I love the classicist Mary Beard. And I advise everyone else to do so too. While studying history at The Open University a fellow inmate of A219 summoned all her courage and contacted Beard over Facebook to tell her that we had spent weeks with her writings, loathing and loving them, and were now revising for our TMA 04. The night before the deadline Beard contacted our learning group to wish us luck. Minerva herself had spoken and blessed us. The Guardian rightly dedicated a long read to her. One telling excerpt: „The (EU) referendum then, should not be treated as the final word, she said, but as a straw vote. ‚Sure, say we want to leave, but you can only in the end say we are going to leave when we know what it means. Otherwise,‘ she said, ‚it’s just wanking in the dark.‘ Thinking I had misheard, I asked her to repeat. ‚Wanking in the dark,‘ repeated Beard, at volume.“