But "the classics" are so much more than this careless and aggressive chucking around of Latin and Greek tags, as if they were bread rolls at a Bullingdon club dinner.

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Classicist Oswyn Murray, a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, had said of Johnson (to Higgins): "Probably the worst scholar Eton ever sent us – a buffoon and an idler".

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If the prevailing feeling is that Latin and Greek are for toffs, then Boris [Johnson], frankly, is not the man to dispel that notion.

The wording chills me slightly, with its suggestion of a regular consignment of Eton scholars as if by a law of nature.

In north Staffordshire, it is perfectly acceptable, indeed polite social practice, to turn over a plate and inspect the backstamp if you are eating at a friend’s house. Because Stoke has historically had a rather stable, immobile population, memories are long and the tentacular reach of families into the pottery industry goes back generations.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charlotte Higgins (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.

But "the classics" are so much more than this careless and aggressive chucking around of Latin and Greek tags, as if they were bread rolls at a Bullingdon club dinner.

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