The following article contains an answer for the question: What was the first name of the man who said, "I do not usually make a note of private conversations..."? , can you please find it?   In the opinion of Robin Fedden, a diplomat, and later Deputy General Secretary of the National Trust and author of the Trust's first guidebook for Chartwell, the house became "the most important country house in Europe". A stream of friends, colleagues, disgruntled civil servants and concerned military officers came to the house to provide information to support Churchill's struggle against appeasement. At Chartwell, he developed what Fedden calls, his own "little Foreign Office ... the hub of resistance". The Chartwell visitors' book, meticulously maintained from 1922, records some 780 house guests, not all of them friends, but all grist to Churchill's mill. An example of the latter was Sir Maurice Hankey, Clerk of the Privy Council, who was Churchill's guest for dinner in April 1936. Hankey subsequently wrote, "I do not usually make a note of private conversations but some points arose which gave an indication of the line which Mr Churchill is likely to take in forthcoming debates (on munitions and supply) in Parliament". A week later, Reginald Leeper, a senior Foreign Office official and confident of Robert Vansittart, visited Churchill to convey their views on the need to use the League of Nations to counter German aggression. Vansittart wrote, "there is no time to lose. There is indeed a great danger that we shall be too late".Churchill also recorded visits to Chartwell by two more of his most important suppliers of confidential governmental information, Desmond Morton and Ralph Wigram, information which he used to "form and fortify my opinion about the Hitler Movement". Chartwell was also the scene of more direct attempts to prepare Britain for the coming conflict; in October 1939, when reappointed First Lord of the Admiralty on the outbreak of war, Churchill suggested an improvement for anti-aircraft shells; "Such shells could be filled with zinc ethyl which catches fire spontaneously ... A fraction of an ounce was demonstrated at Chartwell last summer".In 1938, Churchill, beset by financial concerns,...
----
Answer: Maurice


The following article contains an answer for the question: What is the name of the person whose father is in trouble because of his gambling debts? , can you please find it?   Richard Gaddis is a small-time crook with a penchant for con games. To hook marks, he acts like a well-to-do businessman, dressing like one and driving a Mercedes-Benz S500, believing that one must look like a professional in order to be a successful conman. Gaddis is searching for a new partner with whom he can perform more sophisticated cons.  He discovers Rodrigo after he sees the young man playing some minor con games in a casino-bar.  When Rodrigo is caught, Gaddis acts the part of a vice officer to save him from being arrested.  Rodrigo's contribution is a face and naive manner so trustable that he is able to con anyone, while Richard is both completely unprincipled and clever.  After several small tests to determine Rodrigo's trustworthiness, he suggests a partnership, to which Rodrigo quickly agrees. Although Rodrigo distrusts Richard greatly, he agrees to partner him on a gigantic scam, provided he gets a percentage of the money gained to help his ailing father, who is in trouble because of his gambling debts.   Richard accepts, and they plan to sell a fraudulent version of a silver certificate currency note to William Hannigan, a rich collector who is in town. Gyllenhaal plays Gaddis' sister Valerie, a concierge at a hotel.  When Hannigan takes a fancy to the uptight but very sexy Valerie, Gaddis is forced to pull her into the scam, the price of which is Richard's admission to their brother Michael that he has cheated him out of his share of their inheritance. The plot twists constantly as each of the characters becomes more deeply invested in the scam, and the ever-deceitful Richard tries to cheat Rodrigo, Valerie and Michael out of their share of the take. In the twist ending, it is revealed that all the major players involved, including Rodrigo and Hannigan, were playing a confidence game against Gaddis from the very beginning, so that Valerie and Michael could rightfully take their share of their inheritance.
----
Answer: Rodrigo


The following article contains an answer for the question: What did the Tibetans capture in 678? , can you please find it?   Although the Silk Road from China to Europe and the Western World was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu (141–87 BC) during the Han, it was reopened by the Tang in 639 when Hou Junji (d. 643) conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, during Empress Wu's period, the Silk Road reopened when the Tang reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi originally installed in 640, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade. The Tang captured the vital route through the Gilgit Valley from Tibet in 722, lost it to the Tibetans in 737, and regained it under the command of the Goguryeo-Korean General Gao Xianzhi. When the An Lushan Rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire had once again lost control over its western lands, as the Tibetan Empire largely cut off China's direct access to the Silk Road. An internal rebellion in 848 ousted the Tibetan rulers, and Tang China regained its northwestern prefectures from Tibet in 851. These lands contained crucial grazing areas and pastures for raising horses that the Tang dynasty desperately needed.Despite the many expatriate European travelers coming into China to live and trade, many travelers, mainly religious monks and missionaries, recorded the strict border laws that the Chinese enforced. As the monk Xuanzang and many other monk travelers attested to, there were many Chinese government checkpoints along the Silk Road that examined travel permits into the Tang Empire. Furthermore, banditry was a problem along the checkpoints and oasis towns, as Xuanzang also recorded that his group of travelers were assaulted by bandits on multiple occasions. The Silk Road also affected Tang dynasty art. Horses became a significant symbol of prosperity and power as well as an instrument of military and diplomatic policy. Horses were also revered as a relative of the dragon.
----
Answer:
Silk Road