Tag: Lord Birkenhead

Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

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I reviewed the 1940-45 vis­i­tors books at Che­quers. I was struck by how often Lord Cher­well (Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann) was there—far more than fam­i­ly and staff. He vis­it­ed more than Brack­en and Beaver­brook, or the Chiefs of Staff. What do you make of him? What’s best to read on him? —A.R., Lon­don

Lin­de­mann, Air Mar­shal Por­tal, Admi­ral of the Fleet Sir Dud­ley Pound and Churchill watch­ing an anti-air­craft gun­nery exhi­bi­tion, June 1941. (Impe­r­i­al War Muse­um) Most frequent visitor

After the death of the F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birken­head, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann, Lord Cher­well (1886-1957) was prob­a­bly Churchill’s clos­est friend.…

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“OMG”: Churchillian Origins of the Texters’ Phrase

“OMG”: Churchillian Origins of the Texters’ Phrase

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Admi­ral of the Fleet Lord Fish­er (1841-1920)

“I work for the New York Times Upfront, a mag­a­zine run by Scholas­tic Inc. and the New York Times for high school stu­dents. We hope you can ver­i­fy a recent piece of news. The Dai­ly Mail has pub­lished a let­ter writ­ten Sep­tem­ber 9, 1917, by Britain’s First Sea Lord, Admi­ral John Fish­er, to First Lord of the Admi­ral­ty Win­ston Churchill, where he first used the acronym O.M.G., for “Oh My God.” As you know, “OMG” is a phrase often used by tex­ters, espe­cial­ly teenagers! Is Fish­er the orig­i­na­tor, and is there a hand­writ­ten ver­sion of his let­ter to Churchill?” —A.P., New York, N.Y.…

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Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift

Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift

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Yogi Berra, 1950s

“If you don’t know the author of a choice quote, cred­it it to Churchill, Ein­stein, Lin­coln or Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.. Every­body will be impressed and they said so much that nobody will know the dif­fer­ence.”

I have been look­ing for a term to describe the numer­ous pot­ted, inac­cu­rate Churchill quotes: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its trousers on” is big right now on Twit­ter. Also: “Suc­cess is not final, fail­ure is not fatal: it is the courage to con­tin­ue that counts.”

Then there is: “If I were your hus­band, I’d drink it,” Churchill’s alleged retort to Lady Astor’s threat to poi­son his cof­fee, which was most like­ly uttered by his friend F.E.…

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