Dear Grauniad

[nineveh_uk]

If you have an article about a statue from Pompeii of Pan having sex with a goat, surely the one link the thing ought to contain is not to tell us what "sculpture" is, but to a photograph of the statue of Pan having sex with a goat!

Which reminds me, I have the first episode of "I, Claudius" to watch.

Comments

[azdak]

What rotters! Were you very disappointed when you clicked the link?

[nineveh_uk]

Of course! I had to waste precious seconds Googling it.

[azdak]

A shocking betrayal of their readers' expectations. I feel a stiff letter of complaint is called for.

[nineveh_uk]

Definitely! I shall enjoy taking a break from work tomorrow to write it.

[antisoppist]

I know I have seen the picture of Pan having sex with a goat before but I can't imagine what I could have been googling for to have ended up at it, goat sex not being something I have ever been asked to translate (not even in the survey on the sexual practices of the population of Sweden).

[nineveh_uk]

Mine is not to reason why... Did you ever translate something for Naples museum?

How do you fit the sexual practices of the population of Sweden into your marketing material?

[antisoppist]

I doubt Naples museum needs translation from Swedish. But Pan may well have come up in anything from art museums to contemporary dance.

The Swedes are in my CV under "Published translations include... What do others do? Sex in Sweden (date)"

We called it "what is everyone else doing?" But they changed it back. It was a very thorough, informative and reassuring survey of activities, frequency and experiences at various ages and contained a lot of graphs.

[nineveh_uk]

I suppose that had it involved considerably amounts of sex with goats it would probably have been a lot less reassuring! But it does sound very interesting. And very Swedish.

[antisoppist]

Swedes having grasped that what the bloke in oursin's post really needs is statistical evidence that however-many percent of the population have also only slept with one person.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Looks to me like a very good way to get kicked by an irate goat.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

The goat looks surprisingly contented.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I suppose that, from a goat's POV, at least it isn't being barbecued.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

One of the advantages of being a god is that the goat doesn't get to object!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not what I had assumed the pose would be.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I like to think that my LJ introduces people to new horizons...

[aunty_marion]

Having been catching up with my newspaper reading, I came across that picture in the Times of March 9th (Saturday Review section). The reviewer quotes the curator of the BM's Roman collections as seeing 'a tenderness' in the way Pan is grasping the goat's beard. Ah, how sweet. Er.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Having now been the the exhibition, the card does indeed ask the beswoggled viewer whether Pan's grasp as he draws the goat towards his face is "affectionate".