For the modern reader of Latin the most irritating pecularity of this system of dating is that the days after the Ides of any month carry the name of the following month... Another trap for the unwary lies in the fact that the Roman calendars given in most reference books are Julian, not pre-Julian. When Caesar added ten days to the Roman year he put them near the ends of the seven 29-day months, one or two in each. As a result, instead of the day after the Ides of all months being a.d. XVII Kal., in these seven months it is either a.d. XVIII Kal. or a.d. XIX Kal., and all the following days change correspondingly.

The question was: Who put the most in the collection box? The wealthy guy, who dropped a “C” note, or the tattered old dame who parted with her last tarnished penny.

At 0508 on July 18 1981, the last freight train plunged into the 3-mile 66-yard Woodhead Tunnel at Dunford Bridge. … As it emerged back into the daylight at Woodhead at 0514, heading west, that was it for this famous railway line.

Swift and Wilson are both attacking the problem of commodity meat head on.