Pompey’s Pillar is a Roman triumphal column not built in memory of the emperor Pompey (106 – 48 BC), as you might expect, but to honour Diocletian (284 – 305 AD). It stands at the eastern side of the temenos of the Serapeum of Alexandria, which is now in ruins. So you have two obscure words to look up.
There are several theories why Portsmouth and its football club has the nickname Pompey. Wikipedia suggests:
Sailors from Portsmouth, after a feat of climbing Pompey’s Pillar near Alexandria in 1781, were nicknamed “The Pompey Boys” by the rest of the fleet.
The French warship Le Pompee, captured in 1793 and moored in the harbour, is a strong possibility for the nickname’s origin.
Some believe it comes from a line in Antony and Cleopatra: “Pompey is strong at sea”.
The most widely cited theory is that “Portsmouth Point,” the area where ships entered the harbor, was contracted to “Po’m. P.” in handwritten logbooks. This abbreviation was eventually pronounced “Pompey“.
Be that as it may, I am visiting Portsmouth Harbour today to see HMS Victory and any other attractions that present themselves. That is if I am in the right carriage. At Horsham the train divides and passengers wanting to go to Portsmouth find themselves in Bognor Regis and vice versa.
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Since the news of the resignation of two senior BBC employees broke yesterday evening, to spare them the embarrassment of trying to explain the Gaza documentary cock-up and then the blatant misrepresentation of what Trump said to parliament, the story has dominated BBC news coverage to the exclusion of all else. I will only say that Charles Moore spoke cogently pointing out examples of BBC bias. Others, somewhat irrelevantly, say how excellent is most of BBC news coverage – fine examples of the curate’s egg.
As I see it, any bias can be traced back to the Foreign Office, until recently overwhelmingly staffed by Arabists. Respect for Arab culture, history and tradition runs far deeper than an understanding of Jews and Israel. In the US the Jewish diaspora carries more weight than in the UK.
