Ferabo,

'We need the Ottomans back. They knew how to deal with these pesky dissidents...Kurds...Armenians...'

At least they had the sense to keep 'Iraq' in three seperate provinces.

There's a popular theory that following the Gulf War 1 the West allowed Hussein to remain in power because they realised that Iraq would implode unless there was a tyrannical despot at the helm.

'I've returned from Europe to live in AN EMPIRE!!!! I feel so privileged'

Ah yes. Empires. I remember them.

Remember us? We're the British, we used to run the world before you took over.

Wonderful time it was, wonderful.

Sluaghtering peace loving pygmies armed with guava halvesin the Upper Voltaire, planting vast hedges from the Himalayas to Orissa to stop the illegal salt trade, great time for gardeners, great times.

Forcing China to take our narcotics in the Opium wars, allowing the East India Tea Company to run the Indian sub-continent, and building all those wonderful concentration camps in South Africa. That was another British first I'm telling you.

And the mad sad glory of Balaclava, where we sent our proles charging at the guns while we sipped tea on a veranda above.

The emipre, I remember it well...

'I could be the Sultan of Grenada'

Re-establishing the Moorish empire?

' All you could be is the Bey of the Falklands'

No, I'd rather be the Bey of Australia, I've grown extraordinarily fond of this little province (just below Indonesia by the way old chap don'tcha know. Easily missed).

'I live in an empire! An empire! Citizen of An Empire!'

At last Ferabo, you can now die a happey man.

Rome has been restored, its capital now shifted once more, Rome, Constantinople, Washington.

Veni vidi vici.

yechydda,