Britain awaits name for new Royal Princess

[Huge]

No I f****ng don't.

[Brian Gaff]

I think it will all be better when we all know then we can go back to depressing death anddestruction type news. Any advance n Alice Diana? Brian

[Jonno]

Brian Gaff scribbled

That would piss off Jug Ears.

[Bob Eager]

Not as much as Diana Alice

Or (shuffling letters) Diana Dido

[Brian Gaff]

I'm not so sure really. After all without her there would not have been this couple to start with.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Maybe that good old stand by Elisabeth. Names are funny things really. My parents only gave me one to remember, as nobody had any ideas other than it should be short to match my surname. I'm quite happy with Brian even if i was compared to a snail during my formative years. Brian

[News]

In message , Brian Gaff writes

You could always change your name. Instead of Brian, how about Giff?

[michael adams]

That may be related to the fact that neither Liz nor Vicky were the heir apparent at the time of their birth. In the former case David later Edward VIII later the Duke of Windsor was the heir apparent, in the latter case at the time of her birth Vicky was only fifth in line of succession after her father and his three older brothers: the Prince Regent, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV).

Her actual first name was Alexandrina and it was her own decision to change it on the day she was declared Queen. Otherwise presumably there'd have been an Alexandrina Station in London, an Alexandrina line on the tube, the Alexandrina Cross and even a State or states in the colonies named Alexandrina.

michael adams

...

[Another John]

p.s. I just realised that what I ranted on about might imply in some way that I'm all in favour of Royalty-fever: ***no frigging way!!*** Pass the sick bag. I'm as appalled by it all as (I have no doubt) Prince William is. (I think he's a good chap btw.)

J.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There seem to be an awful lot of countries that don't seem to have benefitted much from once being part of the British Empire. If they had not been - who knows? Is India a better place for the average citizen than China?

[gareth]

I am not whining. I am discussing politics.

You seem intent on making personal remarks.

Why do you behave like that?

[Tim Streater]

Except that they weren't jolly or benevolent. You could remind your lefty friends that these chiefs and kings were the ones who, after raiding the neighbouring tribes and kingdoms, then sold off their captives to slave traders. Boko Haram (sp?) are just carrying on an old tradition.

[charles]

In the case of "Liz" she was never heir apparent. She was, after her father became king, "heir presumptive". If her parents had had a son, she'd have dropped back in the succession..

[charles]

It's got railways and a civil service

[Simon Brown]

So has China. Much more modern railways than India has too.

And a legal system that is even worse than what Britain had in Dickens' day.

[Huge]

Err, I think that was the point ...

[Another John]

Yes Tim -- I was being ironic! I think perhaps it was a bit subtle for this particular uk.d-i-y discussion :-D

J.

[Another John]

Oh I say! That's a bit rude Harry! I've never been that rude to you!

My point is that we have moved out of the Cold War era, when nuclear weapons were held by two super-powers only (counting the UK as the USA's hanger-on). We're now in an era where smaller, wilder, even fanatical countries have these weapons. Two questions:

(1) Will they be put off by the thought of *us* eliminating *them* if they were to attack us?

(2) If they did attack us, what would we do? Wipe them off the face of the earth? Would we? *What would be the point in doing that?* [Even supposing our modern "statesmen" had the balls to make such a decision?] Civilization has moved on from the 50s/60s.

Diverting the the costs of Trident into the other armed forces would create thousands of jobs, in disciplined, highly trained (and I include all the traditional trades, not just shooting) forces, who could be deployed to the nation's advantage in times of emergency (floods, etc). And as a side-benefit we'd all have plenty to be proud of.

We could even - for the nuke-fans[1] - have an airborne nuclear force; much smaller, but much cheaper, and as effective as the present submarine force. (Or so I've read recently; though admittedly the author was an Air Marshal, iirc.)

Kind regards, Harry old chap John

[1] I was a nuke-fan myself up until a couple of years ago, when I awoke from my Cold War dream. "Assured Mutual Destruction"? No mate: it doesn't work any more.

[Simon Brown]

He does that with everyone he disagrees with |-)

Clearly that didn?t happen with 9/11.

It wouldn?t be balls, it would be complete stupidity, even with say an Iran or Pakistan that went rogue with nukes.

Particularly in western europe.

Very expensive way of dealing with stuff like that tho.

Very few work like that anymore with the military.

The whole point of subs is that no one who matters knows where they are so they can't be targeted by their nukes in a first strike pre-emptive attack.

Who is a fool who doesn?t understand the basics.

Just another example of a military fool furiously fighting the last war long after that approach is well past its useby date.

It still does in the sense of avoiding full scale nuclear war.

But Trident was never relevant to that given what the US had.

Trident was always just Britain not being able to accept that it was militarily completely irrelevant to anything except Falklands style operations now and being part of stuff driven by the americans like Iraq and Afghanistan in which Trident is completely irrelevant and always was.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They are certainly good for the white man. The aboriginals likely have a different view.

I ask again. India and China.

Tends to happen when you get country based on land barriers, when such a thing didn't exist before. The middle east being prime examples.