Letter to America

An open letter to all right minded Americans who feel that we are in a period of uncertainty as to the future of the English Speaking Peoples.

Ever since Eisenhower, America has been pushing Britain to form closer ties with mainland Europe, a position that some 70% of the population of this island do not want or agree with.

This has finally lead to us being manipulated into a thing called The Lisbon Treaty, which effectively hands over the vast majority of our sovereignty to Brussels, the Capital of an artificially created state called Belgium.

The European Union is dominated by a Franco-German alliance, which has no love for the English Speaking World.

Originally America's idea was that Britain would prop up the new democracies of Europe, during the cold war.

Successive American Presidents have continued to support the idea of Britain at the heart of Europe, the thinking being that in post Soviet times we would be a platform for the free market and a place where American business could base itself, to do business in the EU.

President Obama wants to take this idea a stage further so that he can deal with one head of state as regards foreign relations.

That head of state will likely be French or German, neither of which have a liking for the Anglo-Saxon view of the World.

At present two English Speaking nations have permanent seats on the UN Security Council, namely Britain and America.

It doesn't take much to realise that this situation could change in a way that is detrimental to the US.

Rather than joining the EU, Winston Churchill had a vision for a global economic bloc consisting of The Commonwealth, Britain and the US.

Churchill was a visionary who was often right and more often than not ignored until our country was in dire peril.

Winston Churchill new the American people very well, after all his own mother was one.

I believe as power shifts away from our world view it is not too late to re-energise the old alliances.

America needs British help in parts of the world where it's influence is not strong and vice versa.

China will become an increasing threat to the prosperity we have enjoyed and we in the West continue to help them secure more and more of our market share and with their vast dollar reserves they can outbid any Western company for mineral resources.

Every week you can read in the press about cyber attacks emanating from China, trying to hack into Western high technology companies and defence contractors.

Rather than support Chinese development, it would be more prudent to support India, the World's largest democracy.

Much of the new technologies being developed require rare metals and rare earths, in this regard China is a major producer and speculation is growing that they will ban exports of these materials, to Western countries.

We have virtually handed over our low tech manufacturing to this country, are we to allow them to monopolise our future?

Americans know that Europe invariably procrastinates in it's support for the US, whereas Britain is stalwart as an ally, even when at times we disagree with you.

A weakened Britain is not in America's interest.

Please encourage your President to support British Sovereignty and the growth of the English Speaking World.

A Tribute to Charlie Simpson

Wherever you live in the World, you cannot have missed the heart rending stories coming out of Haiti, since the devastating earthquake hit that poor country.

Over 100,000 deaths and many thousands of people homeless and hungry.

The sheer lack of infrastructure, makes the task of helping the population that much harder.

Literally thousands of children have been orphaned and the tragedy continues, with the ever present fear of disease.

Many people have given generously of their time, expertise and money.

One lad in Fulham, West London, was so upset by what he saw on the television, he decided to do something about it.

Charlie Simpson set up a webpage saying he would do a five mile sponsored cycle ride around his local park, hoping to raise £500 for UNICEF.

The response was staggering, to date Charlie has raised £150,000!

He is seven years old.

Akhenaten

No doubt you are all familiar with the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled during the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Archaeology only knew this king as a myth, until excavations undertaken by Flinders Petrie, the great British Archaeologist in the nineteenth century at Amama, uncovered evidence of his existence.

We are more familiar with his exotic wife, Nefertiti, an enigmatic and beautiful woman.

The reason Akhenaten was obliterated from the list of kings, was because he espoused a new religion.

Akhenaten created monotheism under the guise of Aten, a supreme God, with no imagery!

This caused outrage amongst the Priesthood in Memphis, a body of men who controlled the spiritual wellbeing of Egyptians and controlled the wealth of the country.

Traditionally Memphis accepted that the Pharaoh was a God and that they managed spirituality in this World.

Akhenaten said that he was not a God, but simply his messenger on Earth.

Clearly this was not acceptable to the priesthood and they worked hard to remove him, but did not dare to have him killed.

Certain modern writers have suggested that Akhenaten was Moses, arguing that the Exodus was led by this man.

