For reasons that will take quite long to climb clear of their wrong beginnings (and may never) I have been writing fictionally elsewhere about the famously all-thumbs executioner Jack Ketch, as seen through the eyes of Samuel Pepys. Pepys being a naval man and all, in order to fake some plausible authenticity I have been doing some background reading into the Anglo-Dutch wars: especially the Medway raid. That is when Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, a (old) Zealander, led the Dutch fleet right up to Chatham docks, towed away the British flagship, and burned at least a dozen other ships. Although his website is jolly diplomatic about it, there's a strong case that if they'd been contemporaries, he'd have knocked our Nelson into his famous cocked hat. He certainly served for longer and notched up a greater number of significant battles. De Ruyter also had the bright idea of coating the deck of his ship with butter and getting his men to fight in their stockinged feet for grip, so that any enemy sailors who attempted to board in their leather boots would slip over. Apparently his surviving relatives are allowed to have a peep in his tomb, but the combined effects of time and the Battle of Augusta (pictured) have left him not a pretty sight so the rest of us should not be jealous.
Congratulations to the Netherlands also on their more peaceable victory against Uruguay yesterday evening.
History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet
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