King Billy's wife, Kate! Am I a Royalist?

 Does the wife of a Conservative MP have labour pains?

Am I royalist? Well I wasn't at one time till I thought of the alternative. 

It would mean a president to replace the monarch and who would that be? 

 

President Thatcher followed by President Blair?

 

I don't think so – maybe even President Livingstone and then President Boris Johnson.

You might say that one or two of those might be better than the Queen but they would have their crazy 'hobby horse' little schemes and skirmishes and would promote barmy ideas like an airport in the middle of the Thames.

The thing is, a lot of people from all over the world come to Britain to see the royal palaces and gardens and Shakespeare. They probably cost the tax payer less than tourism brings in as the tourist spends money on everything from hookers to a room at the Ritz and the recipients pay tax - well the Ritz hasn't paid any corporation tax for nineteen years - so maybe the royal family are worth it.

 

That's the way things are here; there has been a monarch here since William the Conqueror apart from the time when England was a republic and look what happened under Oliver Cromwell at that time.

In fact ask any Irishman what they think of Oliver Cromwell if you would like a thick ear!

So a lot of people are moaning about the attention the news channels are giving to the future King Billy's wife, Kate, having a baby this week; maybe even today; well what do they expect?

 

There will be a lot of other people celebrating it. 

 

Me?

 

I don't care one way or the other. I know it's a sucker bet. 

 

The bookies here have the odds @ 1-2 for a girl and about 6-4 for a boy.

 

I think the favourite name is Elizabeth.

When I say it's a sucker bet I mean how could there even be odds? 

 

There is nothing to go on. 

 

But the British bookie is an honest bookie and they make the odds judging by the amount of bets coming in; unlike the American bookie who adds vigorish to the bet so they can guarantee a profit.

I have written about vigorish before, in a previous post, if you want to look back, but my American friends, who live in America, don't believe the bookies don't charge it here.

So what are we to do?

Some people here want to leave the common market (the EU, I think it's called), become a Republic, notwithstanding what happened under Cromwell, abolish taxes and let the pubs open all day! 

 

Oh! That last one has already happened which has resulted in 100 pubs closing every week; I think I wrote about that one before and if anybody is from Pinner (Elton John, for one) and hasn't been there for some time, the little pub by the station has now closed. It is surrounded by scaffolding and a big sheet so we can't see what is going on – or is that just to prevent the dust spreading?

And maybe we should choose a new royal family: we'll choose some family from, shall we say, Yorkshire or Lancashire or even Birmingham. 

 

Lock them up, feed them riches, send them all over the world, where they can shake hands with everybody presented to them, so they can crack a little joke, look a little ordinary before being whisked off by the men in suits with ear pieces and bulging pockets.

Oh what a life it must be showing no emotion, keeping the upper lip stiff, standing on a boat for five hours dying for a piss whilst everybody has a great time, getting drunk and singing songs 'one' has never heard; not being able to disappear to the shed to see to the ferrets or to the pub or even Starbucks where they pay their employees £6 an hour and only give them ten minutes break and actually charge the poor buggers for their coffee and snacks.

So leave the future King Billy's wife, Kate, to have her baby and, if you are quite young you will be reading about her baby for the rest of your life so get over it – let's hope all goes well in the private wing of that hospital – wherever it is.

In days gone by, by the by, when a heir to the throne was to be born, the birth had to be witnessed by the Prime Minister of the day – that's one job the future President Cameron wouldn't have to do!!

The Zimmermann Telegram.

The Zimmermann Telegram.

Here's a little tale for you; you may find it interesting, you may not, but I am only passing it on as I'm no expert.

The name Zimmerman is in the news a lot in America these days; up to now the only living Zimmerman I'd heard of was Bob Dylan but then the other day, with all the talk about America spying on its allies and nemeses (if that is, indeed, the plural of nemesis), I was reminded about The Zimmermann Telegram.

The Zimmermann (2 Ns) Telegram is one of those things that have been planted in my brain like The Dunbar Number, The Birmingham Six, The Guildford Four or The Renault 5 – where did that last one come from? 

 

This Zimmermann was a German and during the latter days of the First World War there were rumours that the USA were going to come in on the side of Britain and their allies (the entente powers or allies); this was in 1917 and the Germans sent a telegram, which was signed by Arthur Zimmermann, which became known as The Zimmermann Telegram, to their ambassador in Mexico City.

It was a coded telegram (above in its various states), written by Zimmermann, who was the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, on January sixteenth asking Mexico to join forces with the Germans – the Central Powers. 

Revelation of the contents outraged American public opinion and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April. 
 

Here is the text of it:

"We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace." Signed, ZIMMERMANN.

At the start of the war the Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare which allowed armed merchant ships – but not passenger ships – to be torpedoed without warning.

But they attacked a French cross channel passenger ferry called The Sussex and a number of passengers were killed. So the USA negotiated with the Germans an agreement called The Sussex Pledge.

This was as follows:

Passenger ships would not be targeted; 

Merchant ships would not be sunk until the presence of weapons had been established, if necessary by a search of the ship;

Merchant ships would not be sunk without provision for the safety of passengers and crew.

As you can see in the telegram the Germans were going to start their unrestricted submarine warfare again and wanted the Mexicans to take the USA's attention away from that by declaring a war with them.

The Germans couldn't contact the Mexicans directly so the message was delivered to the US Embassy in Berlin and then transmitted by diplomatic cable to Copenhagen and then to London for onward transmission over transatlantic cable to Washington. That's when it was intercepted and decoded.

The telegram was decoded by British cryptographers of Room 40.

