The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from me, Steve Winduss, at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". - 15th December 2024.

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Happy Sunday!

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It’s been an extraordinary week in world affairs. As if from nowhere, the brutal al-Assad tyranny in Syria has vanished in an apparent puff of smoke.
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While the future may be uncertain for the citizens of Syria, one thing is for sure: for the first time in 53 years, they have hope. And we hope with them.
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Everywhere else seems bleak: Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, political instability across the Sahel region of Africa - take your pick.
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The world’s existential issues are growing while the pool of individuals charged with addressing them is shrinking.
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Whichever your political preference, from liberal democracy to rampant dictatorship, we’re down to a small handful of sociopaths, demagogues, unqualified tech gurus and power-crazed kleptocrats making our decisions for us.
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We’re told that the world has more in common than divides us, but the message struggles to be heard. With a virulent social media and receding press, it’s all noise and no signal.
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My gran used to say, “Everyone’s talking, no-one’s listening”.
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I started the Batting the Breeze podcast because I wanted to listen. Fifty episodes in, I’ve done a lot of listening. I’m much better for it.

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I’m not a better person because I am a better listener. It's that listening has forced me to hold up a mirror and look at myself. Scary. Would I have done this? Could I have done that? Would I have had the courage? Why? Why not?
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But you don’t need to start a podcast to listen. You just need to listen.
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So if you’re feeling disenfranchised by world events, impotent to effect a change or struggling to find the right positive message to share with your children, start listening as if your life depended on it.
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If millions of us stop talking and start listening, we can make a difference.
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Humour has long been a mechanism for holding a mirror up to ourselves. Billy Connolly is brilliant and hilarious because he observes our ridiculous behaviour and throws it back at us on stage. Do you remember his sketch smacking a naughty child’s bum while yelling in rhythm, “Do - you - want - another - smack?”.

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Congratulations to The Simpsons for reaching the 35-year anniversary of the first full-length episode this Tuesday, 17 December 1989. I’m not a massive Simpsons fan but will never forget the ‘dishwasher’ scene.
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Bart is in the kitchen and opens the dishwasher to insert his one dirty plate. To his horror, the dishwasher is full of clean dishes. His only course of action is to squirt ketchup over the racks, insert his plate into the mix, close the door and walk away.
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It’s hilarious to me because I have come so close to doing that myself many times. The difference is that I haven’t, and he did.
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Holding up a mirror.

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Dates with History

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Today… ​
Trombonist and composer Glenn Miller is fondly remembered as one of the pioneers of the big-band swing era. From 1938, The Glenn Miller Orchestra could be heard belting out favourites such as “In the Mood”, “Moonlight Serenade” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo”.

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During World War II, he joined the US Army Air Force and performed for Allied troops across Europe. Eighty years ago today, 15 December 1944, Miller’s plane went missing over the English Channel in bad weather. He was never found.

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Tuesday… ​
The Admiral Graf Spee was a German ‘pocket’ battleship that proved to be the scourge of Allied forces in the early months of World War II.
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Smaller and faster than traditional battleships, a pocket battleship was heavily armoured with significant gun power.
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As such, the Graf Spee had sunk numerous merchant vessels in the South Atlantic within a few months of the outbreak of war in September 1939.

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On one occasion in December, she engaged a British squadron of three cruisers close to the coast of Uruguay. It became the central encounter of the Battle of the River Plate, the first naval engagement of the war.
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The three British cruisers were damaged, but so was the Admiral Graf Spee. She put into the neutral port of Montevideo where she was permitted 72 hours under international law to receive repairs and leave.
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While the Graf Spee was in port, British intelligence played out a brilliant deception. Through a series of bogus wireless messages and other forms of misinformation, Captain Hans Langsdorff was led to believe that a large British force was waiting for the Graf Spee when she left port.
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Eighty-five years ago this Tuesday, 17 December 1939, Langsdorff was left with no option but to sail out to sea from Montevideo and scuttle his own ship. The crew destroyed critical equipment. Charges were set around the ship.

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At 20:55 that evening, the charges were detonated. Montevideo lit up as the Admiral Graf Spee exploded into a ball of flame. She sank into the shallow mud - her mast and gun turrets remaining just above the water line. She still lies there today - most of her.
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​Out of honour, Hans Langdorff took his own life a few days later.

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Later in the week… ​
Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, died in 1135 after a short illness. Upon news of his death, Henry’s nephew Stephen raced back from France to London to secure the crown in preference to Henry’s own daughter Matilda.
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Next Sunday marks the anniversary, 22 December 1135, of the coronation of King Stephen at Westminster Abbey.
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​Matilda didn’t take the news well. Most of Stephen’s reign was tagged as The Anarchy - 15 years of civil war. The balance of power swung back and forth as fighting raged between Matilda and her cousin, King Stephen. However, by 1153, Matilda and Stephen had agreed on the outline of a settlement.
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​Eustace, Stephen’s son, was somewhat underwhelmed by the agreement but obligingly died later that year before he could muster a challenge.
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​Conspiracy theories about the cause of his death flourished, ranging from choking and poisoning to a fit of madness and divine intervention.
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The Treaty of Winchester was signed in November 1153 and Stephen died under a year later. A few years earlier in 1128, Matilda had married Geoffrey Plantagenet, the Count of Anjou, France.
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As a result, this Thursday’s 870th anniversary of the succession to the throne of Matilda’s son Henry II, 19 December 1154, marks the start of the great Plantagenet dynasty that would rule England through thick and thin for the next 331 years until Richard III’s death in 1485.

