Trefor Heywood

I only know of three - Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal what's the fourth? :o-->

I met quite a few of the Irish crowd Ex the names do ring a bell, but I remember Trisha Byrne and the Butterleys better. :D-->

Another Country Colin Firth Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason

It's already illegal over here to use a mobile (our term for them) whilst driving without a hands free kit. When I was on the train from Wahsington to New York a black lady got on and sat next to me. The familiar ring tone I had on my phone was heard and yet we both went for our phones - not only did she have the same set as me but the same ringtone! (The call was for her but we both had the same almost Pavlovian reaction!) :D-->

He is actually 78. John Paul II was only 58 when elected and reigned for nearly 27 years. It's the nature of the system - the Pope is only elected by senior churchmen who have usually taken many years to get to that position themselves. One of the factors is that they don't really like long reigns so it is rare that anyone under 65 gets elected and after a long reign they have tried to balance it out with what is calculated to be a shorter one. In the LDS the seniority system usually means at least an octogenarian!

I came across it as one of the in flight movies on the way back three weeks ago - it was so exciting I fell asleep. Baden-Powell like photos of nude boys too but there is no evidence that he took advantage. This film will not be joining my DVD collection.

I never liked the guy in his previous position and I like him even less in his new one. He has demonstrated some Teutonic passions for bureauocratic interference and has, like the Nazis, been extremely intolerant of dissent. In my view he was very much the "power behind the throne" especially as JP2 got weaker. His election, whilst repugnant, came as no surprise given that all but two of the voting cardinals (those under 80) were appointed by JP2. He is likely to be even more conservative than JP2 and doctrinal purity will be dealt with just as harshly (though without the camps) as racial purity. Given JP2's long reign younger candidates had no chance but many predecessors who were old at election managed to reign much longer than the lifespan statistics would have indicated. The best Popes have never had long reigns. Short may he reign, not to make him one of the best Popes but to limit the damage to the Catholic Church and the World.

I wonder how much TWI actually plugs VPW these days? When I went to the website it used the word "founder" without naming him...

Certaiment A la prochaine :D--> It's a play on the original by Voltaire on the existence of God. If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. Comprenez maintenant?

If Loy became Pope he would soon reduce the Catholic Church to a rump of a few hundreds! :D-->

Si Pawtucket n'existe pas, ce faut necessaire pour l'inventer... (translation available)

Apologies for messing it up must have had a senior moment! JFK Jack Lemmon Some Like It Hot

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Sean Penn TAPS

No mention in the above list of the Alexander VI Borgia, who sired children, made his son Cesare a Cardinal and who poisoned his enemies. He also organised orgies in the Lateran Palace. At least modern Popes are somewhat better behaved :D-->

Yes I do Zix :D--> An heir apparent is one for whom there is no doubt that they are the most likely to succeed to the throne and they are always male who have priority. An heir presumptive is one who will only succeed if there is no male to supercede them and they are usually female. The only exeption would be that some males can be presumptive also. For example a Monarch has at least two sons. The oldest son inherits the throne but at this time is either unmarried or there is no current issue of his marriage. The next oldest brother would then be heir presumptive. If the new King were to have even a daughter she would then displace her uncle but would still be presumptive and not apparent in case a younger brother to her appears. Queen Victoria's oldest child (also named Victoria) was female. Until her brother Albert Edward was born she was heir presumptive to the throne. Had the Queen died before she had her son then Princess Victoria would have become Queen. However with each succeeding son the Queen produced she was knocked further down the line of succession. She ended up marring Frederick of Germany and became the Empress Consort of that country and incidentally the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Our present Queen was a presumptive - ie if George VI and Queen Elizabeth had ever had a son she would have lost her place in the line of succession in his favour. Henry VIII's children who survived were in order of birth Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward but Edward was given the crown before his sisters, who as circumstances turned out, each had their turn. Mary was heir presumptive only on the grounds that Edward had not had any children and Elizabeth took that position on Edward's death and Mary's accession. If Anne had been born first she would have lost her place to Charles. This is the case in many royal houses although Sweden has changed ite legislation to allow the eldest child of the Monarch to succeed no matter what the sex is. The is also the Salic Law in some monarchies which prevent a female from succeeding to the throne. Queen Victoria was thus unable to succeed to the throne of Hanover and that passed to her eldest surviving uncle the Duke of Cumberland. I believe this was the case in Monaco until recently. As Prince Albert is childless, he may now be succeeded by his sisters or their descendants. Fascinating huh? :P-->

Yes Prince Phillip is a Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glucksburg! ;)-->

Vickles - the Queen Mother was a Queen Consort not a Queen regnant. No way could Camilla become the Monarch as Charles is first in line being the eldest son of the Queen. Therefore the Monarch was her husband and their issue his daughter our present Queen. And as the Queen Mother died 3 years ago she isn't addressed as anything these days... :(-->

