I loved the Mary Poppins books as a kid. They were definitely a lot harsher and eerier than the movie, but I found them pretty joyful too. I just remember loving the sort of magical, mythic world that clearly existed behind the scenes, and how Mary Poppins knew everybody and everything in it.

Oh man, we watched some of Fellini's Satyricon in my Petronius course and it was so trippy. This is perfect.

You can romanticize trains as much as you want, but Amtrak is no longer the gritty, blue collar builder of America it might once have been. It is actually cheaper to fly than to take Amtrak for most journeys. As awful as Megabus is, that's how the people I know actually travel, because it's literally $150 less than the same trip would be on Amtrak.

A good thing about me: I am good at enjoying things! It is a beautiful day here in England, and I took my lunch outside and ate it in the sun blissfully alone, and it was lovely.

Also, I've read several books lately that I think are relevant to the Toast's interests: 1) I finally read The Pursuit of Love, and it was as wonderful as Mallory had led me to believe in the article about the Mitford sisters,

2) I read Stella Gibbon's My American, and it was good! Not as funny as I expected, since her only other book I've read is Cold Comfort Farm, but a good novel with a compassionate take on all its characters.

3) I read Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Shuttle (it's free on Gutenberg) and mostly enjoyed it. It suffers a bit from the same glorification of magical thinking that makes the second half of The Secret Garden so irritating, but it also features lots of fun scenes of a practical woman coming into a messed up situation and fixing it with determination and lots of money, which is always enjoyable to read. And it is worth reading just for this line, which I think is still an important observation today:

"I will not sit down," replied Betty, "but I will listen, because it is not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to begin with, I will tell you something." She stopped beneath the tree and stood with her back against its trunk. "I pick up things by noticing people closely, and I have realised that all your life you have counted upon getting your own way because you saw that people—especially women—have a horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to avoid them. That is true very often, but not always."
Her eyes, which were well opened, were quite the blue of steel, and rested directly upon him. "I, for instance, would let you make a scene with me anywhere you chose—in Bond Street—in Piccadilly—on the steps of Buckingham Palace, as I was getting out of my carriage to attend a drawing-room—and you would gain nothing you wanted by it—nothing. You may place entire confidence in that statement."

It just tastes like Passover to me. I guess the only time I eat large amounts of it is at seders when I dip it in saltwater.

Did you ever see the Doctor Who episode The Fires of Pompeii? It features family members named Caecilius, Metella, and Quintus, and just about made my year.

Cato the Elder and Cato the Younger: who was a bigger pill? Discuss.

It's taken from Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, but it's been scrambled and turned pretty much into nonsense.