Originally posted by zeitghost
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Morning. Another crisp one, more windscreen scraping.
My train travels south-east in the morning. I hope our driver can see the buffers at Marylebone, or we'll be through them and into the Landmark hotel.Comment
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It should last until the weekend anyway.Originally posted by zeitghostComment
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it is a beaut of a morning mate. gawd, i'm so excited about the rugby. can we? can we? please? i have a feeling i might get rather drunk if we do.Comment
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Having no interest in sport (which I assume is what you're on about), I intend to get rather drunk just for the sake of itOriginally posted by DS23 View Post
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The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748. After 1742 it merged into the larger War of the Austrian Succession.
Under the 1729 Treaty of Seville, the British had agreed not to trade with the Spanish colonies. To verify the treaty, the Spanish were permitted to board British vessels in Spanish waters. After one such incident in 1731, Robert Jenkins, captain of the ship Rebecca, claimed that the Spanish coast guard had severed his ear. The British government, which was determined to continue its drive toward commercial and military domination of the Atlantic basin, used this incident as an excuse to wage war against Spain in the Caribbean. In 1738 Jenkins exhibited his pickled ear to the House of Commons, whipping up war fever against Spain. To much cheering, the British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declared war on October 23, 1739.
One of the first actions was the British capture, on November 22, 1739, of a minor silver-exporting town on the coast of Panama (then New Granada), called Puerto Bello in an attempt to damage Spain's finances. The poorly defended port was attacked by six ships of the line under Admiral Edward Vernon. The battle led the Spanish to change their trading practices. Rather than trading at centralised ports with large treasure fleets, they began using small numbers of ships trading at a wide variety of ports. They also began to travel around Cape Horn to trade on the west coast.[citation needed] Puerto Bello's economy was severely damaged, and did not recover until the building of the Panama Canal. In Britain the victory was greeted with much celebration, and in 1740, at a dinner in honour of Vernon in London, the song "God Save the King", now the British national anthem, was performed in public for the first time. Portobello Road in London is named after this victory and the battle was the most medalled event of the eighteenth century.Comment
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After I make my first million I will offer CUK folk a nice bribe to "accidentally" delete this thread.
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won't bother me. i'll be long dead by then.Comment
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...and the sun will have become a red giant and swallowed up the earth.Originally posted by DS23 View Post
PS If you do become very rich Alexei, remember who your mates are.Comment
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