Tony Blair's Money

This is that rare thing, a Guardian article that everybody should read.

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The London Tornado of 1091

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by Richard Denning   As a weather phenomena tornedos are not particularly associated with the UK. However a  recent report by the the Met office  that said that actually the UK gets more per square km than the USA. Yet our tornedos are babies for the most part and of very little power. Occasionally though we do get a whopper! Such a huge tornedo occurred on October 17th 1091 during the reign of King William II (called Rufus). This was the first recorded  tornado  in the British isles and it hit London hard. It is estimated to have been about T8 strength.  The London Tornado of 1091 is reckoned to have only killed two people but dramatically the then wooden London Bridge was completely  demolished (this bridge had been built by William I after the Norman conquest. After the Tornedo William II rebuilt the bridge but this too was short lived as a fire destroyed it only 40 years later). The nearby church of St. Mary...
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Regency England as a Backdrop for Romance By Christy English

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 Why is Regency England the backdrop for so many love stories? Countless films have been made from Jane Austen’s novels, drawing us into the world of the Regency gentry. Miss Austen is the harbinger of this period of romance, and yet, her novels are hard- hitting tastes of reality, where true love does not always win, but good sense, modesty, and propriety always do. As we move forward in time to the Regency novels of Georgette Heyer, currently being republished by Sourcebooks Casablanca, we find that these novels follow in the vein of Miss Austen with simplicity and wit, and always a love story. Of course, romance in Miss Heyer’s world does not mean bodice-ripping and overwhelming passion. Gentlemen and ladies fall in love, but they do it with grace, under the watchful eyes of the ladies’ chaperones. But there is another kind of Regency romance, like the ones I write, that bear little resemblance to the novels of Heyer or Austen, where Regency England is portrayed as a sort ...
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Why the English took to Tea - Deborah Swift

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I would certainly not have been able to finish any of my books without my regular top-up of that quintessentrially English drink, tea. I have inherited a number of teapots from my mother much like these from Vintage Dorset , and tea drinking has always been a big part of my family life. Of course tea is not really English at all, it came first from China and later was introduced to India by the British as a way of suppliying the British Empire with a cheaper product . At the end of the 17th century almost nobody in England drank tea,  but by the end of the next century nearly everyone from King to commoner did. In 1699 six tons were imported, but by the turn of the eighteenth century eleven thousand tons were inported! The sudden enthusiasm for tea can be attributed to a number of factors - the first of which was the King's marriage to Catherine of Braganza. Her enormous dowry, suited to her position as daughter of King John IV of Portugal, included the trading posts of Tangier and...
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