Lord Noel on December

Whatto! Pepys...

Welcome my friends to December!
It is indeed the last month of the year and is fully loaded and cocked!
Ready in fact to shoot off all over you as it comes to it's shuddering climax with all of our joyous Yuletide celebrations.
But the history of December is indeed worth looking at in closer detail.
As you will know the decimal system is based on a numerical cycle of ten thus December would be expected to fulfil it's role as 'tenth' month by coming tenth in the general order of months listed throughout the aforesaid year. This would indeed have been true had not the Romans introduced two extra months during a particularly bad period when they needed 'extra time' to complete the hastily started publicly funded building project which resulted in the completion of the infamous pyramids. The two months they introduced were April and Febarch which easily gave them ample time to complete their building project, thus avoiding incurring all those nasty penalty fees - which they could ill afford.
The Roman citizens, being sensible people, all agreed that these two names were rather silly and decided to form a massive processional demonstration and converge on Roman wearing nothing but V masks (which means five in Roman).
When Nero saw this multitude of 'V' gathering in the square outside his sumptuous villa he ceased toot sweet with his fiddling and met with the crowd to discuss with them their greivances. "Just to be on the safe side" he took with him, an armed garrison in order to quell the crowd "should they turn nasty".
The leader of the 'V' citizens was a ferocious man called Maximus Pondrous Dikkus who terrified all those who set eyes on him - reducing many courageous warriors to quivering wrecks within moments! - so they sent Neville instead.
Nero invited Neville to join him within his private villa and they chatted together for some time while Nero gave Neville some money and they taked about the procession and who the ringleaders were and Nero made a note of their names and their home addresses on a peice of parchment and kept it 'somewhere safe' for 'later on'. And Neville told Nero that their procession was technically called a ' V March' and they had some more wine and Nero offered Neville the use of a young maid servant and a tax free bank account in the Cayman Islands and Neville agreed and eventually he returned to his people and made his now infamous speech...
"Friends, Romans and countryfolk, lend me your eyes because these one's are very blurred and I've come to praise Nero not to bury him coz he's an alright bloke when you get to know him really - he's just misunderstood..."
Anyway, the final outcome was that April remained inserted into the calendar thus moving October from it's position as eighth month (Oct = eight) and Febarch was renamed March in honour of their procession!
The V mask maker retired as a very rich man and moved to the Cayman islands with a maid servant and lots and lots of lovely red wine.
And that's the true story of how the baby Jesus came to be born on the Cayman islands but nobody could prove it because his birth certificate was forged and anyway it wasn't even called the Cayman islands then so the birth certificate wouldn't have bally Cayman islands written all over it would it?

Next week. Lord Noel Uncovers the Truth about Atlantis!


Tallyho!

Best wishes - Lord Noel