Why is today different from all other days?

Well it isn't really, but according to one of those columns in the local rag that look at curiosities it does seem to be an unusual date.

On this day in 1817 Spain signed a treaty with Britain to end the slave trade.

Today while we have no official slaves (that we know about - although there are stories about exploited children) we do have what are known as 'wage slaves', namely all the people in a family who all have to work to be able to get enough money to survive, while the four hundred richest people on the planet now have to be multi billionaires to make the list.

Of course at the same time, there is about as much money spent in one year on armaments as all of these guys have collected in all of their lives. Around 1.1 trillion dollars!

I wonder what would happen if we could only spend that much per annum trying to solve problems like, oh I don't know, poverty, health issues, hunger, the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, pollution . . the list is endless.

Meanwhile, in 1932 Hijaz and Nejd and other regions were merged to form what is now known as Saudi Arabia. What a boon that was for the Royal Family and what a downer for world pollution

In 1988 rival Muslim and Christian governments threaten to partition Lebanon. Had that happened I wonder what that area of the world would look like NOW.

And of course most importantly, Augustus Caesar the first Roman Emperor was born. Thus commencing the end of the Roman Empire. (Well it had to be BORN first didn't it?)

What has all this to do with the price of fish?

No idea - I guess it's just a slow news day!