"The empower has no clothes! unlike your good self Steve, I do not pontificate on subjects I have little knowledge of."

Nonsense. I don't know how many times I've put my hands in the air and admitted that I'm no historian. I don't "pontificate" on substantive matters of history, though I do reserve the right to question those self-professed experts hereabouts who've read a few hardbacks, watched a couple of series on the telly and who think they know it all. Unfortunately, you included. Let me just remind you again that you can, to some extent, blind people with science, what with all the technical stuff (I could probably lose you in a heartbeat on plant anatomy and physiology, using every big word in the book), but you can't blind people with history. It's accessible to all people of reasonable education (people who may not be history PhDs but who are not fools) who are perfectly capable of looking things up and who refuse to simply take "authoritative" statements from the likes of you, Keith and Teribus at face value (sorry to embarrass you by bracketing you with those reprobates: I promise never to do it again). From hereonin, I shall be watching carefully for signs of your pontificating on things I perceive that you know little about. And you know what I'm like.