...and home...

...There's a lot more to write about Papa BXVI, and our time in Munich...but it won't be on this Blog: watch out for TV and newspaper features in due course...

Home after a happy final evening in Munich,  beer in an open-air market with all the team, and then hopping to a pleasant restaurant for a cheery meal, talk and laughter.

And then today, a change of pace...Sunday in London, Mass at Westminster Cathedral, and on to the annual Martyrs' Walk, which starts near the Old Bailey and finishes at Tyburn with Benediction, and a splendid Tea produced by the good Tyburn sisters.

We caught the number 11 bus from Westminster after Mass, and when we arrived at St Paul's, we were just in time to catch a moment of history...the Honourable Artillery Company with a coach and horses, bringing the Waterloo Despatches.  All part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of this important battle...they have brought the despatches all the way from Belgium, and it was a delight to catch this sight, right in the heart of London and on the final lap of the journey...

History is taught so shockingly badly in Britain's schools today - not the teachers' fault, but the clumsy compulsory National Curriculum plus general ignorance, political-correctness, inertia, etc - and when I give talks on Journalism to young people I explain the crucial neccessity of a reasonable knowledge of modern history.  To get them started, I ask "When was the battle of Waterloo?"  They usually don't know. I offer some thoughts to get things into some sort of historical time-line: armour and longbows, or tin helmets and tanks? 13th century? 17th? 20th?  Blank.  They also don't know who won. So we have to work it all through, starting with the date, then the victory and its implications. We tackle Waterloo in context, and look at the sea battle ten years earlier at Traf - al Gahar...and when they work out that this is Trafalgar they usually light up: "Trafalgar Square!"    So then we talk about Waterloo Station too, and from there we get to the whole question of the Napoleonic Wars and who won and with what results...What language do people speak in Australia? Why? They like sudden  questions that open wide doors of thought, and then following through...