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It was a pleasure to board HMS Warrior down in Portsmouth last month. She is a preserved, 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate, and was built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861. Then, Great Britain was conducting an arms race with the French, and Warrior was Briannia’s signal to Emperor Louis-Napoléon that it was she who ruled the waves.

I own a dozen square-cut, Vietnamese rubies. Sadly, they are tiny, barely a millimetre in size, and their value is commensurately small; had they been combined into one, they might have been worth admiring. Proverbs 20:15 states:

I boarded HMS Victory last month, which is officially the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission, with 248 years of service as of 2026. She was gainfully employed in thrashing Bonaparte at Trafalgar in 1805 under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson.