The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from me, Steve Winduss, at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". - 23rd February 2025.

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Happy Sunday!

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This week the world has turned upside down. Overnight, century-old alliances are crumbling while new and unexpected partnerships are being formed.
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Three years ago tomorrow, 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.
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Putin had watched and waited for Western reaction after his invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
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The Americans hardly flinched. The Europeans did nothing. Eleven years later, 20% of Ukraine is in Russian hands and a war rages on.
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As the war in Europe moved towards a conclusion early in 1945, the three superpowers - United States, United Kingdom and Soviet Union - met in Yalta, Crimea, to negotiate the restructuring of Europe. After all, the Nazi war machine would soon collapse.
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Roosevelt and Stalin talked over Churchill’s head. Sir Winston was being sidelined.
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Roosevelt, once described by Churchill as, “the greatest American friend Britain ever found”, seemed more interested in aligning with the Soviet Union than addressing the concerns of the British.

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The Yalta Conference lasted eight days and then the triumverate returned home to appraise the outcome.
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Eighty years ago this Saturday, 1 March 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt announced to Congress:

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Fast forward 80 years.
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I wonder if Donald Trump will be announcing a successful outcome to the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on 1 March 2025.
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For Yalta, read Saudi Arabia. For Roosevelt and Stalin, read Trump and Putin.
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France and the rest of Europe weren’t invited to Yalta. Ukraine and Europe weren’t invited to Saudi Arabia.
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Roosevelt was criticised at home and abroad for conceding too much to Stalin. Trump is currently experiencing a similar reaction.
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Stalin subsequently took the Yalta agreement and tore it up. I wonder if Putin will be in a position to do the same.

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Take your pick.

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64 years ago this Friday, 28 February 1961, John F. Kennedy appointed a rising star in foreign policy as a part-time consultant. He would be placed at the centre of American Cold War strategy at a time of escalating tension with the Soviets.
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​Henry Kissinger worked with the National Security Council to help shape US policy in Berlin leading up to, and following, the East German construction of the Berlin Wall.
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Kissinger would remain in front-line politics for another 16 years and continued to be active in foreign policy matters almost up his death in 2023 at the age of 100.
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I would be interested to know how Henry Kissinger would have assessed the state of global diplomacy today.

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Dates with History

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Tuesday…

Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov stood alongside Joseph Stalin throughout Stalin's 25 year tyrannical grip on Soviet power between 1928 and 1953.
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Molotov was the Soviet Foreign Minister who negotiated with Nazi Germany to split Europe into Soviet and German spheres of influence.
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Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed an agreement in August 1939, a week before Germany invaded Poland.
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The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has limited recognition among the public at large today.
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However, the name Molotov still comes to mind whenever riots or other types of violent conflict are witnessed, thanks to a comment he made in 1940.

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The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union broke out in November 1939. The Soviets decided that more space around the city of Leningrad would be helpful. A little slice of southern Finland would be perfect. The Finns disagreed.
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During that Winter, as the Finnish population starved, the Soviets relentlessly bombed key cities, towns and military installations.
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To deflect international condemnation, Molotov declared that Soviet bombers were actually delivering food parcels to the Finns, a noble humanitarian gesture.
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Not surprisingly, the Finns mocked this propaganda, referring to Soviet bombs as Molotov bread baskets.
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As they prepared crude incendiary devices as a last line of defence against the advancing Soviets, the Finns branded the homemade grenades as Molotov Cocktails, the perfect complement for bread baskets.
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The expression stuck. Today, improvised explosives made from glass bottles filled with inflammable liquid are referred to globally as Molotov Cocktails.

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Despite a courageous defence, the Finns were forced to cede about 10% of their land mass to the Soviets three months later.
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Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov was born 135 years ago this Tuesday, 25 February 1890.

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Thirty years ago this Tuesday, 25 February 1995, the ultimate charismatic crooner, Frank Sinatra, sang his last.
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The venue was the Marriott Hotel in Palm Springs. 1,200 eager fans had congregated at the private concert to see the great man for the last time.
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Although 79 years old and in failing health, Sinatra belted out You Make Me Feel So Young, Fly Me To the Moon and I’ve Got The World on a String with all the passion and gusto of his first live performance 43 years earlier in 1942 at the Paramount Theater, New York City.
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Sinatra closed with My Kind of Town followed by a single encore, The Best is Yet to Come. It was a poignant farewell.
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Frank Sinatra died in 1998, aged 82.

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Thursday…

When thumbing through books on the English contribution to the Golden Age of Discovery, the headline acts will likely be names such as John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.
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The Golden Age of Discovery spanned from the late 14th to early 17th centuries. The age was deemed to have ended on the grounds that, by then, the Europeans had mapped most of the world in outline, if not in detail. Their attention had turned to colonisation.
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While the Golden Age was set adrift by most at that point, the flame to discover new lands still burned bright in many explorers.
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One such gentleman was navigator and privateer William Dampier, who sailed the oceans for thirty years around the turn of the 18th century.
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Privateering was effectively state-sanctioned piracy with a profit-share element. In Dampier’s case, Queen Anne sanctioned him to attack Spanish and French ships, pillage anything that stood in his path and split the profits with the Crown.
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But Dampier had more strings to his bow, or should I say, ‘more sails to his mast’. He was also a literary man and a naturalist, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by the Royal Navy in 1699.
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​King William III commissioned Dampier to explore Australia and New Guinea aboard the HMS Roebuck. His objectives were to chart the area in detail, to search for natural resources and to consider areas for further colonisation.

