Trinity Hall, Cambridge to see a 15th-centry representation of Helen of Troy, or travel to Athens to visit the Kerameikos Museum, or cross the Isthmus Canal to appreciate Corinth's strategic importance. Nor will they have the time in their working day to sit in a quiet room and spend an uninterrupted morning reading and digesting an academic publication as academics can (sometimes)." - Meaning and context.">
(2009), Classics for all: reworking antiquity in mass culture chapter: Chapter One: Terrible, Wrong-Headed and Ineffectual: The Perils and Pleasures of Presenting Antiquity to a Television Audience, pages: 2–16, publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
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I for one (I am sure there are others) rail against the increasingly mediated world we live in, where experience comes packages and second-hand. But we must acknowledge that the majority of the global population will not have the opportunity to visit Trinity Hall, Cambridge to see a 15th-centry representation of Helen of Troy, or travel to Athens to visit the Kerameikos Museum, or cross the Isthmus Canal to appreciate Corinth's strategic importance. Nor will they have the time in their working day to sit in a quiet room and spend an uninterrupted morning reading and digesting an academic publication as academics can (sometimes).

— Bettany Hughes

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I for one (I am sure there are others) rail against the increasingly mediated world we live in, where experience comes packages and second-hand. But we must acknowledge that the majority of the global population will not have the opportunity to visit Trinity Hall, Cambridge to see a 15th-centry representation of Helen of Troy, or travel to Athens to visit the Kerameikos Museum, or cross the Isthmus Canal to appreciate Corinth's strategic importance. Nor will they have the time in their working day to sit in a quiet room and spend an uninterrupted morning reading and digesting an academic publication as academics can (sometimes)." in the context of "(2009), Classics for all: reworking antiquity in mass culture chapter: Chapter One: Terrible, Wrong-Headed and Ineffectual: The Perils and Pleasures of Presenting Antiquity to a Television Audience, pages: 2–16, publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Bettany Hughes" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 19, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bettany Hughes

About Bettany Hughes

Bettany Mary Hughes OBE (born May 1967 in Oxford, UK) is an English classicist, historian, author, and television broadcaster.