Old Europe?

What's with Europe these days? Public attention is entirely consumated by events such as the death of the Pope with literally millions expected to his funeral on Friday, the death of Prince Rainier III of Monaco, who still held near absolute power in his tiny principality, the funeral induced delay of an embarrassing marriage between the Prince of Wales and his true, albeit divorced consort of three decades and last, but not least the destruction of yet another ring of power and sundry other arcane proceedings dictated by Universi Dominici Gregis to bless the world with a new Pope. What's next? The reïntroduction of monarchy to Austria-Hungary and Italy? The self-coronation of l'Empereur Chirac, Jacques I?

Seriously, reading the papers nowadays feels like going through a history book of some 300 years ago ... fortunately, come May this hysteric, histrionic, historic season should be behind us - I hope!

P.S. This is one of the more interesting marginal notes in this, pertaining to the Big Game.