Lara Prendergast

Syracuse is a handsome place, steeped in a rich historical broth. At the tip sits Ortygia, an island offshoot, which has been the backdrop to many Mediterranean sagas: Hellenic, Christian, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque — take your pick. By day, Via de Benedictis is filled with local men selling sea urchins, milky balls of ricotta and bunches of mint. At night, we went to the Piazza Duoma for aperitifs. The cathedral’s broken pediments and exuberant sculpture cast strange shadows on to the square and a zephyr blew. It was November and the place was empty, aside from a small boy on rollerskates and a dog. In summer it must swarm with people. An earthquake destroyed much of southern and eastern Sicily in 1693, and many of the towns were rebuilt in a Baroque style.

Props to Goldsmiths Students' Union, for taking the ‘safe space’ concept to absurd new levels. Last week, one faction of the union hosted a screening of the film Dear White People and advertised it as being 'for BME students'. BME stands for ‘black and minority ethnic’ – and the poster specifies that this screening is for students of ‘African, Caribbean, Arab, Asian and South American ethnic origin'. The union's welfare and diversity officer and education officer both reiterated this message on Facebook and Twitter, then stated that before the screening, there was a BME ONLY social happening at Cafe Natura.

The battle between the spooks and the geeks is heating up. A new report into the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby has suggested that the brutal attack could have been prevented if an internet company (which remains unnamed in the report) had allowed online exchanges between the two killers to be accessed by intelligence services. While the 191-page report suggests that both MI5 and MI6 made errors, the real villains to emerge are the US-based web giants. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who chaired the report, has suggested that internet companies are 'providing a safe haven for terrorists'. The report says: ‘What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place.

It was never clear why George Clooney became so attached to the Elgin Marbles. He didn’t even seem to know where they were from when he delivered his plea to the British Museum earlier this year: ‘They’ve had a very nice stay here, certainly. London’s gotten crowded. There’s plenty of room back there in Greece. England can take the lead on this kind of thing – letting art go back where it came from. The Greeks are nothing but generous. They would loan it back once in a while.’ ‘Even in England, the polling is in favour of returning the marbles to the Pantheon [sic].

When I think back to history lessons at school, the predominant focus was always on war. From the Battle of Hastings to the Battle of Agincourt, the Crusades to Nazi Germany, the curriculum seemed jammed full of stories about aggressive military affairs. Fascinating, but it was a relief to reach sixth form and discover another way to study the past — through a cultural lens, via the history of art. History of art is often viewed derisively in the UK. It’s almost ignored by the state system, yet is offered by many independent schools. Because of this, it’s seen as a ‘posh’ choice, in much the same way classics is. A--level history of art is available at only 17 state secondary schools out of more than 3,000, plus a further 15 sixth-form colleges.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3" title="Isabel Hardman, Emma Barnett and Jamie Bartlett discuss the leaked photos" startat=1312] Listen [/audioplayer]Nobody wants naked photos of themselves leaked across the internet so a global network of creeps can beat off to them. But celebs and plebs alike are increasingly confronted by this unsavoury reality. Whether it’s anonymous hackers or enraged ex-boyfriends who post the images, the story is the same: women are being let down by their ignorance of the pitfalls of technology. You should be able to take naked photos of yourself.

The leader of Rotherham Council has resigned following the results of a report which found that at least 1,400 children were victims of ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation in the town during a sixteen year period. The report details the ‘blatant’ collective failures during most of Roger Stone’s leadership. Professor Alexis Jay, a former senior social worker who wrote the latest report, described how children had been ‘set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone’. The report suggests that Rotherman Council and the police knew about the level of exploitation but did not act.

New powers to tackle the huge growth in 'legal' highs are set to be introduced. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, is said to be pushing for the most radical move, a blanket ban on all psychoactive substances. My heart sinks. Do those at the top of government really think that a blanket ban will solve the problem? The evidence doesn't suggest so: prohibition very rarely reduces drug use. So why do they think that an even more extreme level of prohibition will help? New varieties of 'legal' high will be invented and put on sale on the internet. Many of these drugs are already imported from foreign websites, and it's hard to see how this ban can stop this from happening.

The Department of Education has published a damning report today which suggests there was an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ pursued in a number of the ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, published the report, which found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary commissioned the report.