By the Way

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Herbert Kilpin was born in 1870 in Nottingham, England. He was the son of a local butcher and football-mad (i.e. the round ball variety - soccer). Herbert experienced a typical working-class upbringing and had, like many children in that era, left school by the age of 14.

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He secured work as a warehouse assistant in a lace factory. Life was… typical. However, within 15 years, Herbert would, untypically, co-found one of the great Italian teams in world football.
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Tomorrow marks the 125th anniversary, 16 December 1899, of the establishment of Associazione Calcio Milan, better known as AC Milan.
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Herbert had followed a work opportunity to Turin in 1891 and combined career progression with his love of football. In 1897, his work relocated to Milan. The 160-mile round-trip to play football soon lost its appeal.
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On that night in December, Herbert and a few of his English friends had gathered in a local hostelry. The drink did the talking, and by the end of the evening, they had formed the Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club.

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Kilpin had pronounced that night:

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The fact that an Italian football club could be founded by a relatively unknown Englishman of modest means wasn’t as surprising as it might seem. Italian football was in its infancy and still very much an amateur game.
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A number of Englishmen had arrived in Italy to help develop the sport’s popularity at the turn of the century. FC Barcelona had been founded three weeks earlier by a group of English, German, Swiss and Catalan footballers.
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By 1899, a professional football league had existed in England for 11 years, while the FA Cup had been established since 1871. Italian football was lagging behind.
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However, the fact that the Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club survived beyond its original amateur status was a surprise. Despite winning three early league titles in 1901, 1906 and 1907, a rift formed within the club in 1908.
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The Italian Football Federation had placed restrictions on clubs signing foreign players. A group of Milan club stalwarts objected to the ruling, believing that Italian football should include all players, whatever their nationality.
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Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club, later to be renamed AC Milan, remained neutral on the subject. The stalwarts broke away to form a rival club in the city, FC Internazionale Milano, better known today as Inter Milan.
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The 1908 split created one of today’s great sporting rivalries between AC Milan and Inter Milan who, pragmatically, both play at the San Siro Stadium in Milan.

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As for Herbert Kilpin, his retirement from football and the Milan breakup marked the end of his involvement with the club. Kilpin died in 1916, impoverished and in relative obscurity on the outskirts of Milan. In recent years, knowledge of Kilpin’s contribution to the club has been resurrected.
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Today, Herbert Kilpin is remembered by AC Milan fans as The Lord of Milan.

Question of the Week

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Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister was born 125 years ago this Friday, 20 December 1894. He was born in Jeparit, Victoria, approximately 230 miles northwest of Melbourne; population at the time - 250.

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​Who was he? Two bonus points for naming the second and third longest-serving Australian Prime Ministers.

And finally...

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My early career years were spent working in London and living in Teddington. The suburb lies two miles south of Twickenham Stadium, a hallowed spot for English rugby union types like me.
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I lived on Queens Road, a short walk to Bushy Park in one direction or a little further to a picturesque stretch of the River Thames on the other side of the town.

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Queens Road was home to the National Physics Laboratory, workplace of the renowned Alan Turing, shortly after his successful mission at Bletchley Park developing The Bombe.
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This clunky, electromechanical machine was rudimentary by today’s standards but pivotal in decrypting messages from the German’s mighty Enigma machines during World War II.
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During my time in Teddington, another famous resident was the slapstick comedian Benny Hill (born Alfred Hawthorne Hill), master of the double entendres and controversial sexual innuendos. Hill had moved into town to be closer to Thames Television, where the Benny Hill Show was filmed. He passed away in Teddington shortly after I moved out in 1992.
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Perhaps the most distinguished Teddington resident of them all was Noel Coward; playwright, composer, director, actor and one of the most significant figures in British show business of the 20th century.
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Coward was born in Teddington 125 years ago tomorrow, 16 December 1899 (the same day that AC Milan was founded).

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Noel Coward was most prolific as a playwright, scripting over 50 plays and musicals, 20 of which were converted into films. The most notable of these was probably Brief Encounter (1945) starring Trevor Howard.

Out of curiosity...​
Benny Hill and Noel Coward both featured in the original 1969 version of the classic film, The Italian Job; You know, the one where Michael Caine famously cried out, “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”. Coward played Mr Bridger while Benny Hill was the character Professor Simon Peach.

Like so many great creative minds, Coward’s sharp wit seems to have been driven by a darker side. He was once described as a man of “surprising gravity and bleakness”, and it was perhaps this complexity that helped Coward to become one of the most quoted writers of the 20th century.

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Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!

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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Question of the week... Answer

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Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister was Sir Robert Menzies. He held office across two terms; the first from 1939-1941 and then from 1949-1966, a total of over 18 years in power.

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The next longest-serving Australian Prime Minister was John Howard, in office between 1996-2007 for 11 straight years. Bob Hawke was third, serving between 1983-1991, a period of just under nine years.
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I chuckle at the laid-back language used by Australian politicians in contrast to their more reserved British counterparts. For instance, can you imagine Margaret Thatcher referring to a future UK Prime Minister using the language of Bob Hawke in the eighties like this?

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