If you like it, there's more of the same in my new book David Brewster and the Culture of Science in Scotland!
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-david-b...

Yes, it's the famous chess-playing automaton 'Turk' exhibited around Britain by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel in 1819/20. My source is David Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic (1832). The illustrations in the Magazine of Science seem to have been copied from there.

I'm not sure why I do. But then everybody loves a bit of Hitler trivia.

Although apparently 'Adolf Hitlers Lieblingsblume ist das schlichte Edelweiß' (Harry Steier, 1933). I can only imagine Rogers and Hammerstein didn't know that when they wrote their own song about 'Edelweiss' for the pivotal scene in the film.

Good decision. I'm doing the same. I haven't been able to bring myself to post much on 'X' recently in any case.

Yes, they did! They asked me how to spell it in the interview. Luckily I got it right that time.

I once made exactly that mistake in an application for an editorial post. Not good. I still got the job, though!