Yale, £14.99

A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics, By Neil Faulkner

 

Boyd Tonkin Author Biography

Boyd Tonkin

Boyd Tonkin is Literary Editor at The Independent. An award-winning journalist, he was formerly Social Policy Editor of the New Statesman and has broadcast extensively for BBC arts and current affairs programmes. He has judged the Booker Prize, the Whitbread biography award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature.

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Saturday 26 May 2012

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Imagine 100,000 people thronging Glastonbury at its most squalid. Cross that with the unwashed aggression of an old-style stadium. Then factor in a vast open-air brothel (straight or gay) and a site-wide whiffy barbecue. Crowd control? Hygiene? First aid? Sportsmanship? Don't be funny.

As for the main events, running, jumping and fighting climax with the Pankration, "a relentless struggle to win by inflicting maximum pain".

Professionalism, bribery, political arm-twisting: take that all as read. A neat idea, stylishly executed, Faulkner's "guide" returns us to Olympia in 388BC. Would you have enjoyed it?

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