HAVING read your thrilling account of your arrest in Austria, I was amused to read Sam Leith‘s Notebook in today’s Daily Telegraph. At first I thought it had to be about you.

“HISTORIAN IN GUN COP DRAMA,” said the newspaper vendor’s billboard…,”

it started.

Of course it was actually referring to Prof. Fernandez-Armesto having a spot of bother with the constabulary [jaywalking] in Atlanta, Georgia.

Leith goes on the say, obviously having never heard of your adventures, “What an absolutely enthralling headline. It’s the sheer delightful unlikelihood of the juxtaposition that does it. Historians don’t belong in gun-cop-drama news stories.”

Maybe someone should enlighten him.

Ian McGowan

 Reader’s Letter asking questions about the Lipstadt trial | and another letter from Christopher Price about the same issue as raised in the above letter

 Our index on David Irving’s arrest, trial, and imprisonment in Austria, 2005-2006

David Irving responds:

I agree. I read the article myself half an hour ago, and scanned through to the end to see if my name was in it. No, all the usual suspects, the conformists are there, but not the historian who had eight Glocks pointed at his head in Austria in Nov 2005…. I don’t exist again. I am too shy to tell the Telegraph; I will not stop you doing so, if you wish!

Draw their attention to http://old.fpp.co.uk/books/memoirs/arrest.html