In Delphi I met a man who looked troublingly like Zeus. I knew from the CV in my conference papers that he was, in fact, a lecturer in psychoanalysis from Canada. But Delphi is a romantic place. The most crabby of academics still sneak down to the Castalian spring to sup the sacred water (said to bring the muse), so at one point I catch myself pondering whether this was indeed a re-incarnation of the king of the gods (silver beard streaming, aquiline profile, fifth-century BC-perfect, an all-seeing air).

His Olympian face fascinated. After a couple of days gawping I noticed his equally striking wife staring at me, not a little sharply, and pulled myself together - remembering what Zeus's wife, Hera, did to those who showed any interest in her spouse.

That night, under the stars over the sanctuary, drama students were attempting Aeschylus's tragedy The Choephori with black tights and spasms. Silent, tear-jerking, breathtaking giggles swept along our row: a plague of bad manners. A grand old dame of the Athenian stage pulled her hair out in horror, literally (I've never seen anyone do this before).

She then staggered off in the dark and disappeared with a yelp down a slope. No one was laughing at the betighted ones. It was an oddly supportive hilarity: what curious things we humans end up doing. The spirit of comedy - a form, interestingly that emerges when the Greek world first experiments with democracy - is to guffaw at our flaws and our innate, wonderful daftness.

On Radio 4's Start The Week and I'm suddenly so nervous I can't feel my legs or the roof of my mouth. A friend calls to say it sounded fine, but a little clipped. Well, considering my body had apparently been drained of all fluid by an industrial-size Dyson I think clipped is pretty damn good. Akbar Ahmed, the renowned scholar on contemporary Islam, and I continue to rap after the show.

There is a terrible truth that 1,000 years are missing from our collective history. The 'Middle Ages/Dark Ages' were of course no such thing. Achievement in the Arabian crescent was sensational then. Europeans have conveniently wiped this from official chronicles: with the unexpected result that we've denied Muslims positive role-models - and left a gnawing victim-culture.

After Marr and co I walk through jolie laid London. I was born in London and the beauty of this place makes my heart ache. The Greeks developed the concept of kalokagathia - 'external beauty showing an inward nobility of spirit'. They thought that verve, intellectual capacity, originality, bravery became incarnate. That a hero was gorgeous on the outside because he was on the inside too. This is London: a 2,000-year-old physical repository of mankind's zest. Boris Johnson is right to call it the new Athens. But neither he - nor we - should forget the underbelly of both cities ... the shadow that throws into relief, and catalyses, greatness.

First stop the British Museum to discuss a new 3D web-based resource, and then on to a bucolic restaurant called Arcadia (where, I realise, I had a disastrous date when I was 18) to be interviewed. My interviewer seems charming and not a little sphinx-like. Taught by actor parents never to leave an awkward gap in the conversation I gabble out unsolicited responses to fill the voids. I remember why I never became a spy. Next, a research meeting with one of the smartest women alive, Professor Mary Beard. Convivially we end up in Steam, a bar behind Paddington Station downing bellinis and red-pepper margaritas.

Suitably steamed-up (uncharacteristic, I'm pretty much a Pollyanna), I drift to Oxford for the opening of Stella Vine's show at Modern Art. The competing merits of concept and process always interest. There are many good ideas in the world and a handful of successful executions.

The crowd buzz around with excited, brittle smiles. But these gauche canvases genuinely seem to move their audience. As Diana's lips bleed and Courtney pulls off her panties in the back of a cab and Nigella tempts the vicar they remind me of the world's first created woman - described by Hesiod as the kalon kakon. The beautiful-evil thing.

After the garish glory of Vine's paintings, squalling London looks very cold in the light of day. It's local election week in my constituency and as I struggle to finish off academic papers and honey biscuits for sports day the phone doesn't stop ringing, nor the door bell. 'Can I ask who you'll be voting for on Thursday?' Political engagement is a fantastic thing. The Athenian democrats had a word for those who chose a private over a publicly driven life: 'idiotes'.

Still, after the fifth call in as many minutes, I scream: 'Listen, I won't even bloody well go out and vote unless you leave me alone ...' Fortunately it's a resilient Cameroon I bark at. 'All right. Jolly good,' she agrees. Mine is the Ealing, Southall hotspot which explains the particular frenzy. I knew Tony Lit's dad and suddenly - at 40 - find it hard to vote for someone I remember as a teenager. Very ageist.

School's out so we plan a pan-generation expedition. Lunch in a groovy health-food haven in Westbourne Grove; pocket-money shopping at the Oxfam opposite (possibly the best charity shop in the world); plus holiday books at Daunt; finished off with a Maison Blanc wicked thing.

All goes smoothly until we discover Fresh & Wild has been sucked into the monster US food emporium Whole Foods in Knightsbridge a mile away.

Grandpa sits and listens to the cricket in the car while we search for alternative food. The battery dies. I rope in the Cypriot greengrocer round the corner (who'd just sold me a lovely watermelon) to jump-start. Nothing. 'Mechanic by name not nature,' he grins.

In Southeast Asian heat my mum starts to pale. Eventually a Galician AA man from Surbiton appears, waving - we talk politics and are back on the road.

Ravenous, the kids hurl themselves at nearby Thai noodles: and spend the night throwing up - in their beds.

Now I can cope with most things; blood, shit, death-threats, muggers, critics ... but not vomit. My husband is shaken awake to deal with the carnage. He does so by ... oh, I can't even bear to write it down.

Talking of cat food ... A stray kitten-cat moved in a couple of months ago. Pity drove us to buy Gourmet Gold and cushions plump with catnip. Naturally this is the manner to which our (now permanent) feline resident has become accustomed. I find myself on the verge of suggesting I can't do the BBC One O'Clock News to discuss Ofsted's estimation of history teaching because we've run out of Gourmet and antibiotics for the guinea pig but then realise that is hopeless, amateur, motherly behaviour with my priorities all wrong (or thinking about it, maybe all right).

The solution: pick up the cat food en route to the studios. No one seems to mind, although when I pop in to Lord's to watch my brother Simon Hughes not commentating on rained-off India/England test for Sky, the commentary box grandees wrinkle their noses.

Once upon a time the fairer sex would whip up a nice jam sponge to keep Jonners et al going through the rigours of Lancashire v Kent. Now they bring Go-Cat.

The Life Born London, 1968; brother is cricketer Simon Hughes. Scholarship to read Ancient and Modern History at Oxford University. Married with two daughters. Parents, Peter and Erica Hughes, both actors.

The Work Books: Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore. Currently writing book on the life of Socrates: The Hemlock Cup. Radio: Live from the Coliseum; There's Something about Eleanor; Amongst the Medici. TV: The Spartans, The Minoans, The Seven Ages of Britain, and on Channel 4 now, Athens: The Truth About Democracy.

The Hughes CV

The Life Born London, 1968; brother is cricketer Simon Hughes. Scholarship to read Ancient and Modern History at Oxford University. Married with two daughters. Parents, Peter and Erica Hughes, both actors.

The Work Books: Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore. Currently writing book on the life of Socrates: The Hemlock Cup.

Radio: Live from the Coliseum; There's Something about Eleanor; Amongst the Medici.

TV: The Spartans, The Minoans, The Seven Ages of Britain, and on Channel 4 now, Athens: The Truth About Democracy