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Dampier set sail in January 1699. This Thursday marks the 325th anniversary of his landing on an island north of Papua New Guinea, which he named New Britain, 27 February 1700.
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By the time Dampier hung up his sea bag in 1711, he had circumnavigated the globe three times. He had bridged the gap between the Golden Age of Discovery and the age of scientific exploration.
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Dampier’s writings and observations of natural history inspired future English explorers such as James Cook and, later, Charles Darwin.
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William Dampier died in March 1715.

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Friday

When the English captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, the main beneficiaries were arguably sailors of the Royal Navy.
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​Rum production had started in Jamaica under Spanish rule. The British took this production to a new level, marking the beginning of Jamaica’s status as a world-leading rum producer.
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Prior to 1655, the English sailors had received a modest gallon of beer a day, partly as a dietary supplement and partly to boost morale.
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The problem with transporting beer is that it is bulky and doesn’t keep well. The sudden prevalence of rum provided the perfect solution.
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Her Majesty’s sailors would now, informally, receive a measure of neat rum each day. When I say ‘measure’, the Royal Navy served its personnel half a pint of 57% ABV (alcohol by volume) rum in every 24-hour period.
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They were habitually schnozzled.
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It took the English over 80 years to realise the reason for a decline in discipline was that its ships’ companies were pickled most of the time.
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In 1740, the provision of grog had been formalised. Grog was diluted rum, then served up at around 15% ABV.

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Out of Curiosity…
The 57% ABV rum drunk by Royal Navy ratings was ‘overproofed’. Sailors would test the strength of the rum ration by pouring a sample over gunpowder and setting light to it.
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If the gunpowder ignited, the rum was proved to be strong enough.

All good things must come to an end, I guess. After 315 years of serving up rum to Royal Navy crew, the British removed the daily rum ration in 1970, a day remembered as “Black Tot Day”.
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The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) continued the tradition of rum rations after its independence from the Royal Navy in 1941.
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Thirty-five years ago this Friday, 28 February 1990, the RNZN initiated its own Black Tot Day. They were the last navy in the world to abolish the rum ration.

By the Way

Do you remember your first time?
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Ah yes, 1991. I was 27, petrol was £2 a gallon and the average price of a house was about £65,000.
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Margaret Thatcher had not long been ousted from Downing Street. Boris (Yeltsin, that is) was about to become the first Russian President after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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She was beautiful. My first computer. A Dell 386SX. She ran on something called DOS. I hadn’t heard of Microsoft Windows.
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My Dell cost me an arm and a leg and processed at the speed of a drowsy snail, though I didn’t realise it at the time. 20 Hz clock speed and a 40 Megabyte hard drive sounded like massive numbers back then.
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The device you are reading from now is likely to be up to 4,000 times as fast!

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Dell Computers was one of the early powerhouses of the PC revolution. All my PCs have been Dell over the years. That is, until I discovered Macs ten years ago. But that’s another story.
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The founder of Dell Computers, Michael Dell, was born 60 years ago today, 23 February 1965.

Out of Curiosity…
Michael Dell was born on the same day that English actor Stan Laurel died. Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in 1890 and was best known as the rather pathetic half of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.
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Laurel would feature in more than 100 films with his co-star Oliver Hardy.

Question of the Week

The English actor Harry H. Corbett was born 100 years ago this Friday, 28 February 1925.
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He was best known for starring alongside Wilfrid Brambell in a much-loved British sitcom. What was the name of this 1960s classic?

And Finally…

Anyone looking to familiarise themselves with the workings of the British Civil Service could do worse than check out a few back episodes of Yes, Minister.
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The series was another classic British sitcom, though at the opposite end of the socio-economic scale to Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell’s tour de force.
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​Yes, Minister first aired in the UK 45 years ago this Tuesday, 25 February 1980.
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The fictional Department of Administrative Affairs was the setting. Hapless cabinet minister Jim Hacker is mercilessly manipulated by his puppet master and conniving Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
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The plots and scripts seem far too outrageous to threaten reality, but politicians have admitted that the show is dangerously true to life.
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Margaret Thatcher once described Yes, Minister as “a textbook on governance” (though presumably tongue-in-cheek), while one politician suggested,

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It’s difficult to believe that only 22 episodes were aired between 1980-84. A further 16 episodes followed as Yes, Prime Minister, the equally funny series depicting Jim Hacker as having miraculously found his way into No.10 Downing Street.
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Unfortunately, the main characters Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorn and Derek Fowlds, are no longer with us. However, their legacy lives on through regular, if not continuous, repeats.

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Referring to Prime Minister Jim Hacker.....

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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Question of the week… Answer

Harry H. Corbett starred alongside Wilfrid Brambell in Steptoe and Son.
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The poverty-stricken father and son were rag-and-bone men from Shepherd’s Bush, London, in the 60s and early 70s.
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They represented the last of a breed who would trawl the streets for any type of material scraps to resell - hopefully for profit.

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The series ran from 1962 to 1974 and was a staple diet for my father and, by extension, me.
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Despite lashings of dark humour from this miserable pair, we loved every minute.
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Go on, bring a smile to your face and have a quick listen to the theme tune.
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I believe the series was adapted for American TV as Sanford and Son. I guess it was a case of not trusting the humour to translate across the pond.

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