Napoleon's Hemorrhoids Quotes

“West Country novelist Thomas Hardy almost did not survive his birth in 1840 because everyone thought he was stillborn. He did not appear to be breathing and was put to one side for dead. The nurse attending the birth only by chance noticed a slight movement that showed the baby was in fact alive. He lived to be 87 and gave the world 18 novels, including some of the most widely read in English literature. When he did die, there was controversy over where he should be laid to rest. Public opinion felt him too famous to lie anywhere other than in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, the national shrine. He, however, had left clear instructions to be buried in Stinsford, near his birthplace and next to his parents, grandparents, first wife and sister. A compromise was brokered. His ashes were interred in the Abbey. His heart would be buried in his beloved home county. The plan agreed, his heart was taken to his sister’s house ready for burial. Shortly before, as it lay ready on the kitchen table, the family cat grabbed it and disappeared with it into the woods. Although, simultaneously with the national funeral in Westminster Abbey, a burial ceremony took place on 16 January 1928, at Stinsford, there is uncertainty to this day as to what was in the casket: some say it was buried empty; others that it contained the captured cat which had consumed the heart.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“the Palace of Westminster to the Commons to deliver the Budget speech, he bumped into John Carvel, political correspondent of the London evening paper, the Star. The newsman tried his arm and asked what was in the Budget. He could hardly have expected to be told as Budget decisions were naturally the closest of secrets until they had been announced publicly in parliament. Dalton assumed that Carvel was likewise on the way to the press gallery to listen to the Budget. In a succinct summary of his plans, he told Carvel, ‘No more on tobacco; a penny on beer; something on dogs and [football] pools but not on horses; increase in purchase tax, but only on articles now taxable; profits tax doubled.’ Instead of proceeding”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“Much of history turns out to be the consequence of small acts of fortune, accident or luck, good or bad.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: And Other Small Events That Changed History

“The West African state of Benin had its entire air force destroyed in 1988 by a single errant golf shot. Metthieu Boya, a ground technician and keen golfer, was practising on the airfield during a lunchtime break when he sliced a drive. The ball struck the windscreen of a jet fighter that was preparing to take off, causing it to career into the country’s other four jets neatly lined up by the runway.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“Pitt the Elder, had been prime minister a generation before (1766-68). He was a manic-depressive, had had a mental breakdown in 1751 while a Cabinet minister (Paymaster General) and had withdrawn from public office for three years. While serving in the highest office, clear signs of mental instability were evident. He spent most of his prime ministership sequestered away in a small room in his house at Hampstead, trying to avoid his ministers and the pressures of governing. During his time, his Chancellor was doing his own thing, unwisely levying the taxes on the North American colonies that would eventually ignite the War of Independence.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“tea was drunk with boiled water, which killed off disease-carrying bacteria. Tea also possesses, in tannin, an antiseptic agent which made mothers’ breast milk the healthiest it had ever been. No other nation drank tea on the same scale as the British. This, according to Macfarlane, was the key to why the Industrial Revolution was born here instead of somewhere else.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“It went on to purport that Constantine – then based in the later Empire’s eastern seat in what would become Constantinople – had decided to site himself there because it would not be right for him to be located in the city where the head of the Christian faith reigned. The supposed donation was not revealed publicly until the mid-700s when it was used in 754 by Pope Stephen to negotiate with Frankish King Pepin about the division of lands between the two rival authorities. It was wheeled out again in 1054 when Leo IX was in dispute with the patriarch of Constantinople over the rights and powers of Roman rule. It became an essential document in later years as popes reacted to challenges against their authority in the growing post-Dark Age Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries. It was, though, entirely fictitious. Thought now to have been concocted by the papal chancery to provide retrospective authority for the increasingly strained church, it was not until the 15th century, nearly 700 years after its appearance, that scholars began openly questioning its veracity. It was finally debunked in 1518. It should have been easy. One of the giveaways to the forgery was Constantine’s apparent bequeathing of his own city to papal spiritual control. Although supposedly written in 315, Constantine did not in fact found Constantinople until 326, 11 years after his apparent donation.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“Churchill often reflected on this near-death episode and the effect of chance. ‘You may walk to the right or to the left of a particular tree, and it makes the difference whether you rise to command an Army Corps or are sent home crippled or paralysed for life.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“Professor Alan Macfarlane discovered a remarkable association between these trends and the increase in tea-drinking. His theory was founded on the fact that tea was drunk with boiled water, which killed off disease-carrying bacteria. Tea also possesses, in tannin, an antiseptic agent which made mothers’ breast milk the healthiest it had ever been.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History

“During the notorious McCarthy anti-Communist witch-hunt in the United States in the 1950s, popular hysteria could be whipped up with amazing ease. To illustrate the public’s dangerous suspension of common sense, William Evjue, editor of the Capital Times, a newspaper in McCarthy’s home state of Wisconsin, who had launched a campaign to expose McCarthyism, had a reporter stand on a street corner in the state capital, Madison, asking passers-by to sign a petition. It was in fact the American Declaration of Independence. Of 112 people approached to sign it, 111 thought it subversive and refused.”
― Phil Mason, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: ... and Other Small Events That Changed History