1066, 1964, 2014.

Abysmal ignorance now being cool and smart, it may no longer be true, but at one time even those like myself who were quite useless at history knew one date — 1066; the Battle of Hastings. It seems it was fought on this day, the 14^th of October. It was the turning point in the Norman Conquest; our King Harold got an arrow right through his eye, which surely killed him, though there were rumours of a mysteriously one-eyed mendicant turning up in a monastery a few years later.

I used to have a T-shirt with the picture from the Bayeux Tapestry of poor Harold getting it, and the slogan ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A’. Actually the Bayeux Tapestry doesn’t show that particular incident at all.

On the 14^th of October 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And on the 14^th of October 2014, a group of what both the BBC and the VOA called ‘Leading Catholic Bishops’ (I think they meant Roman Catholic) said that their church would henceforth encourage a ‘More positive’ attitude to gay people. Had that vicious mad cow Margaret Thatcher succeeded in her efforts to make the ‘Active promotion’ of homosexuality illegal, we might now be witnessing the amusing scenario of Roman Catholic Bishops being prosecuted for their moral depravity. Though come to think of it…