7th July

A bizarre conversation took place in Buckingham Palace thirty years ago today when Michael Fagan broke into the queen's apartments. Of course it's not protocol to discuss royal chat sessions, but rumour has it , it went something like this:

HM   Good Heavens! What are you doing in my private apartments, you nasty little oik?

MF   I was supposed to meet Bill - you know, Bill Sykes - who was casing the joint, already.

HM   Aren't you confusing yourself with somebody else? A controversial Semite from London's
         Underworld, perhaps?

MF   No.

HM   Well, what do you want?

MF   I've got this lad, Oliver his name is, who wants to go straight. I taught him to pick pockets but he's got real career aspirations and wants to go on Britain's Got Very Little Talent. Nancy - you know, Del'Ollio - is trying to help him too, but Bill's threatening to cut her up.

HM   How can I help?

MF   Got any ciggies?

HM   I'll just call the Old Bill, shall I?

MF   Oh, he is here, is he? Thank God for that, I thought I'd got the wrong night. Talking of which, ma'am,
         any chance of a K? You know, for services to breakin' and enterin'? Just thought I'd ask.

In other news ...
Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the White Company etc etc, died today in 1930. But of course, he didn't. Having thrown himself spectacularly over the Reichenbach Falls, he'll be back in a minute.

6th July

It was happy families today in 1189 when Henry II died. As a king he was brilliant, setting up a legal system and kicking the church into touch by putting Thomas Becket, his Archbishop of Canterbury in his place (a vault in said Canterbury). As a dad, though, he had a lot to answer for. His three boys were Richard the Lionheart (psychotic, homosexual, ginger); John Lackland (psychotic, heterosexual, murderer and all-round prat) and Geoffrey (who?). And I haven't even mentioned Henry's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine who would cheerfully have cut the old man's throat given half a chance.

The story would make an excellent film. Oh, wait a minute - it's already been done. See The Lion in Winter. Brill.
PS - make sure it's the original with O'Toole and Hepburn. The remake is okay, but it just hasn't got the chemistry.

In other news ...
The first all-talkie movie opened today in 1928. It was called The Lights of New York and one of its famous  lines was 'You ain't heard very much yet, folks, but if you saw The Jazz Singer you'd have heard something.'

5th July

Phineas Barnum was born today in 1819. So when he said 'There's one born every minute' that was a bit of an exaggeration, wasn't it?

In other news ...

Today in 1841 Thomas Cook ran the first railway excursion in the cause of temperance. The train ran from Leicester to Loughborough and hordes of women (only men drank apparently in the Midlands in the 19th century) shouting 'Down with Demon Drink'. Later campaigns included Railways Against Dichotomy (RAT); Locomotives Against Racial Dichotomy (LARD) and Engines Against Sexual Yobbishness (EASY).

Incidentally, Thomas became the first celebrity Cook in the country*

*Ed's note: unless you include Captain James.

4th July

Yeehah! Of course I had to mention it. The day that all Americans everywhere stop work and have a party. What are they celebrating? The fact that France, Spain and Holland helped them win a war against the British. I make that 4 to 1 so the outcome isn't that terribly surprising, is it? By the by, the 4th has very little actual significance. The Declaration of Independence (lifted almost wholesale from Englishman John Locke) was written on 2 July 1776 and published on 8 July. The 4th was the day that Congress accepted it (and even then with alterations). How is it that such a great nation can get its own Independence Day wrong?

In other news ...
Same news, really. On this day in 1826 two of the blokes who signed the Declaration (see above) dropped dead. One was Thomas Jefferson, the slave owner who nevertheless contended that all men were created equal. And the other was John Adams, father of the much more famous Gomez and Fester.

What are the odds?

3rd July

American General William Tecumseh Sherman came out with the truth at a speech at the Michigan Military Academy today in 1879. He said, 'I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine ... War is hell.' Sadly, later generations didn't listen - hence two world wars, Vietnam etc etc etc.

PS - hasn't Gen. Sherman got the coolest middle name ever?

In other news ...

In 1905, Russian troops opened fire of strikers in Odessa. More than 6000 died which is a tragedy and a terrible harbinger of worse that was to come in 1817. The only good this to come out of the Odessa steps massacre is Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin. Watch that and you'll be a Bolshevik all your life.

2nd July

'General' William Booth of the Salvation Army set up his tent today in 1865 on the Mile End Waste in London's poverty-stricken East End. His hell-fire sermons, tambourines and soup kitchens saved the lives of thousands even before the organization became worldwide. Booth's book In Darkest England highlighted the social problems of the day - drunkenness, prostitution, crime. I feel a strange affinity with this man - I own a frock coat like the one he used to wear and at Cambridge, my landlord had met him when he (the landlord of course, not General Booth) was twelve.

This link to history reminds me that I once had my hair cut by George Bernard Shaw's barber, but that, like the Giant Rat of Sumatra, is a story for which the world is not yet ready. Suffice it to say, I destroyed all the photographs, although my sister used to have one, with which to scare the children.

In other news ...

Today in 1644 the Battle of Marston Moor turned the tide in the English Civil War. For the first time the hell-for-leather cavalry charges of Prince Rupert of the Rhine failed to break the infantry squares of Fairfax's New Model Army. The Prince's dog, Boye, lay dead on the field and it was rumoured that Boye wasn't a dog at all, but a familiar, an imp sent by the devil to serve Rupert. Oliver Cromwell, whose tactics won the day, had an imp too but his, very cunningly, pretended to be a wart on his chin.

I kid you not.

1st July

This is the day in the year when even quite young children realise that next Christmas is nearer than last Christmas. Detective Inspector Mrs Carpenter Maxwell and I are currently fortunate that Nolan is not terribly acquisitive, so his Christmas list is usually short and relatively cheap. Metternich's list, on the other hand, runs for two pages and, should we comply with his requests (and let's face it, if we want to keep the skin on our legs, we will) it will keep the shareholders of Pets At Home in Caribbean holidays for the next year or so.

Anyway - on with the blog -

One hundred and sixty five years ago today the first adhesive postage stamps went on sale in America. For younger readers, I should explain what this experience was. You licked the back of the stamp (and it tasted horrible) before sticking it on the envelope. People who did this a lot used damp sponges at their workstations so that their tongues didn't get all furred up.

For even younger readers, these workstations were called Post Offices and they used to be in buildings (not hidden inside a shop) where you could post letters; even quite small villages had one and most towns had several.

For younger readers still, letters used to be ...

In other news ...
One of the great heroes of all time was born today in 1929 - he has other birthdays, chronicled in this blog on 11 April, but this is his Official Birthday (this is the only attribute he shares with the Queen, God Bless Her). He was a deformed sailor called Popeye, who had no teeth, one eye (hence the name), seriously large forearms and an appalling taste in women (Olive Oyl was a cartoon version of Wallis Simpson). Popeye was picked on every episode by a bearded thug called Bluto, who knocked seven bells out of Popeye until our intrepid sailor was able to down some spinach (which he ate straight from the can) and this gave him superhuman strength.

They don't make them like that any more (and aren't we grateful!).