GREAT BRITONS….Commenting on a new piece of sculpture, Patrick Barkham writes this in the Guardian:
Is it a sheep pen, a set of stairs or a scaled-up children’s puzzle?
No, this tower of 20 slabs of English oak heartwood is, of course, the greatest Briton of all time: Winston Churchill.
Mr. Barkham is writing about a country that has produced Isaac Newton, Henry VIII, Adam Smith, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Charles Darwin, James Watt, and Elizabeth I ? not to mention Byron, Keats, Hume, Locke, Burke, Bacon, Cromwell, Chaucer, Disraeli, Austen, Dickens, Hobbes, Keynes, Maxwell, and a whole bunch of others who will probably occur to me in due time.
I don’t care what the British public thinks ? and I especially don’t care what they think in a poll that ranks Princess Diana as the third greatest Briton of all time ? but as undoubtedly great as he was, you have to stretch even to put Churchill in the top ten. #1 is just a joke.
