This afternoon to the Pompeii exhibition. Arresting, in their different ways, the carbonised loaf of bread, still showing the lines incised in the doughcrust; the dog, twisted in agony at the end of its chain. Easy to see ourselves in these people with their wineshops and cosmetics and love of pleasure.

As usual I found myself resenting Christianity, not to say the Goths. How would the world have developed if Rome had endured another five hundred years?

Number two son and I enjoyed the graffiti, in particular:

If you don’t believe in Venus, you should gaze at my girlfriend.