Admiral Maarten Harperzoon Troup was killed today in 1653 in a battle with the English fleet off the coast of Holland. I have no comment to make on the man's ability as a sailor (which was considerable) but I have to inform my reader that a recent MORI poll chose him as having the silliest name in History.
In other news ...
Brighton opened its first nudist (oops, sorry, naturalist) beach today in 1979. Already dubbed 'Sin City' and the 'Gomorrah of the South', Brighton was assured of the arrival of an army of oddballs in macs (and a handful of naturalists). As an anonymous poster at the time brilliantly put it, 'If God wanted us to walk around naked, we would have been born that way.'
Distressingly, Mrs Troubridge took to naturism in a big way in response to this innovation. I was away on holiday at the time, but the neighbours opposite took the full brunt, as one might say, of her new hobby and they have never been quite the same since.
