Month: February 2021

alliance
View from St. Paul’s Cathedral toward the Old Bailey after the Blitz, 3 January 1941. (H. Mason, Daily Mail, public domain)
Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

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Question:

“Pro­fes­sor John Charm­ley says in a pod­cast that Neville Cham­ber­lain believed a pre­war grand alliance against Hitler was not fea­si­ble. He was refer­ring to alliance between the UK and France and the Unit­ed States and USSR. Do you agree?”

Answer:

As Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) tells the Dis­trict Attor­ney (Lane Smith) in “My Cousin Vin­ny” (1992), “that’s a B.S. question.”

(To voir dire Miss Vito on “gen­er­al auto­mo­tive knowl­edge” the D.A. had demand­ed the igni­tion tim­ing of “a 1955 Chevro­let 327 V-8.” (Read­ers less mechan­i­cal­ly inclined than Miss Vito may enjoy her dev­as­tat­ing two-minute rebut­tal to this “trick question.”)…

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Paintatious
Paul Rafferty’s elegant book is reviewed at https://bit.ly/2ZTwktD
Paintatious – Paintaceous – Paintacious: What Was Churchill’s Word?

Paintatious – Paintaceous – Paintacious: What Was Churchill’s Word?

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Paul Rafferty’s mag­nif­i­cent Win­ston Churchill: Paint­ing on the French Riv­iera is being trans­lat­ed for a French edi­tion by Dr. Antoine Capet. The author and trans­la­tor posed an inter­est­ing ques­tion. How did Win­ston Churchill spell “painta­tious”?

(Any read­er bored by pedan­tic, picayune, obscure mean­der­ings about noth­ing of impor­tance should stop read­ing now. For my review of Paul’s book see: “Book of the Year.”)

“Painta­tious” was artist Churchill’s word for a scene wor­thy of his brush. He found many such venues on the French Riv­iera, which Paul explores so well. But this is a tricky ques­tion because “painta­tioius” not a real word.…

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Social Dilemma
A modern railway station anywhere, any time. (Rawpixel.com, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

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“The Social Dilem­ma” is excerpt­ed from an Essay on Win­ston Churchill’s 146th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2020, pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal post, please click here.

“The Social Dilemma”: Netflix, 2020, 90 minutes.

“Is not mankind already escap­ing from the con­trol of indi­vid­u­als? Are not our affairs increas­ing­ly being set­tled by mass process­es? Are not mod­ern conditions—at any rate through­out the Eng­lish-speak­ing communities—hostile to the devel­op­ment of out­stand­ing per­son­al­i­ties and to their influ­ence upon events: and last­ly if this be true, will it be for our greater good and glo­ry?…

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Remick
Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick in “The Detective,” 1968. (20th Century Fox, Wikimedia Commons)
Remembering Lee Remick as Lady Randolph Churchill

Remembering Lee Remick as Lady Randolph Churchill

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Lee Remick 1935-1991

May 2021 marks thir­ty years since we lost dear Lee Remick. She was the accom­plished actress who brought Win­ston Churchill’s moth­er vivid­ly to the screen.

One of the finest-ever Churchill films,  Jen­nie: Lady Ran­dolph Churchill, is avail­able on CD. It was orig­i­nal­ly a tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary, “The Life and Loves of Jen­nie Churchill,” broad­cast on ITV in Britain and PBS in the USA in 1974. Co-star­ring with Remick were Ronald Pick­up as Lord Ran­dolph Churchill and War­ren Clarke as young Winston.

Lee and Greg

In 1991, two months before she died,  we held an award din­ner for Ms.…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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