Pinned
Peter Sarris
15.2K posts
Peter Sarris
@peter_sarris
Historian & professor of Late Antique, Medieval & Byzantine Studies. English, Cypriot. Winner, London Hellenic Prize 2023. Outspoken. Prefers dogs to people.
Cambridge
Joined August 2014
- Overheard in a pizza place in DC last night: Long-haired tipsy customer: ‘Everything has been caused by imperialism. The reason you don’t know your real language but speak Spanish is because of imperialism’ Server: ‘I don’t speak Spanish. i speak Turkish.’
- It is Turkey in English, just as you are Germany, not Deutschland. Countries do not get to control what they are called in other languages. So tedious.Türkiye’s commitment to pursuing EU membership sounds increasingly hollow in light of the actions taken against #İmamoğlu and others. Political competitors do not belong in prison or before the courts. A country that envisions its future in 🇪🇺 must uphold the rule of law.
- Recently a German university accidentally paid me my travel expenses twice. Accordingly I repaid second payment - giving them in £ exactly what I received in £. They are now asking for more to make up for what they have lost in currency fluctuations etc. What a cheek! Tough luck.
- Part of the great chain that defended the approach to Constantinople by sea
- To my mind one of the most brilliant living historians of the ancient Greek world with what will prove to be one of the most monumental works of this century.
- Overheard a N. American student in Cambridge: ‘When people here say “can I help you?” it feels like they are saying “Please stop what you are doing and go away.”’ Yep - generally a pretty good translation of that particular nuance of British English.
- Whoever they are I hope they go to prison. If they are students, I hope they are expelled. If they are not British citizens,I hope they are chucked out of the country. Morons.
- I find this attempt to effectively legalise infanticide in the UK monstrous. As medical science advances, abortion limits should be lowered, not abolished. I was born 10 weeks prematurely in 1971. I was left partially sighted but very much alive.
- This is utterly heartbreaking. Soon Cyprus will be the last bastion for Christians in the whole of the Near East.To Christians around the world: I beg you, please stand with us—Syrian Christians—just once in history. We are being torn from our ancestral lands, our people are being ethnically cleansed, and our heritage is slipping away. Don’t let us stand alone in our darkest hour.
00:00 - Some rivalries never fade -spotted in Waterstones in Oxford…
- One of my great-uncles who was a London docker developed a love of Italian opera while hearing songs and records as he liberated Italy.It's the most arrogant snobbery to suggest that culture is middle class. My father knew more about classical music than most people I've ever met. He left school at fourteen, and worked until he died. Why are we always governed by Philistines and Yahoos?
