Anyone else up watching things unfold?

And money. Britain was bankrupt after 1945. Also the moral standpoint -
it's hard to maintain an empire if you've just fought a huge war on the
grounds that countries shouldn't be allowed to go around grabbing other
peoples' real estate.

Agreed. The only real unrest was in Malaya (the only case, AFAIK, of a
colonial power *winning* a guerrilla war). And Kenya, in a minor key.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. I don't think the US is that
vulnerable to attack - not on the scale that could defeat it, anyway -
but, yes, isolationism I could believe.

Fat chance!

 

Except that it did.. against Napoleon. The Spanish rolled over and
played dead, the Portugese had their backs to the sea and the Germans
couldn't decide[1]

The UK had allies (like the Prussians and the Portugese) but without
the British leadership (in the form of Wellington) Napoleon would never
have been defeated.

Give it a rest eh? Unless you like being seen as a whinging petulant
child..

Um - I suspect that you were looking in a mirror when you wrote this.
Because it describes your UKRM behaviour *exactly*.

Phil

 

It was the equivalent of a superpower in its day.. I quote from another
dictionary:

superpower

n : a state powerful enough to influence events throughout the world
[syn: world power, major power, great power, power]

By that definition Britain was *most* definately a superpower.

Nothing about the definition of superpower requires in to be nuclear..

Phil

 

The fireworks are the reason why one of my dogs is spending her
evenings hiding under the sofa shivering in fear. And making the other
3 nervous.

You could burn Des' vanity. That would make a good blaze..

Phil

 

Or year 5765 in the Jewish calendar.. or year xxxx in any other
calendar system..

Phil

 

Indeed. People seem ignorant of just how globally disliked Britain was
at the turn of the 19th/20th century. We had no allies, and no real
friends, either in Europe or elsewhere.

The US distrusted our empire building. The Germans were starting the
arms race. We didn't exactly get on with the Russian autocracy, despite
the royal family connection. And the French....

....the UK and France came close to war in North Africa (Morocco, I
think, but I can't be arsed to look it up right now) only a few years
earlier. It took Edward VII to build up relations.

Just look at how many countries supported the Boers during the Boer War.

Britain could take on any other power on the planet, and quite probably
any two. Maybe even three. By 1914, the edge was being eroded of course.

 

He'll get tired of this. When he realises he's cocked things up, he just
fucks off somewhere else.

Right now, he's annoying some likeable Yank who's got what sounds like
terminal cancer.

 

Phil Launchbury muttered

nuclear..

Ding. And as the term predates the nuclear age we can be sure that Des
is barking up the wrong tree. Again.

 

{Snip hobby horse}

Give it a rest Des, you're getting boring. You're demonstrably wrong
- again - and every petulant, foot-stamping post just makes you look
even more pathetic than usual

 

If you want to dispute the origin of the term and the OED definition,
then lets have some substantive input over and above your anglophobia.
Put up or shut up.

 

The Older Gentleman muttered

Probably preferable. So where's that going on then?

 

The war of independence was won because the French blockaded our troop
ships and supply lines to the eastern seaboard allowing the uppity
American colonists to defeat a starved and under supplied force. The
French gave their support in return for American support against England
in Canada and to assist the invasion of England.

See above.

See above.

 

Froggie muttered

<No, Andy. I am not wrong. You and TOG are wrong. Sorry, but that's
the
<way it is.

No, that's an opinion, backed up by misunderstandings and half truths.
Substantive input, Des, that's the only thing that can save your
rapidly sinking ship now.

 

Good news for reeky, bad news for Denny thread

 

And ignorance. Don't forget ignorance.

 

What about Superman's Superpowers? He had them in the thirties.

 

I think we all know.

 

(The Older Gentleman) struggled
to ejaculate:

And you're not, as you perpetuate the crosspost in that thread,
grandstanding about death threats and eBay auctions?

 

G'on Pip. Threaten him!

 

Well, that's merely going off-topic, as threads tend to do, but yeah, I
forgot about the x-post, so I'll kill it next time.