Maybe…
At the engagement party of our eldest grandson – to a delightful Texan – last week, I suggested to one of our granddaughters, Annabel Benyon -aged thirteen – that Jane and I are keen on seeing any number of great-grandchildren.
She looked thoughtful.
“I may get married sometime in tbe next ten years” she said, “and I am sure you will still be around to see it.”
A pause. Then she added:
“maybe…”
Vive la Révolution!
A bit of history you may not know…
I met an American at dinner recently who told me how fortunate the US had been to have won the War of Independence in 1783 – and how awful it would have been if they had lost.
Being the friendly chap I am, I agreed. Just imagine how dreadful it would have been if the Americans had remained part of the British family of nations. They could have ended up like those benighted countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – which somehow managed to achieve independence gradually and without firing a shot. Look at the state they’re in today compared to the US – just saying!
Not a bad return of service!
But of course, the Iron Law of Unintended Consequences bit back big time. The Americans would never have won that war without the help of France’s King Louis XVI. Desperate to give the ghastly British a bloody nose, he bankrolled the American cause.
And now comes the best bit. The French monarchy was bankrupted by the vast cost. The taxes levied to pay this monstrous bill helped trigger the French Revolution 13 years later – in which Louis, the treacherous old sod, had his head chopped off.
Laughing? Moi?
Drink to That!
As the war had been won for them by the French, you might expect the signatories to the Declaration of Independence to have toasted them with champagne, but that didn’t happen. British duties on imported goods had made French wine unaffordable (which led to the “no taxation without representation” nonsense). However, because of an oversight, wine from the island of Madeira could be imported tax-free – and so it was, in vast quantity.
Two days before the signing of the United States Constitution, the attendees of the Constitutional Convention – led by one George Washington – gathered at Philadelphia’s City Tavern for a party. The bar bill for the evening still exists. It shows that 55 men ordered 54 bottles of Madeira along with a shedload of whisky, cider, beer, punch and some overpriced claret.
Two days later, befuddled by hangovers, 39 of them blearily signed the US Constitution. Washington was a particular fan of Madeira, reportedly drinking a bottle each day “to help with the toothache”.
Even though the Yankees no longer had to pay tax on imported French wine, Madeira remained America’s wine of choice. In 1803, when France’s bankruptcy obliged it to sell its vast chunk of America to the very people whose fight for freedom it had so recently financed, a toast was drunk to celebrate the signing of the Louisiana Purchase. Representatives from France, Spain and the United States were all present. For the toasts, the French drank champagne, the Spanish drank Málaga wine and the Americans drank “America’s wine” – Madeira. Its popularity showed no sign of waning – indeed, when Francis Scott Key wrote America’s anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, in 1814, he was reportedly legless on Madeira.
No Booze Please…
Who do you prefer – the drinkers or the teetotallers?
No Booze
- Hitler
- Trump
- Joe Biden
- George W. Bush (after AA)
- Lenin
- Modi
- Mussolini
Drinkers
- Churchill
- Herbert Asquith
- Richard Nixon
- George W. Bush (before AA)
- Boris Yeltsin
- Lyndon Johnson
- George Pompidou
- François Mitterrand
- Jean-Claude Juncker
- Henry VIII