PotCpouri

Indeed it has, Dame Helen. Still, we have to keep on keeping on. This week's Royal Armouries lecture was a bit of a curate's egg; I learned more from the Q&A than from the presentation bit. The presenter didn't help himself by taking the time to debunk various myths about plug bayonets that can't have occurred to many people in the first place. He did, however, address one issue that had puzzled me, namely how one removed a plug bayonet from the musket without cutting one's hand. Apparently the answer is that you rarely can. Interesting fact of the week was that the plug bayonet wasn't developed so much in imitation of the pike as it was as a convenient way of sticking wild boar; and the name does indeed come from Bayonne.

While I'm talking about online talks, let me draw your attention to this one, in which the 12th Duke of Northumberland is going to speak about 1,000 years of the Percy family at Alnwick Castle, a period which ought to contain something of interest. The picture below reflects slightly less than a millennium of the Epictetus family at Alnwick Castle. The one in the middle is the elder Miss Epictetus; I don't know who the other two are.

And finally, this is rather nice, and it's in a good cause: