Of course most people underestimate the warrior characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman peoples anyway. It takes a heap of piety to keep a Viking from wanting to go sack a city.

If you submit a search of the following phrase on Google, you get over four hundred returns, and they are often very strange ones: "I have more information in one place than anybody in the world."

The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.

It's the nature of government, to build enduring institutions, structures that stay long after their purpose is over. If you pay people to help the poor, you have people who won't be paid if there aren't any poor, so they'll be sure to find some.

Paradoxically, the few eras of peace were times when men of war had high influence. The Pax Romana was enforced by Caesar's Legions. The Pax Brittanica was enforced by the Royal Navy and His Majesty's Forces.

And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go.

Bureaucracies are progressive. meaning they have a burning fear that someone. somewhere, is doing something without permission.