Not sure Zix will have to double check what Prince Phillip's family name is again. The Queen did issue a proclamation that she wished her house to be known simply as the House of Windsor shortly after her accession in an attempt to clear up the "heraldic" problem. This was seen at the time as a snub to Phillip and his uncle Earl Mountbatten. Phillip did voice his displeasure at his saying it made him "no better than a bloody amoeba" or words to that effect. So offically they are the house of Windsor but technically they should also include Phillip's house name as well. In fact Princess Anne at her first wedding signed the register as Anne Mountbatten-Windsor. She is still in the line of succession but has dropped from second to being behind all her brothers and their children. If it went by seniority she would immediately follow William and Harry but be before Andrew and Edward and their children. The heir apparent would normally take the house name of the father who does not have to be the monarch. A female monarch cannot pass on the house name to her heir - hence Elizabeth I was the last Tudor, and Anne was the last Stuart thus Victoria was the last Hanoverian. At her death her son Edward VII took his father's house name instead. His father was Albert of the house of Saxe-Coburg (aka The Prince Consort). The name was changed to Windsor during WW1 because German names were not popular just as Battenburg was changed to Mountbatten at the same time. Elizabeth II is by the same token the last Windsor and her children should take the father's name, or at the least it should be tagged on. The Monarch may declare the name by which they wish their house to be known, however their heirs are not bound by that and technically they should abide by the established convention when the Monarch has been female.

I saw some clips of the wedding and Camilla did appear to be accepted by the boys who kissed her when they saw her off for her honeymoon. They, like Diana, are much better at showing their true emotions and they certainly seemed friendly and genuine enough to her in public.

Galen: When I was at Ground Zero a couple of weeks ago the design was shown on billboards right outside the fenced off building site that it has become. It shows only the one design, not several possible candidates. It is therefore at least creating the public expectation that this is what they will actually see in due course.

I gather that Charles had gone off to do his stint in the navy and Camilla thought he had gone off the boil so she accepted the proposal from Andrew Parker-Bowles. By the time Charles finished his duty the stable door was closed and he therefore had to look elsewhere for an heir producer. Trouble was both he and she still felt a lot for each other which inevitably coloured their relationships with their spouses. So she is no longer a Parker-Bowles she is now a Mountbatten-Windsor-Sonderberg-Glucksberg instead.

Of course there was symbolism in the intended targets. What they mean to those attacked is not necessarily the same as to the attackers. Nor could they have envisaged the chain of events which brought the towers down due to structural problems that the original designer did not envisage. For the USA and the World the WTC said "New York" just as much as the Empire State, the Chrysler and the Statue of Liberty do. No doubt the new Liberty Tower (I hated the design myself) will do also. But the human side - the deaths and the sacrifices speak even louder. Buildings can be replaced but the people cannot.

T'was me that quoted John Donne Linda Z he goes on to say that the death of every man diminshes him and that never to ask for whom the bell tolls... it tolls for thee... A young friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident some years ago. On the first aniversary of his death a few of us rode on our motorcycles to the spot where it happened and left flowers and had a short commemoration. Never been back to that spot since (have driven past it a couple of times) and think of him when I have done that. However I used often to visit his grave and leave flowers until I moved away from Bristol. Whenever I return to Bristol, which isn't often these days, I still go. Some of us will do that for people we knew and loved, some others of us can feel that also for people we never actually knew but viewed from afar. Some tragedy or event created a special sense of respect and loss. It might be a TV programme about a old person being found dead in their flat and only strangers, and very few at that, attending the funeral or it might be the sense that something in the world has changed because a great figure has died. It's not always a matter of numbers.

Yes Garth - precedent does have a large place to play in our system. Common law is a concept inherited from the British system, a set of practices going back to medaeval times. But we have nothing that is so clearly in black and white as your Constitution, yet at least. A European Constitution has been drawn up and would have to be carried in a referendum here in the UK for it to be ratified. I wonder how many people which actually read it before they vote? :)--> Even written documents require interpretation which is one of the reasons you have the Supreme Court (looks like a building site at present as did half of Washington). But ours is harder to interpret given the need to know so many acts of parliaments, amendments, legal precedents etc. We have some very old laws that have never been repealed but are no longer enforced - such as the requirement to practice archery after church on Sundays!

Perhaps I am more sensitive than you Galen. Maybe is was a physchic connection, or just the memories of seeing what happened on TV but it hit me nonetheless. Not everybody will respond the same way perhaps but I for one find it hard not be moved by some things. I know I will feel sad on the 9th of April as it will be the third aniversary of my father's death but it doesn't always have to be a relative or somebody one knew personally. Perhaps it's a case of John Donne and no man being an island.