[verbatim trial transcripts]
[…] The [Professor Kevin] Macdonalds have left by the time I am up, flying today to Tennessee. Today’s newspapers make hay with the “Baby Aryan” ditty; The Times front-pages it, but is otherwise a very fair report. The Daily Telegraph, which was not represented in court yesterday, just repeated the Associated Press report which was less full (for instance not reporting my well-deserved riposte about Mr Rampton’s own all-white staff). I began by handing to Judge Gray my own copy of [Gerald] Fleming’s book, which shows that I read the first 22 pages, then stopped, and on a separate date dipped into the middle to check facts on the Bruns report. For a while Rampton continued to cross-examine me on minor issues, and then on the Goebbels diaries. On one occasion when Rampton said “I am going to be modest about this,” I responded: “Mr Rampton, you have every justification to be modest.” (Stolen from Churchill’s comment on his successor Mr. Clement Attlee – “A humble man, and with everything to be humble about.”)
He asked about racism; I asked for the difference between that and patriotism – “Patriotism,” I told him, “is the proper veneration and reverence for the country that was handed to you by your parents, and by their parents to them.” I explained that I missed the old England that I was born into: “I wish I could climb into a 747 and fly for ten hours and arrive in the England that used to be – the England of The Blue Lamp and Jack Warner and no chewing gum on the pavements…” There was a hush as I said that, so I knew it struck home. Rampton casually revealed, in answer to a question from the judge or from myself, that he is not calling Professor Levin and Eatwell. We have expended considerable effort in building cross-examination material for these experts, and that is really vexing. The judge too seemed displeased at this cavalier attitude of the defence, given that time is for me a very scarce commodity. By mid-day Rampton was flagging, and at 12:30 he persuaded the Judge to adjourn until Monday, cutting the day short. I raised no objection! He told me as he walked past that he was “quite knackered”, and I can believe it: cross examining acutely is certainly as exhausting as being examined. Back at Duke Street at 1:15 p.m.; lunch with […]. Benté has arranged with the ballet school about collecting Jessica in future. How unpleasant: Then these people wonder where anti-Semitism comes from. Bente […]. I collect Jessica from the Connaught school at 3:30 p.m., then hit the sofa for an hour’s snooze. At Selfridges I buy the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; it prints a truly foul article by the Menasse woman. No wonder she averted her eyes from mine in the courtroom today. Somebody is sitting on her, and it ain’t Mr Menasse. Yesterday I handed to her the actual transcript of the passage about the death of Josephine and the “hate-wreath”, to show how totally distorted was her account of that in the FAZ a few days ago; she seemed unrepentant. Nevertheless, I post today’s FAZ story on my website; but now I add a link, so that my German-speaking readers can check what the transcript actually says, and send her, or even better her editor, an e-mail…[…]. |
I admitted quite readily that I had illicitly borrowed two microfiches or three (I frankly can’t remember which, any more) from the archives, and had taken two to London for forensic tests (which fiches were also returned to the Moscow collection). Then my 
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