From spectare, frequentative of specere "to look"

On Saturday afternoon I saw Sondehim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the National Theatre. Subtle it was not, but as an downright flat-out funny farce (with songs), I greatly enjoyed it. (And it was good to see and, it turned out, swap books with helenbr, addedentry, huskyteer, and Emma.)

There was incredulous amusement in some quarters when I mentioned the Spectator was running a classics translation competition, so here are the details (Spectator, 31 July 2004, p.18):

The Spectator Classics Prize

We continue to receive entries of great brilliance for the Spectator Classics Cup, but in order to generate the greatest possible competition we remind readers of the rules.

...The competition is for a translation of any 200-word passage from The Spectator into Latin or Greek prose or verse. The prize is a bottle of champagne. At the end of the year, the Spectator Classics Cup will be awarded to the best entry.

As I think of the Spectator, Simon Hoggart, in the Guardian of 20 December 2003 (about two-thirds of the way down, but there's no HTML to denote that), wrote about an amusing spoof tape made for "Spectators for Africa" appeal, for assistance in sending copies of the magazine to that continent.

(I once confused a former colleague of mine about my political views (not that they're particularly secret) when I turned up to a training course on successive days with copies of the Economist and the New Statesman. Perhaps citing the Spectator and Guardian in the same LJ entry will have a similar effect...)