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Odds And Ends And Anything You Fancy
- Thread starter Eulalia
- Start date
Eva Inanna
Governor
Quite a number of Scots had distinguished careers in Imperial Russia. Probably you are thinking of Samuel Greig of Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland (1735-1788), but Greig is not buried in Westminster.
I confess I've had to cheat on that one
I won't give it away in case someone more familiar with such history comes along tonight.
His surname is familiar to me as a (fairly) famous admiral,
and I did guess which European country benefited from the service of such a man,
but wasn't aware at all of the places he served in his career.
Eva Inanna
Governor
I was thinking of Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (14 Dec 1775-31 Oct 1860) an officer of the Royal Navy dismissed in 1814 following a conviction for fraud on the Stock Exchange. Cochrane went to Chile where he organized and lead the Chilean Navy that in 1820 transported the Liberation Army of General José de San Martín to Peru, eventually resulting in the independence of Peru and the end of the Spanish dominion over South America. Later, in 1823, Cochrane took command of the Imperial Brazilian Navy when that country was fighting its own war of independence against Portugal, under the reign of the Prince Regent, later Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, who rewarded Cochrane with the title of Marquês do Maranhão. Cochrane returned to England in 1825 and two years later went to Greece to support its fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire, leading to the destruction of the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Navarino. Lord Cochrane was interred in Westminster Abbey in the floor of the nave directly before the choir. Each year in May, representatives of the Chilean Navy hold a wreath-laying ceremony at his grave.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Messaline, re your national anthem, I remember the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, where a young girl sang
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood water our fields!
The sound of a child soprano voice singing such lyrics left me a bit bemused.
(Update: forgot the link. Merde!)
Hollywood rallies to the cause:
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
I always liked the "dragon flag". I didn't know there was an Argentine version, with a dragon instead of the sun. "Venezuela" means "Little Venice". South America is just like North American--the Europeans are everyone, and the native peoples are sparse these days.
Naraku
Draconarius
Another Scot in the Russian Navy was John Paul Jones. He was born as John Paul in Kirkcudbrightshire - not far from Euli's Northern Forest, as I recall - he commanded merchant ships and settled in the American colonies. In 1776 he joined the Continental navy and commanded several vessels. After the war, he took a commission in the Russian navy in 1787 where he became a rear admiral. He died in Paris in 1792 at the age of 45. He was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery. In 1905, he was exhumed and interned with great ceremony at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
RacingRodent
Consul
Oh phoey I missed this. My favourite story of Cochrane is that while commanding for the Chilean Navy he found his son stowed away on board his flagship. As there was a hole left by an enemy cannonball handy he promptly stuck said sprog's head in it and told him to keep it there as it was the one spot he could be sure would not be hit by another shot.
messaline
Crucified Amazon
No, they're the students of "Polytechnic school" , one of our great schools of France ...
I think that it's a particularity of France to have these schools ( military and also civilian)
Concerning the military'ones , read that from Wiki ...
The great military schools
The Ministry of Defence has several schools to train officers1:
The Polytechnic, founded in 1794, provided the first part of the training of weapons engineers2;
The Saint-Cyr Special Military School, founded in 1802, to train Army officers and some officers of the National Gendarmerie;
The Naval School, founded in 1830, provides initial training for Officers of the National Navy;
The National Gendarmerie Officers' School, founded in 1918;
The Air School, founded in 1933, which trains Air Force officers;
the National Graduate School of Advanced Technology Brittany, refounded in 1971 from the schools of buttrance (1819), responsible for the training of engineers in the studies and techniques of armaments;
The School of Army Health, originally founded in 1888 and re-founded in 2011, training military doctors and pharmacists;
the School of Commissioners of the Armed Forces, founded in 2013 and comprising the old schools of the commissioners of the various armies.
Polytechnician student wearing bicorne.
Saint-Cyrians during the july 14, 2008 parade.
Naval School aspirants at the July 14, 2007 parade.
Air School aspirants in 2012.
Officers of the EOGN (National Gendarmerie Officers' School)
messaline
Crucified Amazon
It was made during our Revolution , it's coming from our history ... So, we do respect it : so many people were died for it and for our independance ( world'wars ...)
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
The following is from a book I have about the discovery of the "Lac Operon", the first gene known to control other genes.
"And finally there was a very young medical student, Francois Jacob, also Jewish. He was just about to begin his medical studies when the war began. He went to England, joined the French army under De Gaulle, marched from Chad via Libya to Tunisia, participated in the D-day landings in Normandy and was severely wounded there. When he saw his French classmates, who had studied during the war and who had taken their exams, he must have felt like a loser. He joined Lwoff's laboratory in 1950."
RacingRodent
Consul
... and ? What do you want to reveal in this ?
Of course, in all wars, some people were brave and others more hidden ...
"Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés..."
("To live happy, live hidden ...")
Actually Francois does not seem to have done too badly
Croix de Guerre, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, little things like that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Jacob
Indeed, at Arbigland, in the gardener's cottage on the estate where his father was employed.
I've mentioned recently his less than glorious return visit to his home waters -
I'll find the link ...
actually we've had a couple of good discussions about JPJ's antics, a song too:
http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/milestones.1536/post-459588
http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/thread...correctness-not-really-given.6594/post-405578
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Is that guy undergoing some sort of advanced chastity test?
While we're somehow on the topic of Scottish (born) admirals,
it was on this day in 1815 that Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered
to Captain (later Rear-Admiral Sir) Frederick Lewis Maitland KCB
(7 September 1777 – 30 November 1839).
Maitland was a grandson of the sixth earl of Lauderdale
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Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Maybe he's a eunuch. But I don't see any bayonets.Is that guy undergoing some sort of advanced chastity test?
Jackie1111
Tribune
At certain schools female cadets undergo a particularly humiliating hazing soon after arrival. When you're bent over, tightly bound, and realize that your panties are being pulled down, you know things are about to get very, very interesting.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
More on Wales. Too bad there isn't some old fossil around one could just ask. There would be great stories. I guess engineers (like the folks who built the Egyptian pyramids) never got much ink in ancient times.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ily_2019-07-15&et_rid=17049183&et_cid=2906442