The debonair Basil Marigold's

In the words of the song, by Edwin Starr.  War, huh, Yeah, What is it good for, absolutely nothing, Uh Huh. Although, yesterday this was proved wrong as it was good for something. It is good for the 6,000 people who I am told are member of the Sealed Knot   . There are those of us, whose hobbies tend to be more sedate in nature; Reading, Gardening, making ships out of matchsticks and then there are those who believe that a weekend could not be complete without charging into some one else behind a 30ft ash pike, dressed as a time traveller from the 17th Century. I am, sadly, not one of these individuals as the idea of camping that frequently fills me with dread. Let alone how you tie down a pike or a halberd to the roof bars of a Ford Fusion. But thanks must go to those individuals who, do, want to live that lifestyle and be truly passionate about their hobby. And I guess be passionate about that 'Period' of English History to want to spend their time and their money

...Especially Adult education. A fair few years ago I began to learn italian at the local adult education centre, on a Monday night. I had always wanted to learn the language of a country, whose ancient history had been a rather important part of my life. Secondly, and perhaps more subconsciously I wanted to meet some new people as I had moved to the area a few years prior to this and had, had enough of my own company in the evening and needed to get out some. It worked on both counts, I loved learning Italian and after about 8yrs met a quite lovely girl too, and we became paramours for a while as we shared so many cultural references. I don't know where she is now, or what she is up to but I think she will always be the most intelligent woman I have ever met, her intellect was ferocious. She was learning Persian; I was doing a classics MA and we were certainly intellectually competitive. But as I say, we also found ourselves in Sutton, on a Monday night learning Italian to begin