We still live under the Norman yoke with Norman justice for the rich and Norman injustice for the poor.

Do tell me you're not being serious, Eric - although I've met a few down the years who would agree with you... I've just read in the Radio Times that some 5% of the UK is still in the hands of Norman descendants, which is pretty impressive in terms of cultural continuity, but surely all part of the inevitable richness of these islands and a history which is already a battle lost and won. What did the Normans do for us?

Ogier died. His sons grew English. Anglo-Saxon was their name,
Till out of blossomed Normandy another pirate came;
For Duke William conquered England and divided with his men,
And our Lower River-field he gave to William of Warenne.

But the Brook (you know her habit) rose one rainy Autumn night
And tore down sodden flitches of the bank to left and right.
So, said William to his Bailiff as they rode their dripping rounds:
'Hob, what about that River-bit - the Brook's got up no bounds?'

And that aged Hobden answered: ''Tain't my business to advise,
But ye might ha' known 'twould happen from the way the valley lies.
When ye can't hold back the water you must try and save the sile.
Hev it jest as you've a-mind-to, but, if I was you, I'd spile!'

They spiled along the water-course with trunks of willow-trees
And planks of elms behind 'em and immortal oaken knees.
And when the spates of Autumn whirl the gravel-beds away
You can see their faithful fragments iron-hard in iron clay.

From The Land by Rudyard Kipling.