My Saturday Author and TV presenter Mary Beard on her dressing-gown days

The Cambridge classicist, author and TV presenter, 66, on her one-meal-a-day rule, and dressing up in her dressing gown

7am Usually I get up at six, but on Saturdays it’s seven, when Radio 4’s Today starts.

I’ve a De’longhi bean-to-cup machine and make industrial quantities of coffee while I answer emails, look at Twitter and read the papers. I haven’t eaten breakfast for 20 years. 9am I go to my study and start writing. We live near the centre of Cambridge, but days go by and I don’t get dressed because I’m largely teaching by Zoom. I’ve invented the trick of putting a necklace on so the person I’m talking to thinks, ‘That can’t be a dressing gown because she’s wearing a necklace…’ 1pm I’m a one-meal-a-day girl, but if I’m ravenous, I’ll have toast and Marmite – my husband Robin can’t bear the smell. I confess he does more housework than me. He’s a retired academic. If I’m not in my dressing gown, it’s a tunic and leggings. My favourite shop is Troon in Cambridge, which caters for stylish women of a certain age. 1.30pm I’m writing a book about how we can understand the figure of the Roman emperor without resorting to the idea that they were all psychopaths or homicidal maniacs. And I research people I’m interviewing for [BBC Two arts series] Inside Culture. Lockdown gave us a licence to have wackier ideas – driving Vanessa Redgrave to Stonehenge to declaim from Shakespeare was memorable. 4pm We have a family Zoom call. My children are in their 30s and I see them more than I used to, albeit through my laptop. My daughter Zoe is working on the history of South Sudan and has a postdoc position at Oxford, and my son Raphael is an Arabist living in Greece. 5.30pm I get a glass of wine, cook and have a leisurely supper, such as lamb chops with feta and vegetables. My favourite wine is Fannia falanghina, named after a woman on a Roman tombstone, Fannia Voluptas. 8pm I put my feet up and read in my study. Pre-pandemic, Saturday was our favourite evening for having people round or going to the movies; my comfort film is Casablanca, and I enjoy anything by Martin Scorsese or Steve Mcqueen. 10pm Chris Gosden’s The History of Magic is on my bedside table. Inside Culture gives me an excuse to read things I wouldn’t otherwise get round to.

Inside Culture with Mary Beard returns to BBC Two on 21 January

MY BEAUTY TREAT IS… Having my hair done at a salon. I have it trimmed once a month and enjoy it, despite what everybody says about me not being interested in my appearance.

FOR CHRISTMAS I RECEIVED… My husband treated me to a 19th-century plaster cast of a bust of Emperor Vitellius. It cost under £500 – a real one would be £500,000.

Magnifica S Smart £364.99, De’longhi (costco.co.uk)

Rita fluffy gown £39.95, Joules ( joules.com)

£22 (waterstones.com)

I ALWAYS WATCH… Newsnight. The fact that I work on the past doesn’t mean I’m buried in it; it means I see the present in a different light.