Interesting fact I discovered while writing "Empires of the Sky": The guy in the Mercedes is Ben Dova (yes, I know), a German trapeze artist who was big in the 30s. He was aboard the "Hindenburg" on its last flight (and, obviously, escaped). That he dies in a fireball is ironic.

I'd just like to point out that one has to place these things in the context of the progress of the airship in Germany under Zeppelin (& Eckener). See my book, "Empires of the Sky," for this, the Wrights, Maxim, why airplanes won, etc.

Wasn't Macaulay in charge of Indian education or the like 20 years earlier? This stuff sounds like him. He probably had it all memorized when he was eight.

Yup, I canceled the ol' Blue "Premium" sub a while back. The anti-Semitism and unbridled racism is unbelievable. I check in occasionally--there's still useful, normal, and amusing stuff, but it's being swept away by the Der Stürmers and their bots. Substack's so much more interesting.

Renault's fantastic. Fun Trivia Fact for Oneupmanship (the mid-century genius Stephen Potter is also half-forgotten) at Parties: Her name is pronounced Re-nalt, not Ren-o. Whenever this subject comes up, as it unfortunately so rarely does, I always make pedantically sure to correct the other person. Point taken on QT. Lawks-a-mercy, I love him, but the problem with growing up in an exclusively movie/TV/pop-culture environment is that you don't have the deeper literary and historical references that one acquires from reading.

Try Ian Banks's The Wasp Factory. Will go down a treat.

Yup, very few examples of actual bayoneting going on, either in Rev War or the Civil War. In any case, if hand-to-hand combat happened a clubbed musket was the most common method. Pretty sure I cover a lot of this in "Men of War." (I'm sure you can pick a lot of holes in it, but the argument's broadly the same.)

He was a great man. I met him once, when, then but a callow youth, I visited the Literary Review office after writing to him to ask if I could review a book. I made the mistake of showing up after lunch, only to find him asleep at his desk with an empty wine bottle next to him. I had to wake him up and ask which book he wanted me to do. He just waved his hand towards a wall of shelves: "Take anything, it doesn't matter." And went back to sleep.

At his dinner soirees for various luminaries (to which I was not invited) he'd muse on the Deep Questions ("Why is space large?", "Is death real?") and open up a debate. The scientists and profs, all hoping for grants, would prostrate themselves telling him how brilliant he was. Guy thought he was at All Souls High Table conversing with Isaiah Berlin and J.L. Austin, but was in fact merely the worst kind of pretentious, quarter-educated midwit.

Also looks suspiciously AI-generated with that strangely perfect-yet-flawed 109 in the foreground.

Same here. I'm still pretty sure this is going to happen. (I also don't take flights that pass through the Bermuda Triangle.)

Agree, but the cut-off date should rightly be 1983's "Octopussy," which all discerning people know is the best Bond ever made--mostly because it was written by the estimable George MacDonald Fraser and therefore retains Flashman-like elements.

Alastair MacLean + Frederick Forsyth + Tom Clancy = Perfect Airport Thriller.

I always advise Budding Young Historians to go to archives in person. A lot tend to think that if it's not online it doesn't exist. Fact: The National Archives has digitized (since about 2000) roughly 3% of its holdings. Which means there are hundreds of miles of folders nobody's ever looked at. So, plenty of opportunities still for movie characters to pore over Ye Olde Manuscriptes.

It's a wonderful flick (Amadeus), but it's caused no end of trouble (esp. re: Salieri and the Nature of Genius). By the by, read up on the great Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's Jewish/Catholic librettist. Interesting guy!

Absolutely. Casualties were extremely high. The "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" stuff has always been annoying, even if my all-time favorite (ancient) joke remains: Why are French avenues lined with trees? Because the Germans like to march in the shade.

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Hi, thanks for letting me know. Much obliged. The account has been reported to X. No idea what he thinks he's going to gain, but anyway . . . Signed, Real Alex.

This is like that time Thom Yorke of Radiohead appeared on the cover of an Iranian book about male sexual dysfunction.

What is this "sometimes" of which you speak?