Bet it misses the Czars...

There was a great deal of soul-searching done by the British pre-Falklands about whether or not civilian ships requisitioned by the MoD under the STUFT scheme could legally be armed with AA defenses. It was decided that they could not.

Good stuff! Only change I disapprove of is removing the prelude.

Except Fey and Poehler were doing Cosby jokes back when he was still America's dad and not America's creepy uncle. They're the reason the lion is limping in the first place.

The whole crisis is good news for Belarus though, which is nice for them, because that country could do with catching a break.

It's quite common to top pizza with mascarpone, which is excellent.

Same. I gave up on it because, while the animation is very clever and competent, I don't want to feel like I need to delete my browsing history after every episode.

The eminent American armor historian Steve Zaloga apparently used to break into real M48 Pattons as a boy - his local National Guard unit kept tanks in a big field near his hometown, with the hatches secured with nothing more than a padlock. A more innocent time.

The Soviets ditched the Me-262's axial-flow engine design as soon as they could and went with a reverse-engineered Rolls-Royce Nene, a far superior engine, for the MiG-15. There's not much evidence that American engine designs were that influenced by the 262 either. The 262 was aerodynamically impressive - largely…

No way - the Sabre's pretty and all, but it can't come close to the taut beauty of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15.

It seems to have been the Me-262, which beat the British Gloster Meteor by a single day.

Here's something from Britain, where Christmas is done in style, that might make the list in future: bread sauce.

"Conveniently enough for the Germans, Adolf Hitler planned on invading Norway."

Very good Columbo. Thanks very much! Interesting stuff. Not sure how the North Koreans will be rescuing people from submarines but I suppose its good for the poor buggers who have to crew that bucket of bolts that there's some tiny sliver of hope for their final miserable hours waiting as they run out of oxygen at…

Huh - couple of inches of snow and North Korea looks presentable. He's got fatter in these photos. Interesting.

Never meet your heroes. Except my hero was Neil Gaiman, and I met him at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and he was lovely. So never meet your heroes, unless your hero is Neil Gaiman.

Yeeeeeees, because only American wait staff give a good service. Not people in other industries. Not waiters outside the US. Nope. Never happens.

When I was in America I was told it was because American servers draw such crummy wages that if you don't tip, they don't get paid.

" Even though this metallic beast looks futuristic, it's running on a leaf springs and drum brakes – a far cry from the super-capable suspensions seen on other next generation armored cars, such as Panhard's CRAB and IMI's Combat Guard."

It's called "ginger" in my neck of the woods. Or "fizzy juice".