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It was better than I thought it would be. I liked the female CIA agent.

I was looking in the graphic novel section of Waterstones the other day. I was surprised to see someone had done a graphic novel version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. That must have been a labour of love because I don't reckon they'll make much money from it. I have read the original version. It's about a bunch of painter-decorators in the early 1900s, struggling to make ends meet. It's a left wing tract. It was pretty good, really, but it was too long.

Well it was gone when I went back to look, but anyway, I don't know what I'd do with it. I'd probably just put it in a drawer where it would remain until someone clears out my flat when I've gone.

What they did have though, was issue 1, but not with the spinner. However, I don't think you can buy it individually. They come in lots. The comic shop manager where I actually buy my copies of 2000AD says he would probably negotiate.

Also, they had a copy of Starlord from 1978. It had a picture of Johnny Alpha and his companions on the front. It cost 12p in 1978. That is 4p more than the first issues of 2000AD, so I wonder if 8p was an introductory price for 2000 AD.

I was not aware of 2000 AD or Starlord at the time. I was more a Whizzer and Chips boy.

Today in fact.

I went to my local comic shop to pick up my copies of 2000AD. In the same arcade was another shop selling old books, toys, card games, and guess what? Issue 3 of 2000 AD, with a cover price of 8p, and I am pretty sure it had a spinner. That surprised me a bit as I thought only issue 1 had the spinner. There were some comics from about the same time, but I cannot remember what the titles were.

Have to say, I have tended to use sweeteners rather than sugar because I was worried about my teeth. All my grandparents had false teeth. Having all your teeth taken out is an operation that sends chills through me, thinking about it. I still have mine, but my dentist charges me a fortune. I never used to smoke, but these days I am so angry with society, I am thinking of rebelling by smoking cigars. Mostly my rebellions to date have been riding my bicycle without a helmet.

BTW, is it legal to eat meat in Megacity One?

In a recent prog, there was a Judge Dredd story in which a heiress inherited a large amount of money. She gave it away when she found out they were the profits from drug trading. In the early days of 2000 AD, wasn't sugar a proscribed substance? I thought the implication of that was that Megacity One was such a zero tolerance police state that the drugs trade had been exterminated, leaving only low level intoxicants like sugar. Either that or that Megacity One was such an over-weening, joyless nanny state, that not only tobacco and alcohol are banned, but sugar, because it can make you fat and is bad for your teeth.

Not the most original Dredd related thought I admit. We know what his lower face looks like. Apparently he keeps spare eyeballs, so have we seen them? Dredd's never been seen without his helmet except for that execrable Sylvester Stallone abortion. Also he did not wear his helmet in Necropolis, but he was wearing a big floppy hat, and his face was burnt off. Dredd's a clone, so if Rico or Kraken ever took their helmets off we'd know what Dredd looked like.

Regarding his bionic eyes, does he have to get those replaced or serviced every once in a while? Human bodies can at least resist thermodynamics' second law better than machinery.

I had only recently started reading 2000AD my first time around when they killed off Johnny Alpha. It was a good story, but I was really disappointed. His replacement just didn't cut it. 2000AD would be absolutely crazy to kill off, retire or replace Judge Dredd. When I used to read 2000AD through the 90s, I usually reckoned the Judge Dredd strip was the second best in the comic, because there were a lot of other great strips. Now I reckon the Judge Dredd strip is nearly always the best. Some strips eventually felt like they had reached their end, like Nemesis the Warlock and Rogue Trooper, but Dredd keeps on delivering.

I remember reading at the end of Necropolis the chief judge ordering Dredd to have a rejuve job because his face had been burnt off. I was never sure whether a rejuve job was only for cosmetic purposes or whether it actually made people younger.

I am not saying things should go the Batman way, but a couple more enemies with the charisma of Judge Death or Mean Machine might be good. I really like this Noam Chimpsky character, although he's a foil or a pest as Funt Solo says. I hope he does not get bumped off. If he is cubed he is smart enough to escape. OTOH I hope he is not overused. Is Mean Machine Angel still extant btw?

I like this Noam Chimsky character in Judge Dredd. One thing I've wondered about Dredd are his recurring enemies. Batman has lots of colourful enemies. Doctor Who, before Chibnell ruined it, had recurring enemies who he never managed to kill off completely: the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Master, the Sontarans, the Autons, etc Judge Dredd's recurring enemies are Judge Death and his crew and the Angel Gang, in particular, Mean Machine. There are the Simps, I suppose. I can't think of too many others.

Assuming King Brutus is fictional, I wondered how far the line of succession went back before it became fictional. Cassivellaunus was king when Julius Ceasar invaded in 55 BC. Gwynne's book does not list every king going back to Brutus, just some who were king when something especially interesting happened. There is a gap in the Historia between 113 BC and 358 BC. Maybe that is when the succession became fictional. There do not seem to be any other gaps. How would they keep records back then? Is there any corroboration from other sources?

The last bit on the British kings blew my mind. Around 555 the Saxons called upon King Gormund, who had conquered Ireland with a huge fleet carrying African warriors. He invaded Britain with 160,000 Africans and routed King Keredic's forces and ravaged the entire country. Gormund then handed over most the country to the Saxons. The British retreated to Wales, Cornwall and Armorica (now Brittanny). The British did rally again in the 600s. King Cadwallo supposedly reconquered it with 10,000 soldiers from Armorica, but his son, king Cadwallader was the last of the British kings. There was civil war, famine and pestilence, and the country was so depopulated, the Saxons invited their Germanic kinsfolk to come across.

I'm 53 and I have never heard of Britain being invaded by 160,000 Africans before. Is there any corroboration for this?

IIrc, there's a couple of  guys (Colin Wilson(?) And Barram Blackett(?)) who think they can prove that King Arthur was a real king (two real kings, in fact) who ruled much of south and mid England from Wales in the Long Ago.

How different the world might have been under the Welsh Empire.

Leslie Alcock, University College Cardiff, author of Arthur's Britain, and John Morris, University College, London, author of The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles 350 to 650, proved Arthur was real, and that he achieved most of what was attributed to him. This was a lot more than I thought. He beat the Saxons, Picts and Scots, but then he also conquered Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Gaul. So there was a Welsh empire. He set off to learn the Romans a thing or two, but then he heard Mordred was having it off with Guinevere, so turned back home. This is according to my book and I am not sure I believe it.

All kings are fictional, being just robbers, murderers and bullies and/or descendants of same who make up titles for themselves,  but Geoffrey of Monmouth's kings are more fictional than most. This is a man whose contemporary historian the pathological liar Geraldus Cambrensis* thought too fanciful.

N.M. Gwynne (whose book I'm reading) gives Geoffrey of Monmouth more credence than most historians. He points out an incident reported in his Historia Regum Britanniae that I don't think is recorded anywhere else. In 256, British king Asclepiodotus besieged London, succeeded in bringing down its walls, beheaded all the Roman soldiers therein, and threw them in a stream. In the 16th century a road was built over the stream, named Walbrook. When the road was was dug up in the 1860s, they found a lot of skulls with no bodies.