11th October

Jean Cocteau, poet, artist, film-maker and all round brilliant wit died today in 1963. Of all the cool things he ever said, my favourite must be 'Tact consists in knowing how far we may go too far.'

Ain't it the truth?

In other news ...
And talking of wits and great lines, how about this today in 1991 from Auberon Waugh (whom I actually met once) - 'Politicians can forgive almost anything in the way of abuse; they can forgive subversion, revolution, being contradicted, exposed as liars, even ridiculed but they can never forgive being ignored.'

Takes one to know one, Aub!

12th April

President Harry S Truman got it right today in 1958 when he said 'A politician is a man who understands government ... A statesman is a politician who's been dead for ten or fifteen years.'

Spot on, S.

In other news ...

This was the day, legend says, when the Union Jack became the official flag of Britain. the only problem is when? Some accounts say 1606, three years after England and Scotland were first ruled by the same king (James VI or I depending on your grasp of Latin maths and country of origin).
Others say 1707 when the Act of Union formally united England and Scotland. Ireland didn't join (much against its better judgement) until 1801. So who knows? It didn't help of course that the flag only reflects England and Scotland in the crosses of St George and St Andrew, their respective patron saints. st David (Wales) and St Patrick (Ireland) didn't have heraldic crosses and I suspect the English and Scots were pretty miffed that the dragon and the shamrock made much more interesting heraldic designs, so the Union Jack ignores them completely.