Posted on 03/31/2009 12:12:44 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
While on the BOAC flight in June 1954 the plane's menu was not good enough for the Prime Minister so he wrote one out himself.
He requested his meal be brought on two trays.
He lists in his own hand: "1st Tray. Poached egg, Toast, Jam, Butter, Coffee and milk, Jug of cold milk, Cold Chicken or Meat.
"2nd Tray. Grapefruit, Sugar Bowl, Glass orange squash (ice), Whisky soda." He then adds: "Wash hands, cigar."
At first he had tried to amend the printed menu, but in the end wrote out his own on the other side.
With his Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden at his side, the visit to the US was made at the height of the Cold War and his last to the US as Prime Minister.
The menu was kept by the air steward and the item is being sold along with press cuttings from the trip.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, who is selling it, said: "This is one of the most remarkable pieces of Churchill memorabilia we have seen.
"It shows what a hearty breakfast he ate and it was all washed down with a whisky, after which he smoked a cigar.
"It is the type of indulgence we've come to associate with Churchill and it reassuring to know he ate so well in his 80th year."
He added: "There are some smudges and ink stains but it is a wonderful piece of history."
The menu is expected to fetch up to 1,500 pounds when it is sold at Mullock's auctioneers in Ludlow Shropshire on St George's Day.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Serves as a reminder that there were, once upon a time, a few human beings on the planet with a full set of balls.
Back in day, I never trusted anyone who didn’t drink in morning.
Edward Teller (an Hungarian Gentile) attributes it to other cultural factors in the German scientific community. Fission was certainly discovered by a German and there were plenty of German physicists who knew what it would take to make a bomb. (The Germans spent more on the militarily useless V2 than the Americans spent on the Manhattan project, so they did not fail for lack of resources.)
As Teller tells it, early attempts at making a nuclear reactor were fustrated because normal commercial grade carbon is contaminated with boron, a neutron absorber. Leo Szilard, another Hungarian physicist, who had been a chemist, and was at Columbia at the time, recognized this and the Americans (and Fermi, also a Gentile) succeeded in making a nuclear reactor by using far more expensive reagent grade carbon. Teller claims that Heisenberg, who was leading the German efforts, would never have talked to a chemist.
Yes, but der Fuehrer had his own vices, namely, amphetamines, injected several times daily....
Churchill was a great man, but had real issues nontheless. During WWII, he underwent fits of debilitating depression. He probably needed alcohol as a pick-me-up to face the day.
In one of Churchill's better biographies -- The Last Lion, I believe -- the author mentioned that Churchill was rarely, if ever, completely sober during his entire adult life. He wasn't a drunkard, but he always had alcohol in his bloodstream.
As for his depression, he called it his "little black dog," that followed him around his entire life. Depression seems to be the mark of many great people.
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