Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness ... out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo." Richard Branson's "Extreme Tech Challenge" has been hosted annually at Necker Island since 2015. Described as one of the largest technology competitions in the
Jacques Necker the nation, c.q. the people. His address at the Estates-General on 5 May 1789 about the fundamental problems as financial health, constitutional monarchy, and institutional and political reforms lasted three hours. Necker suffered from a cold and after fifteen minutes he asked a clerk to read the remainder. He invited the representatives to leave aside their factional interests and take into consideration the general, long-term interests of the nation. Personal rivalries and radical claims had to give way to a pragmatic spirit of moderation and conciliation. Necker's last sentence of the speech: According to Simon Schama he "appeared to consider