The Masked Tulip

That's my shopping bike.

3 times - Windows 10 does have a recovery option that is supposed to kick in if you power your device on and off 3 times in a row quickly.

Absolutely.

I deliberately left the Irish out because, like some of the African American community, some of the Irish are very vocal in voicing what happened to them, often blaming everyone in the British Isles for their woes when, as @Frank Hovis pointed out, it was the upper classes who were ultimately responsible. I suspect that your average Welsh miner or your Northern mill worker had little knowledge of much outside of their local communities. Caucasian is an interesting term in that so many people think that it merely means white people. When in fact Caucasians are a sub-group of Human Beings that exist throughout Africa, the Middle East and into India - often various shades of Brown more than white - and, of course, in Europe and the countries that Europeans have populated. Thank you for your kind words.

I think you are right. I fear that you are right. In my heart I know you are right. I think, with a heavy heart, that we need to wake up to this. I meet so many people who suffer from 'white guilt' and they have no reason to do so. But so engrained in them it is that they dare not even THINK about questioning it for fear of thinking of themselves as being racist. That is frightening. (I think this is especially true of the Swedes but has become a disease infecting every Western country.).

I really fear that we are witnessing the beginning of discrimation against white people in the UK, US and Anglo-Saxon - i.e. Oz, NZ and Canada - and God alone knows where it will end up. Things were not perfect in the UK but I thought that we were one of the most tolerant countries on the planet due to our history of Empire/Commonwealth. But it seems that one section of the community is now determined to do - what? Certainly to advantage themselves when it comes to jobs as we see in everything from BBC hiring policies to political parties choosing candidates to goodness knows what is going on in public sector jobs. But is that the only agenda? Or is there more behind it? I have serious fears as I hate fascists in all forms no matter what colour their skin is nor how they portray themselves. It sounds silly just re-reading what I have written above. But none of these things happen overnight. They play out over decades.

When people like him say such things I always tell them about the appalling conditions that the Welsh lived in during the late 18th. to early 20th Century mining out the coal, irone ore, copper, etc, in virtual slavery so that, as you say, a small number could get rich. I usually throw in Paul Robeson's comments of the Welsh being white slaves - that tends to make them shut up. But then I am on a roll. I go on about the the people working in the Northern mills or the Scots who were basically pushed off most of the Scottish land - both people's effectively working and living in virtual slavery. They lived on barely subsistence level wages often being paid in tokens that they had buy food in factory shops and pay rent to the factory / mill owners. They suffered appalling injuries in the mines, mill machinery and were often beaten - caned, strapped, whipped - as punishment for minor misdemeanours. Why don't we talk about this? Then you had the first non-American slaves in North America - they were white British who either were so poor that they sold themselves into servitude or, more often, they either had debts - again, sold into servitude - or were sentenced in a court to life in the colonies as a slave. All conveniently forgotten because the victims were white. Then - I am on a roll here - what about all the white Europeans who were taken into slavery in Africa and the Middle East by the Barbary pirates / Moors. White people taken into slavery by not-white people. Or the truly frightening numbers taken by islam? Just one short sentence but a living hell for at least one million people. White people enslaved by brown and black people. Then you have the Roman Empire - how many millions of white Europeans were enslaved? Do we go on about our ancestors torn from the British Isles and sold into slavery in Rome? The Greeks had plenty of time being refined and thinking about things because many of the city states had big slave populations. I am going to shut up now otherwise I will be talking about Moses, Joseph and Technicolour dream coats. Rant over. I get like this once I have a shave.

Yes, it was not a distinguished beard. Mine has just come off - down to a day's growth of stubble now. I try not to shave too closely as it is can be torture. Back to Harry's beards - I mean, his beard. It takes a long time to grow a beard. You have to let it go through a very messy stage, cut it to define it and lt it grow through another messy stage. Cut and repeat. Youtube is full of videos of blokes tracking the growth of their beard over 12 or 24 months. But more interestingly, what kind of beard a man can grow says a lot about him. Not all men can grow beards. Some men can only grow parts of beards leaving gaps in certain places - either side of the mouth, for example, where the moustache never quite meets up with the beard on the chin and jaw. Or gaps in and around the chin. It is genetics and you basically inherit the kind of people you can grow from your ancestors. Which makes Harry's beard very interesting. The inbreeding of the Royal Family over the generations did give them a very good gene for growing beards. The Kings, Emperors and Tsars of the early part of the 20th. Century all had a very distinct beard that they shared through the family genes. Phillip, at various points, had the same distinct beard as did Mountbatten. Charles tried a beard briefly IIRC but I forget how his looked. Harry has a pretty naff beard for someone who comes from a long line of men who did grow superb beards. Perhaps the Spencers lack the beard gene.

I am at day 5 now. Think it is coming off soon. I saw my reflection in a shop winodw last night - did no tlike the sight of overdue haircut and beard... but the ladies do...

That radio show actually exists - Chris Needs on Radio Wales late at night. He has lots of older people ringing in just like that. He offers to take them up his midnight garden which means beocming part of his online club but always make me spit out my tea.