Charlotte Higgins
British writer and journalist (born 1972)
Charlotte Higgins, FSA (born 6 September 1972) is a British writer and journalist.
Quotes
edit- If the prevailing feeling is that Latin and Greek are for toffs, then Boris [Johnson], frankly, is not the man to dispel that notion.
- "A classic toff", The Guardian (6 June 2008)
- In north Staffordshire, it is perfectly acceptable, indeed polite social practice, to turn over a plate and inspect the backstamp if you are eating at a friend’s house. Because Stoke has historically had a rather stable, immobile population, memories are long and the tentacular reach of families into the pottery industry goes back generations.
- "In the bleak Midwinter", New Statesman (15 January 2009)
- Higgins was born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent.
- The classics and class have always been uncomfortably linked. In this country's education system, knowledge of the classics was traditionally the gatekeeper of privilege. If you acquired the classics (even as a humble stonemason's son, like Thomas Hardy) you gained a passport to the establishment. Fail (like Hardy's character Jude) and the corridors of power remained out of reach.
- "By academia or tweet, the classics for all", The Guardian (29 April 2009)
- The wording chills me slightly, with its suggestion of a regular consignment of Eton scholars as if by a law of nature.
- But "the classics" are so much more than this careless and aggressive chucking around of Latin and Greek tags, as if they were bread rolls at a Bullingdon club dinner.
- "Boris Johnson's love of classics is about just one thing: himself", The Guardian (6 October 2019)
- Classicist Oswyn Murray, a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, had said of Johnson (to Higgins): "Probably the worst scholar Eton ever sent us – a buffoon and an idler".
- I love the British Museum, despite everything. I have had my eyes opened, my imagination set on fire, my intellect challenged by it too many times to mention. ... A fortnight ago, I stopped by to admire the beauty of the Parthenon sculptures, the galloping horsemen and reclining gods innocent of their role in a diplomatic feud. The museum was full of schoolchildren. The place was vibrating with the energy and excitement that comes from the encounter with glorious, awe-inspiring objects. But taking £50m from a polluter? It fills my heart with dread that the museum should take so wrong a turn.
- "I love the British Museum, but what I've learned about the depth of its crisis fills me with dread", The Guardian (21 December 2023)
- See also Parthenon Frieze. For the "diplomatic feud", see a November 2023 BBC News item. The reference to "a polluter" concerns the Museum's announcement of a sponsorship deal with BP (formerly known as British Petroleum) which will last for 10-years during the institution's £1 billion refurbishment.