Month: January 2026

History

The Last Warrior Kings

The British monarch retains the ultimate power to send the country to war, but the decision is actually delegated to government Ministers. […]

The British monarch retains the ultimate power to send the country to war, but the decision is actually delegated to government Ministers. Gone are the days when a King would lead his men into battle. Here are the last warrior Kings:-

King Richard III (1452-85) and his successor, King Henry VII (1457-1509), both led from the front on opposite sides in the Battle of Bosworth (1485) in Leicestershire, which ended the Wars of the Roses. Richard was killed and Henry took the crown, establishing the Tudor dynasty.

Just 28 years later, King James IV (1473-1513) fatally led his invading Scottish army at the Battle of Flodden (1513) in Northumberland. It was the largest and most decisive battle fought between Scotland and England and James and many Scottish nobles died in the English victory, directed by the Earl of Surrey.

Finally, the German-born King George II (1683-1760) spent only half his time here and was more concerned with his homeland of Hanover. George purloined the British Army to further his German interests. He led them in an alliance with Hanoverian and Austrian troops in the Battle of Dettingen (1743) against the French in southern Germany. This alliance was poorly coordinated in battle, but it just about managed to triumph.

(Images LtoR: Richard III, Henry VII, James IV all by Ann Longmore-Etheridge at Flickr.com / Public domain, George II at picryl.com / Public domain)

29/01/2026
3 min
5 days
229 words

Politics

William Pitt the Younger

Britain’s youngest ever and second-longest-serving Prime Minister – almost 19 years – was William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) of Kent, who took […]

Britain’s youngest ever and second-longest-serving Prime Minister – almost 19 years – was William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) of Kent, who took the premiership aged 24, serving in 1783-1801 and 1804 until his untimely death aged 46. As well as being the PM, he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer simultaneously, an unthinkable feat today.

This exceptional politician was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps (a revered PM in 1766-68) and, being home-schooled, he declared at the age of seven that he would serve his country. Just seven years later he was admitted to Cambridge and became an MP aged 21, one of 100 MPs at that time aged under 30. King George III (1738-1820) repeatedly asked him to be PM before he accepted.

After Britain’s defeat in the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), the national debt, economy and Navy were rebuilt by Pitt, who possessed astute financial ability. Wearing his Chancellor’s hat, Pitt delivered an astonishing 25 Budgets, introduced Income Tax and paper money. Pitt is regarded as a key figure in the direction of the Tory Party. He was incorruptible, aloof, witty and a great orator. His few friends included slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). However, the stresses of office and war gave him incurable ulcers and he drank to excess.

(Images LtoR: Pitt’s House of Commons at ageofrevolution.org / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0, Pitt in later years at picryl.com / Public domain)

24/01/2026
3 min
1 week
228 words

Geography & Environment

Port Talbot

Generations of the Talbot family owned an estate in Margam on the South Wales coast. In 1836 Christopher Talbot (1803-90) had docks […]

Generations of the Talbot family owned an estate in Margam on the South Wales coast. In 1836 Christopher Talbot (1803-90) had docks built to facilitate industrial development and they were named Port Talbot. This became the name of the ensuing ‘boom town’, best known for having been a major location for both British Steel and BP.

Coal-mining began there as early as 1249 and in 1774 copper-mining began too. In 1825 the town saw its first blast furnace arrive and tin-plating was established. The community grew, with many Chapels constructed as social hubs. In 1905 the first steelworks were founded. After WW2 1,000 houses were constructed for steelworkers, including 900 on cleared sand-dunes.

Workers also enjoyed company-funded leisure facilities, such as a yachting club on the associated 260-acre reservoir. By 1965 the population had risen to 51,000 and in 1968 BP selected Port Talbot for massive investment, but their petrochemical plant eventually closed in 2004. In 2007 the steelworks became foreign-owned and were closed in 2024.

Meanwhile, Emily Talbot (1840-1918), who funded water supplies, parks, baths and sewers in the wake of four cholera epidemics was the last Talbot and the estate was sold in 1941 and in 1973 Glamorgan County Council bought it and opened it as Margam Country Park with its Grade I Listed garden.

(Image: Steven Vacher at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

18/01/2026
3 min
2 weeks
210 words

Entertainment

Black Adder & Blackadder

There were four Seasons of six episodes each in the ‘Black Adder’ or ‘Blackadder’ TV comedy series. They were:- The Black Adder (1983) […]

There were four Seasons of six episodes each in the ‘Black Adder’ or ‘Blackadder’ TV comedy series. They were:-

The Black Adder (1983) – set in the late 1400s after Black Adder has mistakenly beheaded his uncle the King
Blackadder II (1986) – set in the 1500s with Blackadder in the service of Queen Elizabeth
Black Adder The Third (1987) – set in the late 1700s/early 1800s in Prince George’s apartments
Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) – set in 1917 WW1 trenches

The first was written by Richard Curtis (1956-) and the lead actor, Rowan Atkinson (1955-), the other three by Curtis and Ben Elton (1959-). They include comic exaggerations of historical record, e.g. William Pitt the Younger depicted as a teenaged Prime Minister!

The main character who, after season 1, was a clever, conniving schemer, is descended from the previous Blackadders. Indeed several characters reappear in each time period, including the dim-witted (another reversal of season 1) servant, Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson (1946-), who always has “a cunning plan” which is anything but.

Seasons 2 and 3 were works of comic genius but it was Season 4’s final, poignant episode which drew the highest viewing figures of 10.2 million. Captain Blackadder’s attempts to abscond are in vain as his unit is commanded to ‘go over the top’.

(Top image from Blackadder II: S L.a.g.h.a.r.i at Flickr.com/CC BY 2.0)

13/01/2026
3 min
3 weeks
227 words

English language

Malapropisms and Spoonerisms

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) had Irish lineage and was an MP at Westminster for 32 years, lending him ample experience of the […]

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) had Irish lineage and was an MP at Westminster for 32 years, lending him ample experience of the clever, comedic and nonsensical use of the English language. His own wit and articulacy are evident in his writings, which include his first play, ‘The Rivals’ (1775).

One of the characters, Mrs Malaprop (deriving from the French mal-à-propos, meaning inappropriate), likes long words but gets them confused, e.g. “… but he can tell you the perpendiculars” – she means ‘particulars’, and “… to illiterate him quite from your memory” – she means ‘obliterate’.

Mixing up similar-sounding words is something people normally avoid by substituting simpler vocabulary if they are not sure, but when it is done in this forthright manner, it is called a malapropism in honour of Sheridan’s comic exposure of the phenomenon.

Another playful word-twist was pinpointed when William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) of London, teaching at Oxford University, was said to absent-mindedly switch the first letters or syllables of adjacent words, e.g. “… the weight of rages…” instead of “… the rate of wages…” or even the complete words, e.g. saying “Dr. Friend’s child” instead of “Dr Childe’s friend” . Spooner, once aware of this quirk, apparently began to speak more slowly in an effort to self-edit.

(Images LtoR: Sheridan at picryl.com / Public domain, Spooner at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

09/01/2026
3 min
4 weeks
223 words

Discoveries

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The cuneiform writing system of the ancient Middle Eastern nations first began to be deciphered in the 18th and early 19th centuries. […]

The cuneiform writing system of the ancient Middle Eastern nations first began to be deciphered in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-95) from Oxfordshire was one of the pioneers of this, and he spotted an engraving in three languages, one of which, Old Persian, had already been adequately translated, and from that he was able to decipher the Babylonian and Assyrian versions by 1850.

Meanwhile, Sir Austen Layard (1817-94) discovered the buried cities of Nimrud and Nineveh in Iraq and sent thousands of clay tablets back to the British Museum in 1850 and 1853, which prompted thousands more to be sold to them until they had a collection of some 85,000. They were inscribed with the languages Rawlinson had found.

George Smith (1840-76) grew up near the Museum and was fascinated by the inscriptions and explanatory publications of Rawlinson and Layard. In 1866 he was employed as the Museum’s first salaried Assyriologist and by 1872 had made astounding progress. He had discovered the oldest existing literary work, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh‘, judged to be more than 4,000 years old. It recounts the king’s exploits and, Smith joyously saw, the same Flood story as described in Genesis. Smith died of dysentery on a subsequent journey to Nineveh.

(Images LtoR: George Smith by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, one of the 12 Epic tablets by Zunkir – both at Wikimedia Commons, both CC BY-SA 4.0)

02/01/2026
3 min
1 month
228 words

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.