Prior to Akhenaten ,monotheism did not exist and the timing would be right, to suggest he created it.

We know from the Bible that polytheism was prevalent before Moses.

The disappearance of Akhenaten at the time Moses appeared, might suggest that this theory was correct.

I leave it to you to wonder.

Triumph

In the nineteen sixties, the British motorcycle industry was utterly decimated by four Japanese companies.Suzuki, Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha.

They offered the customer a cost effective machine, that was well engineered and reliable.

The great names of British motorcycling disappeared one by one.

BSA, Norton, Greaves, Ariel, HRD , Triumph and many many more.

Growing up in Stevenage, I particularly remember HRD, which manufactured the Vincent Black Shadow, the worlds first 1000cc motorcycle.

It was an HRD machine that broke the 200 mph barrier on Utah salt flats, ridden by a Stevenage lad called George Brown.

In later life George had a motorcycle shop in the town and the bike concerned, called 'nero' was proudly displayed in the shop window.

As we know the industry in Britain died, old fashioned bespoke engineering was replaced by high quality Japanese mass production.

Then in the late 1980's, along came an Englishman, called John Bloor, who bought the rights to the Triumph name.

John had and continues to make a fortune from house building.

He hired ex Triumph engineers and sent them to Japan, to learn how to build high quality machines, in a cost effective way.

His view was that Britain produced amazing engineers, but failed in the production process.

As a result his design team came back with the knowledge to create advanced motorcycles, that would be able to compete with the Japanese.

Little by little the new Triumph company started to encroach on Japanese market share.

Today their market share in Britain has continued to increase and they have recently overtaken Kawasaki.

The company now sells in excess of 50,000 machines worldwide, most of which go to North America and surprisingly Japan.

The iconic brand is going from strength to strength!

Triumph produces the largest and most powerful motorcycle in the World, far outstripping any machine produced by Harley Davidson.

If one remembers the classic movie, Hells Angels, starring Marlon Brando, you will know Triumph Motorcycles.

This iconic product has learnt from the Japanese and is now probably the finest example of motorcycle engineering in the World.

If you are looking for a machine over 500cc, then look no further. It will perform and you have the added benefit of gravitas!

Today Triumph Motorcycles are comparable with Japanese machines, in terms of quality, but exceed them in innovation.

Our Tolerance Tested

We hear much about the abuse of Western power and the exploitation of Muslim communities around the World.

Whilst one must accept that an accord should be arranged between the Palestinians and the Israelis and indeed this is in the interest of us all, it should also be remembered that Islam is the new kid on the block.

Currently Islam plays the victim and justifies it's violence as the only way of expressing it's view.

Forget the propaganda expressed by Mullahs and Imams, which is excessively emotive.

In the course of it's history, Islam has butchered, millions of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.Many of the survivors were either forcibly converted or were treated as second class citizens.

In the Islamic World today, Christians are still persecuted, look at Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran, Iraq and Egypt.

Every day you here of Christians being attacked and their churches destroyed.

Saudia Arabia professes to be a friend of the West, but does not permit churches to be built and spends billions of dollars promoting Islam in Europe and America.

The Palestinian Christian community has all but left Palestine because of persecution.

Saudia Arabia promotes an extreme form of Islam, funding all sorts of projects in what appears a benign way, that suggests the faith is humane and considerate.

Just look at how they treat women, Christians, Jews and other faiths.

How many countries have a religious police, which is nothing more than the state security that existed in places like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany!

Today, in Western Europe and America, Islamic extremists are growing in popularity amongst the ignorant poor.

This religion works well in areas where literacy and intelligence are lacking.

Both in Europe and America we have created, so called Human Rights legislation, which is being abused by lawyers to protect communities who wish to destroy Christianity in the West.

Consider this........will Muslim countries produce the same legislation to protect Christian communities.

What concerns me is this...America supports Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Nigeria and the Gulf States, but does nothing to protect the Christian communities.

I ask you this. Saudia Arabia, do not promote your faith, unless you allow the promotion of Christianity in your country!

We live in dangerous times and if we are not careful, our culture will be destroyed!

