Category: History

15 minutes with Backside, 5

“In Greece tax inspectors have found that one in two businesses are cheating them. The rate is 56% on tourist islands like Mykonos and Crete, ” quoth Gavin of the Beeb, as if we should be shocked or otherwise impressed by the new-found diligence of the taxman.

Now bear in mind that I’m just a cynical old businessman who visited the Med and Middle East for 25 years from around the time the UK joined the EU (or somesuch). So I could be considered unduly aware of these things, eh? But to my certain knowledge business in those parts has long been conducted in ways least likely to benefit the Revenue or conform to local regulations.

My pic shows Mykonos mills used for public servants to tilt at.

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15 minutes with Backside, 3

First edition of the Treaty of Utrecht

My most jingoistic hackles rise whenever I see that the pesky Spanish are trying to negate the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) by which, with the agreement of everybody who was anybody at the time, Gibraltar was granted to GB in perpetuity, together with Minorca, Newfoundland and St Kitts thrown in for good measure. Not long after there was a bit of a scrap over Minorca and GB gave it up. Fair enough. Newfoundland of course was discovered by Vikings yonks before and should be returned to them but nobody can be bothered to argue about it.

What I don’t get is why Spain doesn’t tell the French they want to negate the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) under whose terms bits of Catalonia west of Perpignan were parcelled out. Surely it’s all Spanish land really – using the same arguments employed to claim Gibraltar?

What say you, cherished reader? Am I missing something here?

Summertime – the August poetry challenge

To introduce the next competition, I can’t resist quoting a lyrical George (this week’s name, innit?):

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

Continue reading “Summertime – the August poetry challenge”

He would say that, wouldn’t he?

A certain Mandy Rice-Davies is alleged to have coined the oft-quoted question during the infamous (but juicy) Profumo trial 50 years ago; and the man himself had already averred in Parliament that there had been ‘no impropriety whatsoever’. But the papers relating to the Denning Report which wound it all up are still not available for us to slaver over, presumably because there are still some Great and Good chaps around whose reputations might fade in the glare of exposure.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/18/simon-hoggart-sketch-profumo-scandal-lords .

It’s all very nostalgic for me too.

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Hit came from Outer Space

While cleaning out my old blogs I came across this. This is a slightly revised version and didn’t we all love revision.

*****
The plethora of teenage slasher movies in recent years are all based on the true story of a mysterious assailant who targeted schoolchildren in a Scottish school circa 1982. All of the following is true.

One of the perks given to the fifth and sixth year pupils in the comprehensive was that they could take their lunch in the games room far away from the pell-mell. The games room had comfortable chairs that ringed-a-round the perimeter walls, though the various cliques rearranged the seating in their preferred way; normally an enclosed circle. Three net less table tennis tables stood in the centre of the room, nobody played on them, there were no bats, there were no balls, they kept getting pinched. These tables were used as overspill seating and tabling for late coming pupils. Continue reading “Hit came from Outer Space”

Training to be king

Big Ears is showing the way to the British monarchy of the future – in which the Old Values are re-established. Which being interpreted means that Modesty, Thrift and Self-sufficiency are for the plebs; and Conspicuous Consumption returns for the wayward Windsors. Royal trains, royal flights and liveried flunkies are so much nicer, dontchya know?

His mother chooses to travel in less style but he’ll obviously have no truck with that. I can’t wait for his accession, can you?

 

Continue reading “Training to be king”

Fame

A hunter gatherer aims his bow and arrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherished colleagues are known to deplore the cult of celebrity, particularly when good runners, singers, toadies and assorted prats are awarded Honours for our pains. But soft! What light at yonder window (etc.)? Allegedly it’s all in the genes – the latest and greatest excuse for almost anything you deplore.

So see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23046602  – wherein the evolutionary tale is told.

In the dark ages social status was determined by skill at hunting, shooting and fishing, which explains why the great and good anno 2013 still set store by such qualities.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – again!

Monroe

No, the other one – of ‘Doctrine’ fame. In short it allowed the good ole boys to stop other kids playing in their own backyards too close to the land of the free. And in the ’80s Sheriff Reagan and Col. Oliver North sent some help to the Contras in Nicaragua, funded by the sale of arms to Iran. And all on the hush-hush too.

 The two canals

So I wonder if there’ll be some behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery again in Nicaragua now that the pesky Chinese plan to compete with the US-controlled Panama canal by digging a new, much better one? Will the US of A bribe the poor Nicaraguans to reject the project? Has the Pres already told the Chinese to butt out? And will we ever know?