Xanadu. Fact or Fable?

‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree’ The opening lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan have led some to believe that Xanadu was an imaginary place. Coleridge himself said that the poem was composed after he experienced an opium-influenced dream. But there really was a place called Xanadu. More correctly […]

The Harem: a Deadly Game of Thrones

You love. You rule. Or you die. She never wanted to be the most powerful woman in the empire. She has grown up as a nomad on the wild steppes north of the Caucasus. The only walls she has ever known are the animal hides of her family’s tent. All that is about to change. […]

The Rise and Rise of the Roman Empire

Fight Club meets The West Wing ‘There was a dream that was rome. It shall be realised.’ You might remember these as the last words spoken by russell crowe when he lay dying in the sands of the colosseum in ridley scott’s classic roman epic, gladiator. Crowe was playing the part of gladiator and disgraced […]