2021 has been another year of the awful covid19 pandemic; it has not been a year of tremendous activity and publication on this blog. There is a relationship between these two facts. Because life during the pandemic has inevitably led to much greater time spent in front of a screen for teachers, the impetus to spend extra time in front of a screen writing blogposts has been sorely lacking.
Perhaps things will change in 2022 (I certainly hope they do) though early signs do not look promising. If more online teaching and learning lies in store, I will be sure to spend as much time as I can away from the screen! This will be important as there are now 2 youngsters to deal with in the household (January 2021 witnessed the arrival of number 2 – see below).
Despite the relative paucity of blogposts this year (this is only my fifth in the whole of 2021), it has nonetheless been a good year for the blog itself in terms of visitor numbers. By far the best on record, in fact (14,000 or so!). I’ll have my work cut out trying to improve on that next year, I suspect. I remain amazed at the levels of interest out there in many far flung corners of the globe to read what a British Classics teacher has to say about various classical topics. I hope regular readers continue to find the posts of interest (when they – now more occasionally – appear!).
In other news, 2021 has been the year in which the author of this blog has been involved with another website project: antigonejournal.com This site, which aims to broadcast interesting short articles on ancient Greece and Rome to a worldwide internet audience was launched in March. We featured articles by Stephen Fry and Tom Holland (among others) on launch day, and have continued to publish a stream of articles ever since (3 per week, in fact). I have contributed a piece of my own to Antigone, and a further piece will shortly be published in the new year.
The Antigone project has been another reason for my decreased activity here on my own blog: again, though, it has been amazing to see the appetite that’s out there in the wider world for Classics-related content of the kind Antigone has been making available. We have had a million views in our first nine months. Do give the site a follow if you haven’t yet come across it.
I wish all readers and followers of this blog a happy 2022 when it comes.
ad astra per mundum 