Most historians agree that the first king of England was a fellow named Aethelstan, who got the title in the year 927. Whatever it meant to be English in the tenth century, he certainly wasn’t a Briton. No, Britons, the people the Romans conquered when they invaded the island, were Celtic, spoke a Celtic language… Continue reading Queasy is the Head that Wears a Crown
Tag: Britain
Monkeyshines, Monkey Business and Monkeypox
The Willard Hotel has been a fixture here in Washington DC since 1847, when a fellow named Henry Willard took over a row of boarding houses located next to the White House grounds. Prior to that, even, and probably due to their proximity to the White House and what was, at the time, the State… Continue reading Monkeyshines, Monkey Business and Monkeypox
Trumpstink – Terrible New Torment of the Tories
Sir Percy Bysshe Blithering-Snype, Twelfth Earl of Dorking, Principal Attaché for Commerce and the Exchequer at the Embassy of Great Britain here in Washington was hardly his usual convivial self on Friday. He sat through most of our consultation on English specialty export markets with a preoccupied look, barely responding to my conversation. Toward the… Continue reading Trumpstink – Terrible New Torment of the Tories
Argentina’s Falkland Tempest in a Tin Pot
Friday afternoon, I was visited by Dr. Pedro “Pete” Tontogrande Chupacerdo y Boludo del Alcantarilla, former Juan Perón Professor of International Peace, Tolerance and Diplomacy at the University of Buenos Aries and current Primary Counselor for Political and Economic Policy at the Embassy of Argentina here in Washington, DC. As regular readers of this Web… Continue reading Argentina’s Falkland Tempest in a Tin Pot
Welcome to the Hotel Ecuador, Mr. Assange
Julian Assange, charismatic leader of Wikileaks, desperate fugitive from Swedish justice and now the latest member of Interpol’s Most Wanted List, has been sleeping on an air mattress in an office at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 19. Today, he emerged onto a balcony (which is, technically, in Ecuador) above the street outside… Continue reading Welcome to the Hotel Ecuador, Mr. Assange