17th November

Richard Nixon said today in 1973, 'I am not a crook' and that sent me in search of other serial deniers in History, e.g. -

• 'I am not, therefore I am' - Jean Paul Satre
• 'I am not for turning' - Margaret Thatcher
• 'I am not going to invade Poland' - Adolf Hitler (1938)
• 'Oh, yes I am' - Adolf Hitler (1939)
• I am a knot garden' - Capability Brown

In other news ...
The first successful British submarine voyage took place today in 1904 from Southampton to the Isle of Wight. The two principal ferry companies that serve the Island were both interested in acquiring the passenger franchise. But then they couldn't be arsed.

Further to this, Wightlink, or so my old mate M J Trow tells me, have axed umpteen sailings from their schedule, meaning that getting home after even the most modest evening out on the mainland is, for Islanders, darned near impossible. As a ferry is the only option they have, the uptake of theatre tickets and other treats will be markedly reduced in all the towns along the South Coast will see a knock-on effect as they hunker down and watch paint dry at home instead of sallying forth to enjoy a night out. Well done, Wightlink, for trying to return a whole county to the Dark Ages. And come along, ferry entrepreneurs - you must be out there somewhere.

2nd October

Can we get this straight once and for all, please? Today was the day in 1780 when John Andre  was executed by the American colonists as a spy and working with the traitor Benedict Arnold. Andre knew the risks he was taking and was unlucky; that's Africa. But Benedict Arnold was not a traitor. Today, thinking Americans equate him with Adolf Hitler, Vlad Dracula and Attila the Hun, but he was actually doing his duty as a British subject, which all American colonists were. it was all the rest who were the traitors, whatever gloss the slave-owning, line-pinching Thomas Jefferson tried to put on it in the Declaration of Independence.

In other news ...
'There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - they need the money.'

(With sincere apologies to John Fowles, who said something totally different today in 1977).

30th September

The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew into Croydon airport today in 1938 with a scrap of paper. It contained Adolf Hitler's promise to invade no more countries after Czechoslovakia. He called it, optimistically, 'peace with honour', echoing Benjamin Disraeli's phrase after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Unfortunately, Hitler was not of the calibre of the statesmen Disraeli sparred with and the scrap of paper was worthless.
Was Chamberlain aware of that? Almost certainly, but years of Appeasement had made Britain unwilling to face up to Europe's bully-boys.

In other news ...
Today in 1630, John Billington was executed for murder in New Plymouth, beginning a fine tradition that Americans still continue to this day.