Terugkijken: Book Talk met Édouard Louis

Wie zitten er in de koets?

Dieppe, JMW Turner. Encore tranquille.

If you look at Andrew Roberts's "Eminent Churchillians" (now 30 years old) in his chapter trashing Mountbatten he rather suggests the poor planning was just another example of his general incompetence.

Eventually, most people agreed that the whole thing had been a bad idea, but a question remained: had the Telegraph, of all newspapers, passed secrets to the enemy via a crossword? Intelligence officer (and son of John ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ Buchan) Lord Tweedsmuir was asked to investigate...

The raid was such a disaster, the 5,000 Canadian troops involved suffered 3,367 casualties (an absurdly high rate of 68%) – 907 of them killed (roughly one every 35 seconds for nine hours). The Germans were apparently so bewildered that they asked why it had happened

It’s the 83rd anniversary of the clue “French port (6)” appearing in the Daily Telegraph. Which may not sound like much of a story, except that the next day, they printed the answer – Dieppe – and the day after that thousands of Allied troops landed at the very spot and the outcome was a bloody mess

I don't want my fridge to have a camera or Wi-Fi. I don't want my dishwasher to be smart. I don't want my washing machine to text me.

In fact, I kinda miss knobs and dials and knowing big appliances would last 20 years and could still be repaired.