18th June

It was a 'near-run thing' today in 1815 when Napoleon Bonaparte, arguably the greatest general in history, was defeated by a combined force of British and Prussian troops under Wellington and Blucher respectively. If you're British, you'll claim the British won it; if you're German, you'll claim it was down to the Prussians. If you're French you'll whine and whinge and promise to do better in the two world wars.
Ah ...

In other news ...
And on the subject of France in world wars, General Charles de Gaulle urged on his fellow countrymen today to fight on under German occupation in 1940. Gung-Ho! you might cry, except that de Gaulle said this over the radio from London, which, while not exactly a safe haven Blitz-wise, was certainly not under the Nazi jackboot.

10th May

The worst blitz of World War Two on London hit tonight in 1941. Like all such disasters, figures are unreliable, but there were at least 1400 deaths and 100,000 incendiary fires all over the capital. The Houses of Parliament were hit, so was St Paul's, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey and every major railway station. The Ministry of Information announced the next day that 28 German bombers were shot down. In fact the figure was a mere eight and one of those crash landed, out of fuel, somewhere in Scotland and had nothing to do with the Blitz at all.
Or did it? The Messerschmidt in question was flown by Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy and if you think that's a coincidence you've been reading too much British and Nazi propaganda.

In other news ...
One of the greatest generals in the American army died today in 1863 of pneumonia and complications brought on by wounds he received soon after his brilliant victory at Chancellorsville. He was Thomas Jackson, known to all and sundry as 'Stonewall' because of his stubborn steadiness under fire. Ironically he was shot by one of his own pickets, a terrified teenager who lost his nerve and fired too soon in the darkness while on guard duty at the Confederate camp.

Personally, I wouldn't trust a teenager to point a rifle at me or anyone else for fear they would forget what they were doing and just pull the trigger to hear the bang and see the pretty bullet. It would have been better all round and certainly for Stonewall Jackson if the under twenties had been confined to pea shooters. The Sixth Form at Leighford High are certainly not allowed weaponry of any kind until they have completed at least five terms and then only if they can shoot the 'i' out of the school noticeboard at fifty paces.

6th January

Twelfth Night and about time too. At last we can take down the Christmas Tree, now needleless and looking like a nuclear blast survivor and stash the tinsel away for another year. Nolan and the Count (son and cat, in that order for those of you unfamiliar with the Maxwell menage) are already counting the weeks until next Christmas but let them count; as long as I don't run another pine needle into my foot for around another forty nine weeks, that is enough for me. The sole point of this day is that it gave Will Shaxper of Stratford a title for one of his hilariously funny comedies. How we laughed.

In other news ... Sigmund Freud, dream analyst and inventor of the slip, grandfather of the late Lucien and Clement, wrote in 1938, 'What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.'
'They' of course were the Nazis who had just taken over Freud's native Austria in the Anschluss (Union). He was wrong of course - within five years the Nazis would be burning people as well.
Incidentally, they'd all got Freud's number. He was in the Black Book, a list of undesirables living in Britain drawn up by the SS in 1940. Had Operation Sealion worked and Hitler actually invaded Britain, Freud would have got his after all. Actually, though, he wouldn't. Although the compilers of the Black Book seemed unaware, he died in his bed in September 1939.