Carry on and on, Cleo

The scene. A newspaper news conference.

Anywhere from Calcutta to Korea and Farringdon Road to Atlanta.

The morning before Valentine's day.

News Editor One: 'Great story here. Did you know that Cleopatra wasn't a looker at all. She actually had a hooked nose - and looked like a night-club bouncer?

News Editor Two: 'Well, yes, I did know that. Didn't we do it last year - or was it the year before?'

News Editor One: 'Come on. This is a really great story? Cleo wasn't a bit like Elizabeth Taylor. More like Shylock in need of a decent shave. Look at this pic of a Cleopatran 5P piece from the press office of some Newcastle Museum.  Perfect V-day timing.'

News Editor Two: 'OK. Put her on the news list.

Leader Writer Who Once Studied Latin, imported from somewhere upstairs to 'stand up' story: 'Well, Cleopatra VII's surviving coins are really quite consistent on the nose issue. Not quite a night club bouncer's. More a Greek poisoner's. Not a broken conk - but definitely bloody ugly. Nice clear image though. 'Ancient Tetradrachms Weekly will love it'.

News Editors One and Two, scowling: 'Anything new?'

Leader writer: 'Remember Pascal and that point about how if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the whole course of history might have been changed'.

News Editors: 'So that's a yes then.'

Picture editor: 'I've got these great other pics here of Cleopatra coins too. Look, there's one from somewhere called Antioch, 34 BC. Antony AND Cleopatra. It's hard to tell which one is him and which one is her. And there are loads of others. Plus one of her father, looking more or less the same.
Do you want me to get something on her Uncle Hooknose? Or is it her great uncle?. Hard to tell. He seems to have married two of her grandfather's sisters. You know what they say about big noses and big feet?

News Editor: 'No, stupid. Get out the pics of Elizabeth Taylor - and not the ones we had last year, or was it the year before?
 

Comments

[Dion Per Sona]

A Valentine on which I smiled
Not yesterday, nor even then,
This morning charmed me with its guile
Tell me again. Tell me again.
Tell me again.

[genevieve]

A good example of why people like the Wintouresque editor in The Devil Wears Prada are sometimes - dare I say it? - needed.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

What exactly is the relation between numismatics and "reality"? After all, before Antony, Cleopatra had fascinated Julius Caesar, on whose bald head she tried a hair-growing recipe of her own (it did not work). Can one say of Elizabeth Taylor, "Age cannot wither her..."?

[Andrew Kenneally]

Perhaps in a couple of thousand years, there will be the romantic and dashing story of the universally adored and beautiful lovers, Charles and Camilla, thwarted by fate, in which due to political machinations, Charles is forced to wed the harridan, Diana. However some things are too strong to be denied and love did conquer all.