Daily Telegraph Does Page Three
Well not really page three, but I thought the Telegraph didn’t publish things like this.
It’ll cause heart attacks all over Tunbridge Wells.
A Toupee for My Elan
I call it a toupee, but it’s just a very small cover from Classic Additions.
As you can see it could have been made for the Elan. It is a very good fit.
It was also very good value at £42 complete with a little bag to keep it in.
The only problem is that I have an old mobile phone aerial on the windscreen and this will probably poke through. I could remove the aerial but I do like the non-working period detail of an analogue phone. It’s hands-free to!
Do Elans Fade Away?
I took this picture of my Elan and a much later Elise. Both are in the same Norfolk Mustard.
A Yellow Elan and a Yellow Elise
Note how the colour is exactly the same and that my Elan has not faded in any way. Speaking to the guy who services my car, he said that yellows hardly seem to fade. I think it’s the pigment.
France and Haiti
I like to look at history. Often it gives strong reasons, why things are done in the way they are or in Haiti’s case, it points to why the country is such a basket case. I had vaguely heard that the country had been founded by a slave revolt acouple of centuries ago, but I didn’t know the truth.
Now Ben Macintyre in a powerful article in The Times lays the blame firmly on France. Here’s the history.
In the 18th century, Haiti was France’s imperial jewel, the Pearl of the Caribbean, the largest sugar exporter in the world. Even by colonial standards, the treatment of slaves working the Haitian plantations was truly vile. They died so fast that, at times, France was importing 50,000 slaves a year to keep up the numbers and the profits.
Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, in 1791 the slaves rebelled under the leadership of the self-educated slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. After a vicious war, Napoleon’s forces were defeated. Haiti declared independence in 1804.
As Haiti struggles with new misfortune, it is worth remembering that noble achievement — this is the only nation to gain independence by a slave-led rebellion, the first black republic, and the second oldest republic in the western hemisphere. Haiti was founded on a demand for liberty from people whose liberty had been stolen: the country itself is a tribute to human resilience and freedom.
France did not forgive the impertinence and loss of earnings: 800 destroyed sugar plantations, 3,000 lost coffee estates. A brutal trade blockade was imposed. Former plantation owners demanded that Haiti be invaded, its population enslaved once more. Instead, the French State opted to bleed the new black republic white.
In 1825, in return for recognising Haitian independence, France demanded indemnity on a staggering scale: 150 million gold francs, five times the country’s annual export revenue. The Royal Ordinance was backed up by 12 French warships with 150 cannon.
Haiti finally finished paying the debts to France in 1947. But by that time it was a bankrupt nation with no resources.
Read the full article.
Football in Welsh
This note is in the latest Popbitch.
The December 14th edition of S4C’s Welsh language football show Sgorio picked up a grand total of zero viewers, according to official audience figures.
This can’t be correct, as the presenter’s family would have watched.
The Middlesex Hospital Chapel
Two of our children were born in the Middlesex Hospital; one on the day that Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins that Ap0llo 11 left for the moon.
It is now quite sad to pass the site of the former hospital, which has been almost completely demolished.
The Middlesex Hospital Chapel
There is just the chapel and one wall of the old hospital shown behind and to the left in this picture. The chapel is on the English Heritage at-risk list.
I only popped into the chapel a couple of times, but let’s hope that when the site is finally developed, that they allow full access to one of London’s little gems.
I searched Google and found this project to model the chapel in 3D.
The Anonymous Widower 