[Laughing Swordfish]

Cool Steve.

At Flores in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay

And a Pinnace like a fluttered bird came flying from far away

"Spanish ships of war at sea, we have sighted fifty three!"

Then spake Sir Thomas Howard:

"Fore God I am no coward!"

"But I cannot meet them here; for my ships are out of gear,and half my men are sick,

I must fly, but follow quick!

We are six ships of the line, can we fight with fifty three?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville:

"I know you are no coward.

But I have fifty men and more who are lying sick ashore.

I would count myself the coward, if I left them, my Lord Howard, to those Inquisition Dogs and the devildoms of Spain!"

So Sir Howard sailed away with five ships of war that day

Their sails disappearred into the summers heaven

And Sir Richard bore in hand all the sick men from the land, men of Bideford in Devon.

And they blessed him in their pain

That they'd not been left to Spain, to the Thumbscrew and the Rack, for the glory of the Lord.

That's me coming out of the story for a moment and attempting to quote a poem by Tennyson.

Fighting and beating the French and the Spanish is kind of in our genes now, we just need Calais back again, which was ours and most of France up to the reign of Bloody Mary; and even then there'll be an uneasy peace!

We're hated by the french, but the feelings mutual; we hammer them at every military event, and nowadays they don't even turn up. The scots and the welsh and certain of the Irish who have started murdering us again, we've fought them, and beat them, again and again through our history. Maybe that's why they don't like us? Can't they let it go?

Enough with the politics, I'm supposed to be running a boat....

RdB (LS)