnac at the end
• Add this to the other pan and simmer the whole lot through for 20 minutes

About Lampreys…

Lampreys have long been used as food for humans, highly appreciated by the Romans and enjoyed during the Middle Ages by upper classes across Europe, especially during Lent when meat is forbidden, for the lamprey is especially ‘meaty’. King Henry of England was particularly fond of them and, despite medical advice regarding their richness, continued to eat them late into life and is said to have died from a surfeit of lampreys!

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/04/weekly-recipes/

Some Words on Poetry

Chekhov, whilst writing his lesser-known work A Journey to Sakhalin, is said to have confessed that he just felt compelled to write about the things that he saw. A little earlier, though far, far away, the little-known Dorset poet William Barnes coined the term the poetic eye. Some people like to put what they experience into words, or rather, feel they have to; some people see things, and they see a poem, and they like to – no, they feel they have to – try and express what they have seen in the form of a poem. The dream for these is to write something that, when read, evokes what was seen, as when pastoral music somehow evokes the rolling, green hills of the countryside. Poetry is but another form of art, and can be as evocative as an impressionist painting. If you don’t believe me, just read some Robert Frost and find yourself transported to rural New England, or the aforementioned William Barnes, and find yourself in the company of peasants from nineteenth century Dorset!

But why poetry, the hoi polloi cry out? Well, poetry can of course be therapeutic, to help one work through emotions that have been welling deep inside, to get them out rather than keep them in, and to make sense of them, but there is more to it than this. Surely poetry is one of those things that separate us from every other creature on the planet. Too often we find ourselves caught up in the ‘realities’ of life – work, family, and problems– and have little time for anything else, and we think that these ‘realities’ are what are important. But I tell you this: we have it the wrong way round, and that it is poetry and her playmates that really matter. These are the things that make the world beautiful, and these are the things that make us human! Sometimes we are scared of poetry, sometimes we are embarrassed by it, but we shouldn’t be, and we mustn’t be, for it is just too important!

And so we come to the how. Well, most of us come to poetry late, and there are many reasons for this. One is that, as youths, we haven’t really experienced much of the world and what it has to offer. There just hasn’t been an awful lot to write about yet. Secondly, there is also that fear and embarrassment which the word poetry is loaded with. And then there is the education system. With terms like metaphor, and anaphora, and alliteration almost drilled into our heads, there can be no surprise that we flee from poetry as fast as we can. We are just so focused on style, on minutiae, and we miss the actual meaning, the real essence of a poem. This is all wrong. We should write, about what we see, about what we experience, about what we feel, things that really matter to us. And we should keep it simple, and we should keep it precise.

So go away and write, and then write some more, knowing this, that you will never get it wrong – and how many things can that be said about – for there is nothing to get wrong, and that you will always improve, with every single poem you write. Write about what you want to write about – and you needn’t show it to anyone else – but I promise you this: things will never be the same again; you will never see the world in the same light again; everything will seem so much more beautiful than before. And you will breathe. For the first time, you will breathe, and the air that you will breathe will be the breath of poetry. Fill yourself with it, and it will warm your soul. It might not keep you alive, but while you are alive, you will really be alive.

The Young Rhymer Snubbed

by William Barnes

To meäke up rhymes, my mind wer zoo a-vire
‘Twer idle work to try to keep me quiet,
O’ meäken rhymes my heart did never tire;
Though I should never be a gainer by it.
“You meäke up rhyme!” vo’k zaid, “why who would buy it?
Could you write fine enough to please a squire?
An’ rhyme’s what plain vo’k woudden much require;
You’d vind your rhymes would eärn but scanty diet,
An’ if I’d any cure vor it, I’m sure I’d try it.”

An’ father too, in learnen noo great crammer,
Zaid rhymen wer a treäde but vew got fat in;
That men wi’ neämes a-ringen wi’ a clamour
Did live in holes not fit to put a cat in,
An’ sleep on locks o’ straw, or bits o’ matten;
An’ mother zaid she’d sooner hear me stammer
Than gauk about a-gabblen rhymes an’ Latin.
I’d better crack my noddle wi’ her patten,
She used to zay, or crack en wi’ a hammer,
Than vill en up wi’ rhymes, an’ silly stuff o’ grammar.

My father didden rhymy. He knew better.
Bezides his business, an’ to buy an’ zell,
He only learnt to write a friend a letter,
That always went a hopen he wer well;
Or in a ledger, or a bill, to tell
Vor what an’ when a man became his debtor;
An’ mother too, I never shall vorget her,
Wer only just a-taught to read an’ spell,
An’ mark a teäble-cloth or napkin pretty well.

An’ zoo I vound my friends think all the seäme o’t,
That rhyme won’t vill the pocket over tight,
But then my heart did kindle wi’ the fleäme o’t,
Whenever I did zee a touchen zight,
An’ I did all but lose my wits there-right.
‘Tis likely I shall meäke a losen geäme o’t,
But still, ageän, to lighten off the bleäme o’t,
Vor all do keep me poor, it still will bring
My heart a pleasure that do leäve noo sting.

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/05/04/blog/

Impressions

Some people see things in a certain way. Some people, when they see something, just feel compelled to somehow capture it, whether that be by a sketch, a painting, or even a symphony. Chekhov, for instance, while writing A Journey to Sakhalin, admitted to this compulsion. The poet William Barnes coined the term, the poetic eye. In one of his poems, The Young Rhymer Snubbed, he writes, “But then my heart did kindle wi’ the fleäme o’t, // Whenever I did zee a touchen zight, // An’ I did all but lose my wits there-right.” Barnes would be so moved by the things he saw that he just had to put pen to paper and capture it in a poem. I know how he feels. I am one of these people. I see things and I see a poem. I want to somehow capture, not so much the scene, but the moment, what I felt and thought in that moment, and what that moment meant to me.

Impressions is a small collection of poems inspired by such moments, whether they occurred while cycling through Provence, rambling in Wales, trekking through Galicia, hunting for castles in Corsica, or even on a pirogue in the Amazon. I hope you enjoy sharing these moments with me, and I hope that they help you find your own poetic eye.

An’ zoo I vound my friends think all the seäme o’t,
That rhyme won’t vill the pocket over tight,
But then my heart did kindle wi’ the fleäme o’t,
Whenever I did zee a touchen zight,
An’ I did all but lose my wits there-right.
‘Tis likely I shall meäke a losen geäme o’t,
But still, ageän, to lighten off the bleäme o’t,
Vor all do keep me poor, it still will bring
My heart a pleasure that do leäve noo sting.

From William Barnes’ The Young Rhymer Snubbed

https://paultmjackson.com/2018/04/20/hello-world/