So our people are told to keep their mouths shut, because otherwise they are bigoted and you have to accept other peoples views.

In England now, if you express an opinion about Muslims, the chances are that you will be arrested.

Just what Islam wants!

The Advancement of Civilisation

In 1836, in the County of Yorkshire, was born a man by the name of Thomas Crapper.

At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed as a plumber to a firm in London.

Having learnt his craft, he set up a company in Robert Street, Chelsea, to provide and install, bathroom fittings.

Whilst Thomas did not invent the flushing toilet, this accolade went to a chap called John Harrington, in 1596, he did however gain notoriety in the World of toilets!

Chelsea, fashionable then as now, provided him with customers for his stylish lavatories.

His major breakthrough came in the 1880's when the Prince of Wales, commissioned him to install plumbing and thirty lavatories at Sandringham, in Norfolk. Now the Queens private residence in England.

For this he was rewarded with the first of a number of Royal Warrants.

' Toilets By Appointment to Her Majesty!'.

Thomas Crapper remains part of English folklore, relating to toilet humour and thus he will be forever remembered when we wish to go for a crap!

So the next time you visit the Throne Room, spare a thought for Thomas, he created for us a place of peace and tranquillity!

Northumberland

Today, I thought I would post an item on the county where I live.

Northumberland is one of England's largest counties and borders that peninsular to the North of England, commonly referred to as Scotland.

It is one of the least populated areas of England, with a total population of around 300,000 hardy souls.

Inhabited since pre-historic times, it has experienced a long and often violent history, involving Celts,Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans and of course the Scots.

It first appears in recorded history because of the construction of Hadrians Wall, most of which runs through the Southern part of the county. This is a seventy nine mile wall built during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, as the Northern most frontier of the Roman Empire.

The soldiers who constructed it, came from what is now Syria and to protect themselves from the Northumbrian winter, they would roll naked in stinging nettles, to numb their bodies from the cold.

Even today, if you visit the sites of Fort Houseteads or Vindolanda, you can experience this bleak terrain, which no doubt was not a Centurians favourite posting.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, this part of the country experienced raiding parties from Scotland and influxes of Anglo-Saxons.

Just off the Northeast coast you will come across Holy Island or Lindisfarne in Old English, which was an early centre of Christianity, it's monks being famous for their learning throughout Europe. Another Christian centre in the county at this time was Hexham Abbey, built in the sixth century.

Both of these sites were destroyed on more than one occasion by Viking raiders, who would rip the illuminated manuscripts apart, that were produced by the monks and take only the silver mountings.

The Kingdom of Northumbria was centred on a place called Bamburgh and indeed there is still a massive castle there, to this day.

With the arrival of the Normans after 1066 an extensive programme of castle building got under way, both to defend the territory from invaders whether Scots or Viking, but also to allow the subjugation of the local populous.

Today there are still large castles and ruins at Prudhoe, Newcastle, Morpeth, Alnwick, Warkworth, Dunstanburgh, Bamburgh, Chillingham and Berwick.

From Elizabethan times to the Unification of England and Scotland under James I, Northumberland was a lawless territory, controlled by families referred to as the Border Reivers and their equivalents in Scotland.

Murder and robbery either side of the border was the main occupation of these families and you can still find fortified homes dotted across the region, commonly called Pele Towers, where family and livestock could hole up during an attack.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, Northumberland and Newcastle became a centre of activity, initially through coal, lead and silver mining.

Huge industries developed on the banks of the River Tyne, and at one point three quarters of the world's shipping was built on the river.

George Stephenson and his son Robert were both born in the County and established their railway engineering businesses in Newcastle.

Today, with the exception of the Southeast corner of the county, people tend to earn their living in one form or another, from the land, although there is a significant rise in tourist related jobs, which is not surprising considering the wealth of history.

We have miles upon miles of unspoilt coastland, sandy beaches, rugged hills, wildlife and beautiful towns and villages built in the local stone.

Northumbrians are canny folk who will always make you feel welcome.

Perhaps I should get a job with the tourist board myself!

Seriously, if you want to know a little more you can drop by http://www.visitnorthumberland.com