The Birmingham book Festival was once a major event but in recent years it has declined into a patetic populist charade populated by the latest celebrity biographers and aimed at boosting Waterstone's profoits as far as one could tell. This

 I have written about Rome before - and no doubt will again. I have now got both series on DVD and watched it through continuously once and a second time rather more cursorily. I know that it will become a Depression staple, like The Lord of the