Last year there was one Classics Cup on offer. This year there are no fewer than three: one for the Open competition (any 200-word piece from The Spectator in Latin or Greek prose or verse); one for undergraduates (200 words in Latin or Greek on the theme ‘Tony and Gordon’); and one for school pupils (200 words in Latin or Greek retelling the story of Homer’s Odyssey).
For the stars of the Open competition, it will be exquisite business as usual: the chance to take any passage from The Spectator and map the language and concepts of this world on to that of the ancient. Take Steyn: ‘If Rumsfeld were to say “Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Division go in on Thursday”, the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast’. How do you do ‘bumper-sticker crowd’?
Undergraduates and school pupils are given a freer hand.
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