oliver cromwell or maybe margaret thatcher?
newton,darwin,shakespeare,dirac....
me
Winston Churchill. After years of warning the country about the Nazis and being ignored and ridiculed, he then absolutely refused to let the nation back down and give in to Hitler. Inspired the nation and Colonies.
Should also mention his greatest quote 'I, my dear, maybe drunk, but you are ugly...and i will be sober in the morning'. Genius.
Brunel
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_paine ]Thomas Paine[/url].
The guy was massively ahead of his time in his thinking, and is pretty much responsible for shaping the Western world into what it is today.
Edward Blackadder 😆
Alfred the Great or Brunel
One of them anyway....
Queen Elizabeth I
falkirk-mark:me
+1.
I just like the cut of his jib.
ozzy ozbourne
Tony Blair.
Wilfred Thesiger
Owain Glynd?r.
Fern.
St Patrick
votchy - MemberEdward Blackadder
any relation to Edmund Blackadder?
Damn you Retro...I was gonna say that
David Lloyd George
John Peel
🙂
manwells
Jade Goody (was the question "who was the greatest ****wit who ever lived?")
Alfred the Great
Maybe not greatest but my fave is Peaty, just seems like sound guy.
Jade Goody (was the question "who was the greatest ****wit who ever lived?")
So in all of history the biggest ****wit you can come up with is Jade Goody?
Good job.
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria - why?!
+1 for Chuchill, without him there wouldn't be a Britain.
Another priceless retort from him:
Female acquaintance: "Winston, if I were your wife I would put poison in your tea"
WC: "Madam, if I were your husband I should drink it"
Alan Turing
Victoria because she lead the nation during a dramatic period of growth and as a result I believe (happy to be put right on this one) that is one of the key reasons why English is the primary language round most of the globe. Also, look at how many places round the globe pay tribute to Victoria in one way or another.
Depends what greatest means really - I like some of the above but Henry VIII must be one of the most significant if somewhat flawed.
It's got to be between Wellington or Nelson. Without either of them the UK would have ended up an insignificant pimple on Europe's bottom in the 19th century.
That it now is an insignificant pimple can be laid at the door of us going to war against the Germans in 1914. It financially ruined the country and was further exacerbated by 1939-45, so that rules out Churchill.
Trying to choose one is pointless. Top ten maybe?
Attlee or Brunel.
Gerry Adams.
Simon Cowell
Surely Darwin
Horatio Nelson
Ranulph Fiennes
Francis Drake
Ernest Shackleton
Walter Raleigh
James Cook
In no particular order.........
Nelson does seem a worthy choice.
Although Churchill can be seen as obvious I see him as a necessary evil and not 'great'.
Tom Jones
+1 for Newton
Sir Christopher Wren?
Although Churchill can be seen as obvious I see him as a necessary evil and not 'great'.
Well put. Not enough people know about what Churchill was really like, or that he was a pretty nasty misogynist, racist, elitist bastard. Black + Tans, Opposed Womens' right to vote, sanctioned gassing of Kurds, opposed the formation of the NHS.
No, I'm with Clarkson on this one; from an engineering point of view at least, has to be Brunel. From a philosophical perspective, then Thomas Paine, Dr Samuel Johnson, Charles Darwin, people like that.
Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan first added a mechanical crank drive to the rear wheel, creating the first bicycle in the modern sense.
William Dampier might make my top 20 actually.
