An ABC for Baby Patriots 1899

No wonder literacy rates among children where higher in the 19th century than they are now. They had great books like this from which to learn their letters. Brilliantly illustrated it contains marvellous rhymes like this one for the letter K.

K is for Kings
once warlike and haughty
Great Britain subdued them
because they'd been naughty

Or what about C;

C is for colonies
rightly we boast
That of all the great nations
Great Britain has most

Sadly much of it is now out of date but not everything - Surely A is still -just - true;

A is the Army
that dies for the Queen
It's the very best army
That ever was seen

Though not perhaps for much longer as 'Our Dave ' persists in cutting it to the bone so he can continue to finance his ridiculous obsession with Overseas Aid

But there is one rhyme which is still as true today as it was in 1899. The letter Q.

Q is our queen !
It fills us with pride
to see the Queens coach
when the Queen is inside

Anyway if you have children starting to learn their letters go on the internet and get this book - It is great . Personally if I was Mr. Gove I think I would make it a set book in every Primary School in the land. Children would not only learn their letters but a bit of history as well and then they might ask how- in just over a century -a great country could piss such legacy down the drain. Well the answer is simple -one word-  Politicians.  

First World War anniversary celebrations

The anniversary of the start of the Great War is already being hijacked by the bleeding heart liberals who believe that 'there is nothing to celebrate' and 'that the dead of both sides must be commemorated together' and other such rubbish. 

Well I don't agree.  There is a lot to celebrate.  First and foremost is the superb performance of the British Army in stopping the Germans dead (literally) in their tracks.  By doing so they prevented the defeat of France which would have led to the domination of Europe by Germany.

If you want to find out just how good the British Army of 1914 was then don't read the sort of drivel put about by the likes of Sebastian Faulks but a book by a truly brilliant historian, Lyn Macdonald,  who dedicated most of the last forty years to first hunting down survivors and then, when they were no more, their letters and diaries and weaving the resulting information into a series of superb books on the Great War.  Here, to give you a taster, is an extract from her book 1914 and is the account  of sixteen year old Jimmy Naylor a trumpeter with the Royal Field Artillery who witnessed the British infantry in action.: 

"He was saying , At four hundred.......At five hundred .......at threee fifty.......at three hundred. the rifles blazed, but still the Germans came on.  they were getting nearer and nearer and for the first time I began to feel rather anxious anf frightened. they weren't and indeterminate mass any more - you could actually pick out details, see them as individual men, coming on, coming on.  And the officer, still as cool as anything, was saying , At two fifty ....At two hundred ......And then he said ,ten rounds rapid!  And the chaps opened up - And the Germans just fell down like logs . I've never seen anything like it, the discipline, the fire discipline of those troops, I've never forgotten that, I was so impressed. As a boy of sixteen I was simply astounded. I thought, 'What a marvellous army we are!' The attack was completely repulsed - probably not for long but it was long enough for us to get the guns away. It saved us. "    

If that does not make the hair stand up on the back of your neck and your heart burst with pride at being British then you probavly live in Notting Hill Gate or Chipping Norton (or both).   

Business Leaders

In my own small way I suppose I am 'a member of the business community'  so I am oddly annoyed when I read in the paper that 'business leaders' want the government to do something, especially when virtually everything these self styled unelected 'business leaders want is the diametric opposite of what I want.  Why is this I wonder?  Well it could be because the average time horizon of most of these businessmen is a maximum of say three years while mine is, anyway when I plant an oak tree, two hundred years. You get my point I hope. So when these drips warn Cameron against doing anything which might jeopardise our relationship with Europe they don't have the long term interests of the country at heart but purely the next couple of years P&L account. Similarly of course when they complain about immigration controls they are worrying about the supply of cheap labour drying up not of the long term social costs which uncontrolled immigration brings.

In any event the track record of 'business leaders' is abysmal.  A trawl through the newspapers of the past would reveal the 'business leaders' have very little judgement about what is good for the country or indeed for business. Business leaders for instance were loud in their desire for us to join the euro.  Enough said, but it would be better for their businesses if these self important prats concentrated their efforts on running them rather than telling the Prime Minister how to run the country.