Tuesday, 11th April, 2006
For some inexplicable reason, the hotel we stayed at in Sicily last month had a rather magnificent reproduction of this 1886 map of the world, depicting the extent of the British Empire:
It's a real Ripping Yarns-type map, with gathered natives and animals from our conquered/discovered lands standing around the edges, looking remarkably happy with their lots. The imperial territories are marked in red: the British Isles (including Ireland), the Falklands, Canada, India, Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand…
After studying the map for several minutes, an interesting thought occurred to me: how jolly clever of us only to conquer countries that speak English!