This is the story of one of the greatest intelligence coups in history. It begins in the lobby of the Hotel Bristol in Oslo, one wintry night in 1939.

A middle aged man went to reception and asked, could he borrow a typewriter? 🧵

amazon.co.uk/Battle-Beams-s…
The man was Hans Ferdinand Mayer, a German businessman with the sort of boringly-corporate job that rarely invited further questions. He had arranged his work trip here, in the months before the invasion of Norway, especially.

He put on gloves, went upstairs, and began to type.

On the longest night of the year, I'm thinking of a mad Dane called Thomas Sneum, 83 years ago, 1,000ft up above the North Sea, climbing out onto the wing of his antique biplane.

In a war notable for daring escapes, his strikes me as among the most daring - and consequential 1/ Sneum was a Danish air force pilot. And he was not a sensible man.

When war broke out, he ran to his plane and was furious to find Denmark had surrendered. His plane, a biplane, had already been disabled.

This saved his life - it was no match for an Me109. But he was cross

80 years ago, a great armada left Britain for France. In the sky, swarms of planes took off in the gloaming, bound for the Reich.

Both were the result of months of planning, carrying technology years in development.

And they're not what you are thinking of. 1/x The boats weren't going to Normandy. The planes were not dropping paratroopers behind the beaches. In fact, they were dropping scarecrows.

Churchill famously said "In wartime, truth should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies"

This was the final bodyguard.

38 years ago a woman in Coventry sent a letter to some scientists. That letter went on to be the most important in Alzheimer's research. Last year, I met Carol Jennings, who wrote it. 1/

thetimes.co.uk/article/e78c47…
Carol's letter was prompted by her dad. He had got Alzheimer's, far too early. So had some of his siblings. So, in fact, had a lot of people in her family. She was told Alzheimer's wasn't genetic; she didn't believe it. "Please contact me, if you think we should be of help.”

October 25, 2020, from Vallance diary: "PM meeting - begins to argue for letting it rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it - 'they have had a good innings'" It's important to note, says Vallance, "the next day he might have asked for no deaths at all"

If only as a real time bit of history from inside the room, I think more people should read Dominic Cummings' witness statement - there is a lot in there (115 pages), that is ill served by just looking at the drama and beef.

A few random snippets. 1/

covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/upl…
We start with some epigraphs. More documents at covid inquiry should have epigraphs

(I promise this will not be a mocking thread - there is really serious stuff in the document - but the epigraphs are great)

Because I think it's important to share what happens when you make a total tit of yourself and (nearly, thank god) fall for a scam, here is the embarrassing story of what happened when I clicked on this: Context. Like everyone, I think I'm not a total credulous fool. Extra context. I have had plenty of messages like this, not clicked on them, and thought, "silly scam". But, this time, I had literally just been thinking, "I was expecting a parcel". I clicked like an idiot.

82 years ago, while flying over the North Sea, a Dane called Thomas Sneum stepped onto the wing of his biplane, put a nozzle into the tank, and started to refuel it midair.

The tale of how he came to be here, and what he carried, is one of the great stories of WW2 derring do🧵 The mid-air refuelling was probably the 4th time he should have died that day (there was one more time to come). Really, though, he should have been caught by the Nazis long ago.

Paying for interviews is a tricky topic - sometimes people give their time and go to effort. But…

When it comes up I always think of the Facebook Republican Army.

In the late noughties, when Facebook was scary to old people rather than the place they post nostalgia memes…🧵 The FRA popped up. They were every middle class parents nightmare. It was run by mid 20s plumbers from an estate, who scoured Facebook to find the parties of nice teens to crash, and then do unspeakable things. Unspeakable:

Five star reviews of waitrose toilet roll

1. Does the (big) job 2. Luxurious waitrose quality on your bottom

One star reviews of Salisbury cathedral

1. Not very modern. 2. Has outreach program

One star reviews of Hadrian's wall

1. Didn't keep the scots out 2. Doesn't meet building regs

One star reviews of the north sea.

1. Too wet 2. Too northern

One star Ben Nevis reviews.

1. Too tall 2. Too small

Consumer advice thread.

I tweet the following as a cautionary tale, and advice I wish I'd known. Hopefully some people will find it useful.

But, the tl:dr version - don't use a travel intermediary to book a flight. 1/x Four months ago I went to skyscanner (excellent website), chose some flights, and clicked on buy. It took me through to lastminute.com and because I'm lazy I went through the process rather than going to the airline direct.

More than a year ago there was an oddity in covid testing in the south west. Anecdotally, people were testing positive on lateral flows, then being given the all clear by PCR. So many reports came in that, eventually, there was an investigation. 1/ thetimes.co.uk/article/studen… The culprit was identified. A lab was found to have given around 40,000 people the wrong result.

thetimes.co.uk/article/testin…

Musk is an impressive guy who has done incredible things. I would be an idiot to write him off. But here is my worry about prioritising blue ticks in search and replies.

It is (just) conceivable that media organisations like mine might pay. Great for me. Great for our egos 1/ Except, once I get beyond my ego, the main professional justification for twitter is what I read on it, not what I write. During covid, would Civil Service have paid for @kallmemeg to be promoted? Or @statsgeekclare? I doubt it.

At this stage this is just a level of either stupidity or basic ignorance that should disqualify you from talking about this subject permanently. The trial protocol wasn’t secret, none of this is new, and it did hit transmission - it just wasn’t tested in initial phase 3 1/x.

https://twitter.com/gbnews/status/1580290070397034497

How could you even design the protocol? The vaccine worked so well they only had eight positives who were vaccinated among the 40k participants.

History can do odd things to memory...

Apropos...

In January 2021 I wrote about how scientists were saying that the government, astrazeneca and Pfizer were being a bit over-cautious when they warned vaccines couldn't stop transmission. 1/5

thetimes.co.uk/article/what-w… This article was written on the back of this statement by JVT
gov.uk/government/new…

Guess whose boss decided there’s nothing happening in science, so he might as well be sent to sleep rough for 36 hours? (I’m queuing for the queen)

Britain appears to have taken the difficult and controversial decision that, on balance, it doesn't like swimming in poo. Now what?

How do we get less poo in our waters? Here's my "it's complicated" article

thetimes.co.uk/article/914e19… 1. The problem.

The original sin, the turd in Britain's water ointment, was Bazalgette. In 1858, as The Times put it, MPs were "forced by sheer stench" to solve the Thames poo problem.

So Bazalgette built a big pipe. But he allowed rainwater in. We mixed sewage and storm.