Sorry, reader, for this post going up so late, but we all take Lammastide very seriously chez Maxwell and the Precepts of St Bill Gates state quite categorically 'Thou shalt not touch thy keyboard on Lammastide; neither shalt thou post blogs thereon.' So, it really couldn't be clearer, could it?
Anyhoo ...
Claudius was born today in 19 BC. Obviously, it wasn't 19 BC then on account of Himself not being born for another 19 years. Claudius was one of those brilliant mind-like-a-razor types hiding it all under a limp and a stammer (Kevin Spacey did something similar in The Usual Suspects). What Claudius did not do was invade Britain in 43 AD (and it really was 43 Ad then for obvious reasons). The actual invasion was done by General Aulus Plautius. Claudius turned up after it was all over (typical) to pick up the applause, the statues, slaves, grain, women and everything the Romans had a habit of pinching.
In other news ...
Joseph Priestley announced today in 1774 that he'd discovered oxygen. That's a bit like Claudius really - millions of people had done all the hard work for ever, breathing the stuff in, only for some clever dick to come along and invent a word for it. Never mind, the good people of Birmingham burned his house down later and threw him in a pond, so - although he didn't think so - there is a God.
