1st December

If you're a fan, like me, of Sellar and Yeatman's masterly 1066 And All That, you'll know that Henry I of England died of a surfeit of lampreys. A what? I hear you cry, dear reader. Well, a lamprey is an eel and a surfeit is too many. All this happened today in 1135 which is long before they had sell-by dates etc. I can't help thinking that as the bloke was 66 (which was ancient in the 12th century) it was probably time he shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.

What did he leave behind? A squabble between potential rulers Matilda and Stephen and a series of excellent novels by Ellis Peters.

In other news ...

The Cross Channel diggers met in the middle today in 1990, nearly completing a multi-million pound project linking Britain to France. There was a great deal more earth movement when everybody from Harold Godwinson (d 1066) on turned in their graves.

24th March

Queen Elizabeth I (Gloriana to her friends) died today in 1603 ushering out the Tudors and ushering in the Stuarts. Her last words were 'All my possessions for a moment of time'. Which got me thinking about last words generally. There was Prime Minister William Pitt's 'I could just eat one of Mrs Bellamy's meat pies'. There was General Robert E Lee's 'Strike the tents!'

And we mustn't forget Harold Godwinson's famous line at Hastings just before the arrow got him - 'Things are definitely looking up.' Some people of course claim that his last words were 'Watch that bloke with the bow and arrow - he could have somebody's eye out' - but that would be plain silly.

In other news ...

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery hung up his baton today in 1976. He was an arrogant so-and-so who for reasons best known to himself wore an RAF flying jacket and a beret with two badges. If that doesn't scream schizophrenia, I don't know what does. Every member of his 8th Army I've ever met, not excepting my dear old dad, hated him.

But he won battles.