Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known as the Cid Campeador (the Lord Champion) died in Valencia today in 1099. For aficionados of the superb Charlton Heston film, I hate to burst your bubble, but he wasn't strapped, dead, onto his horse for one last battle against the invading Almoravid Moors from Africa. He died peacefully in his bed and his body was removed from its tomb four years later to be re-interred by his wife in a Castilian monastery.
He never lost a battle in his life.
To learn more about this amazing man, go to Amazon and put El Cid in the search to find the best book on him, by my old mate M J Trow. Make sure you choose the new option, then the top seller in the list, to make sure it is a genuine copy signed by the author.
In other news ...
I'd like to quote from Ted Kavanagh, a wireless script writer today in 1847. I make no comment on the quotation at all -
'It has been discovered experimentally that you can draw laughter from an audience anywhere in the world, of any class or race, simply by walking onto the stage and uttering the words, "I am a married man".'
