Saturday, 25 July 2009

Happy landings and playing the game

Mikael Carlson and another pilot, Edmond Salis have landed safely after recreating Blériot's pioneering cross-Channel flight. Another Blériot-related piece by Rose Wilde in The Times archive blog relates how The Times' leader writer in 1909 spent more time sympathising with Hubert Latham the Anglo-French pilot who lost the race to be first over the Channel. Wilde writes:

Typical British reaction. There's nothing we like like a good loser.


I'm not so sure - as I see it, Blériot was the underdog and we Brits supposedly like to stand up for the plucky underdog. I think the British press were on Latham's side because he was Anglo-French, not just plain French. Simple jingoism, in my opinion, rather than cheering on a gallant loser...

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