The joy of Sixtus
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and his wife announced the birth of their sixth child, a son called Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher. But is that appropriate?
— A sixth child ought to be ‘Sextus’. Five popes were called Sixtus but the name is believed to derive from a Greek word meaning ‘polished’.
— Among the living, there is Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma, whom some believe to be the rightful monarch of Spain, and Sixtus Preiss, a Viennese hip-hop artist whose work includes Samba Feelin Beein This, Trilingual Dance Sexperience and, appropriately, given the Tory performance in the general election, What a Fine Mess We’ve Made of This.
Mine decline
Jeremy Corbyn addressed a record Durham Miners’ Gala crowd, estimated at 200,000. How many might have been miners? Coal industry employment over the years:
| 1920 (peak employment) | 1,190,000 |
| 1945 (Labour’s post-war victory) | 702,000 |
| 1964 (election of Harold Wilson) | 502,000 |
| 1973 (three-day week) | 252,000 |
| 1984 (miners’ strike) | 139,000 |
| 1997 (election of Tony Blair) | 14,000 |
| 2015 (last UK deep coal mine closes) | 200 |
Source: ONS
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