De rerum natura: is this now just the nature of things or has it always been so?

摘要

In an attempt to escape the never-ending barrage of political news this week, I decided to seek refuge in a podcast or two. Perhaps a comedy programme? Too much satire, I thought. Even the comedians have gone Brexit crazy. What about a science discussion, I mused? No such luck as the topic was the statistics of election polling. I took a deep dive into the archive to find an episode on Lucretian poetry in the first century bce.1 Wonderful! I silently exclaimed, 2000 years is just enough distance from contemporary politics to escape.