King Of The Jungle

The Battle Of Jutland

Seeing as World War I is back in fashion, here's something I've been meaning to post about for ages.

From Wiki:

At the time, Jellicoe was criticised for his caution and for allowing Scheer to escape. Beatty, in particular, was convinced that Jellicoe had missed a tremendous opportunity to annihilate the High Seas Fleet and win what would amount to another Trafalgar…

The controversy raged within the navy and in public for about a decade after the war. Criticism focused on Jellicoe's decision at 19:15. Scheer had ordered his cruisers and destroyers forward in a torpedo attack to cover the turning away of his battleships. Jellicoe chose to turn to the southeast, and so keep out of range of the torpedoes. If, instead, he had turned to the west, could his ships have dodged the torpedoes and destroyed the German fleet..?

Part of the justification/explanation for Jellicoe throwing in the towel and going home even though his fleet probably outnumbered and outgunned the Germans, thus earning himself an undeserved reputation as a bit of a coward, is not mentioned in that section of the Wiki entry and is a bit more prosaic than that.

The point was that even though people had worked out how to send Morse messages by radio ("wireless") twenty years earlier and the German navy had adopted the technology, the British Fleet still communicated using flags, making it more or less impossible to operate a fleet after dark. They could have used lights, I suppose, but that gives away your position.

The awesome Flags Of The World site explains.

Friday night gear change

From the regular playlist at my wife's favourite radio station when she's doing housework.

Up a full tone at 2 mins 9 secs:

Fun Online Polls: Presenters called 'Chris' and having a nice lie-in at the weekend

Thanks to everybody for the high turnout in last week's Fun Online Poll:

Who is the most irritating TV or radio presenter called "Chris"?

1st place: Chris Moyles - 50%
2nd place: Chris Evans - 30%

Also rans: Chris Tarrant - 8%, Chris off Cbeebies - 3%, Chris Hollins and Chris Morris - 1% each.

A few people left a comment saying 'All of the above', to which I responded, 'If you vote "All of the above", this cancels itself out and doesn't help identifying "the most irritating".'
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This week's Fun Online Poll is of general interest. Lolling about in bed until about 11 o'clock on a Saturday or Sunday seems 'about right' to me, but what does everybody else think?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls; Housing & TV or radio presenters called "Chris"

On a good turnout (seeing as it was a holiday week), the results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which country has the smallest, worst-built and most expensive housing in western Europe?
The United Kingdom - 93%
Other, please specify - 7%

Although 8 people chose "Other" they forgot the "please specify" bit, so "The United Kingdom" wins one hundred per cent of votes cast. It's still not clear to me why we Brits are supposed to be so proud of having the most expensive housing, but maybe somebody will explain it to me one day.
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There has been a definite resurgence in the number of TV and radio presenters called "Chris" recently, so that's this week's Fun Online Poll - who is the most irritating?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.