Room 40, also known as 40 O.B. (Old Building) (latterly NID25), was the section in the Admiralty most identified with the British cryptographers effort during the The First World War.

According to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message."

The interception gave Britain a problem; they didn't want the Americans to know how they had come up with the information; Britain, because of the war, had cut the Atlantic Cable but the USA begged them to leave a way that Germany could contact their embassy in Washington DC as the American President reckoned he could bring about a peace through negotiation.

In other words they were spying on the Americans on the QT; well it would have to be on the QT wouldn't it as you don't tell people you are spying on them; I mean it just wouldn't be cricket would it?

But there again, even though they were neutral, America's official neutrality involved trading with all belligerents.

As it happens, Mexico ignored the proposal and, after the USA entered the war, officially rejected it.

I found it interesting and I believe there are books about it if you are interested.

Mexican territory in 1917 (dark green), territory promised to Mexico in the Zimmermann telegram (light green), the pre-1836 original Mexican territory (red line).

All the sevens work at Wimbledon!!

Seven seven (7/7) in Britain is like nine eleven (9/11) in America; 7/7 was the day of the London Bombings in 2005; although if 9/11 had happened in Britain, or anywhere else bar America, it would have been 11/9, but 7/7 this year was the day of the men's singles final at Wimbledon and it had been 77 years since a British man had won - in fact no British man in shorts had ever won.

The last Brit to win the men's singles title was Fred Perry and he won it three times in the days when the male competitors wore long trousers. In fact King George VI, when he was the Duke of York, played tennis at Wimbledon wearing long trousers; I remember seeing him – but that was on archive footage; I'm not that old! 

 

He was the king that the movie The King's Speech was based on.

So on Sunday of this week, 7/7, a young man from Dunblane in Scotland, entered the centre court; he represented himself, of course, but Britain decided he was representing them although he could easily have been representing Scotland or maybe to put Dunblane on the map as the place where he came from - as opposed to the place of the biggest school massacre in Scottish history.

On March 13^th 1996 a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School and killed 16 children and one adult; the kids were aged between 5 and 6. 

The one adult killed was a school mistress who was killed trying to protect the children in her care.

After firing at another bunch of children, fatally wounding one and injuring 3 adults and 10 other children, the gunman put the gun inside his miserable mouth committing suicide.

This incident, and three other massacres, effectively made the private ownership of hand guns in the United Kingdom illegal. No NRA (National Rifle Association) in Britain so no serious complaints.

The young man in question, the man from Dunblane, who was coming up to 9 at the time of the killings, happened to be in the wrong (or right) classroom at the time but had to hide from the killer all the same and survived to take up a career in tennis where on Sunday, 7/7, he beat the world number one, Novak Djokovic, in straight sets 6-4, 7-5, 6-4.

Who knows what the other kids from that fateful day in 1996 would have achieved in their lifetimes before their senseless killings? 

 

Andy Murray doesn't say much about the massacre and the fact that the killer was known to his family, that his mother gave him lifts in her car and that Andy was a member of the killer's youth club - but Sunday was a day when all the sevens added up. 

 

Instead of throwing a seven Andy won and 17 million viewers watched BBC1 on Sunday; not great figures compared to America but great for here.

So here's to you, Andy Murray, you stopped Britain for a few hours on Sunday and today the Prime Minister (call me Dave) said you should be knighted; I hope not. Not yet anyway; it means nothing.

A Great TV Script Writer.

Let's hear it for a great script writer! He concentrated on television and consequently became the most innovative writer for television so far.

One or two of his scripts were made in to movies, and I know one was produced in the theatre, but they never surpassed their television versions.

I was thinking about him the other day, when James Gandolfini died, as people reckon The Sopranos was the greatest television series of all time.

Well first of all there's no such thing; what you might think is great I might think is garbage – and vise versa.

I know a few Italians who don't like the Sopranos at all which figures.

They don't see Italians as the mafia or always in waste disposal. It's a bit like my mother hating the Irish series 'My Mammy' because it was too broad– I don't know what she would have made of Mrs Brown's Boys!!

The script writer I am talking about, of course, is Dennis Potter.

He tried to direct one of his own scripts, once, and it didn't quite work, even though his scripts had plenty of direction written in to them – yes that's right maybe he didn't know how to direct actors! Or did he?

His forays into film were The Singing Detective (with Robert Downey Jr), Pennies from Heaven (with Steve Martin) and his play Son of Man was eventually performed on stage and was about Christ.

I remember one of his TV plays Blue Remembered Hills where he had a group of grown up actors play children. Another play, with Tom Bell, was about an angel – or was he? A play a couple of years later was about a playwright writing a play about a man who thought he was an angel!

He wrote many scripts about delusional people and the most famous was Brimstone and Treacle which was made by the BBC and then banned by them. It was about the devil – or a man who said he was the devil (another delusional) - who had sex with the daughter of a family with whom he was staying.

It was made into a movie with Sting playing the lead and I am reliably informed it wasn't a patch on the original BBC version which was shown on the BBC some years later with some cuts. The original uncut version starring Michael Kitchen is available on Amazon and I've ordered a copy.

It also stars that great actor Denholm Elliot who was the best actor in many many films; he was in another Dennis Potter TV play called Follow the Yellow Brick Road, where he played an actor who was well known for doing a TV commercial with a dog and, as he was having some kind of nervous breakdown, he kept seeing the dog as he went about his way.

If ever you get the chance to see the DVD of The Singing Detective you may change your mind about what is the best television series – no car chases, guns or fights just a man in a bed in hospital and the inside of his head.