[…] no more then a Pump grown dry will yield any water, unless you pour a little water into it first, and then for one Bason-ful you may fetch up so many Soe-fuls.

The Jurat came of a good old Guernsey family which, in the Middle Ages, always had the sense to fight on the side paid best ….

When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land), Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself. And, despite Hawkins’ inveterate crotch-grabbing, there was never that much meat there to begin with.

The soldiers who dedicated the tabula to the empress might have had a personal connection with her, but if so, it was not a typical relationship.