Clay Lane

Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’

205
Perilous Waters Clay Lane

King Saul’s jealousies drove those who loved him away, but David was a very different kind of leader.

Before he became Israel’s King, David was a loyal servant of King Saul and a close friend of Saul’s son, Jonathan. But Saul’s impetuous jealousies made him see treachery at every turn, just when Israel needed unity against the invading Philistines. David was another kind of leader entirely — as this little tale shows.

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206
The Price of Treachery Clay Lane

A Danish soldier in the seventeenth century imposes the severest sentence he can think of.

Flensburg is now in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, but until 1864 it was Flensborg, an important harbour town in the Kingdom of Denmark. At one time, brewing was a major industry, and if this story is to be believed, to be deprived of a drop of Flensborg beer was as much as man could bear.

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207
Rebel Rugby Clay Lane

The Nazi-collaborating Vichy government in France paid Rugby League the supreme compliment: they banned it.

In France, Rugby League is not perhaps the most fashionable code of Rugby. But it does have the proud distinction of having been banned by the Nazis’ French friends, making it a form of the game with special appeal to those who see themselves as a bit of a rebel.

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208
Rugby League Clay Lane

The less glamorous code of Rugby football, but the best for sheer speed and strength.

Rugby League is a form of the sport of Rugby Football that dominates in northern England, but is overshadowed in the south by more fashionable Rugby Union. Once the only professional form of the game, over the years Rugby League has became the faster, harder, and arguably more exciting code.

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209
Hyder Ali and Tipu Clay Lane

The British encountered no stouter resistance in India than Mysore’s gifted commmander Hyder Ali and his son, Tipu.

The Princely State of Mysore was for many years one of the most prosperous and pro-British kingdoms of the Raj, but in the late eighteenth century it was briefly dominated by two of Britain’s most bitter and successful opponents, Hyder Ali (?1722-1782) and his son Tipu (1750-1799).

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210
Heracles and the Cretan Bull Clay Lane

Heracles seems to be the only one who can keep Poseidon’s rampaging white bull under control.

News that a mad bull is loose on Crete and destroying crops and livelihoods reaches Eurystheus, and naturally he thinks at once that the gods have given him another opportunity to dispose of his cousin Heracles.

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