Well, when I say “MI6″, I mean “Pinewood Studios“, where many of the James Bond films were, ah, filmed. It’s gone.

(Or, at least, smoldering).

(Or does Bond work for MI-5? I can never remember).

If ever it should be asked, “What is the hallmark of a great biography?” let this serve as my carefully considered response.

Going into the second volume of The Last Lion (well, heck, the first!), the reader knows the outcome, the reader knows what key events shall transpire that make the name of Winston Churchill synonymous with freedom and anti-Nazism. If the reader was, somehow, unaware of any of this, the author is quick to remind in the beautiful, haunting prose, “What [Hitler] did not know was the keenness with which Churchill was watching him, or how doggedly Churchill would stalk him for twelve years, until the Fuhrer of the Third Reich lay dead by his own hand in the ruined Reich Chancellery garden, a corpse enveloped by the writing flames of a Viking funeral, while the blackened hulks of what had once been Berlin collapsed all around him.” [The Last Lion, Vol. 2. pg. 79]

And yet knowing the end, knowing that Churchill will find his political redemption, the love of the people to whom he serves, his farsightedness and keen awareness yet again justified, none of this diminishes the anticipation to which the pages shall be devoured. And as I devoured those pages, as I read about the growing danger of Nazi Germany, as it rearmed in violation of the Treaty of Versailles; as I read about Churchill trying to convince his government, and that of France, to use that rearmament as a reason to invade and remove the Hitler threat to the continent; as I read about the understandable aversion in British political circles to another war which could cost an even higher price when the butcher came calling, and the great sympathies felt by many ministers towards Hitler, in part motivated by the high cost of Versailles, and resulting in lax enforcement against German rearmament; and as I read about Churchill’s growing resistence, as an isolated, partyless minister, in the “wilderness”, building a network of informants keeping him apprised of the true scale of German’s military preparedness than other members of government were willing to give to the British people; as I read all of this, and as I turn each page with trembling fingers, despite that which I know in my head, my heart beats faster and faster: will Churchill succeed in persuading his beloved island empire to take a tougher stance against Germany? Will Churchill find his return to prominance, and his forecast of war with Germany proven both correct, and his unacknowledged warnings a reminder to that which could have been avoided? (Avoided, of course, had Britain’s leaders not been engaging in the “manipulations in the interests of political expediency and what amounted to treachery — compromising England’s very existance.” [pg. 111])

The answer to all, of course, a solid “yes.”

And the fact that my heart beats faster and faster the further into the book I get, and despite the fact that my head knows that Churchill shall find his victories, and for ever more be a hero of the freedom loving world, all I can think is that the hallmark of a great biography is that the reader forgets he is reading a history of person, and instead falls prey to a variation on that old maxim, in this case, “truth surely is stranger and more interesting then fiction.” And should that thought occur while reading such a book, then certainly the biographer has more than met his goals in attempting to capture, in words, the essence of a man’s life.

What a great night. Steady all the way up until nine, when the late guy got sent home, then just plain busy. My last delivery was to a nice spread up near Monkton, where a very cute, very adorable, very hot college-aged coed walked out to the driveway to greet me. Her first words were, “Dude, I’m trashed.”

She insisted that I bring the food back to the pool area, where I was quickly talked into chugging a beer. I was trying to talk them into just letting me have “one for the road” (i.e., for when I got home), but they kept insisting, and in what their words failed to convince, her boobs — not that I got to see them, er, in the flesh, but just bouncing as she jumped up and down clapping her hands and chanting “please please please” — did the job.

They were 22. I’m 27. They were drinking Miller Light, and handed me a can. I don’t drink much, and I’m a lightweight, but when I do drink, I drink European Ales, and after I polished off the beer, the guys and gals around me were starring in awe. I wonder where they went to college, ‘cuz seriously, 22 years old and they’re having trouble polishing off some Miller Light? Pft.

Damn she was cute. I shoulda taken a photo.

(of her boobies!)

(Usually — which is to say, every day other than tonight — I don’t condone drinking and driving. But, it was just one beer, and y’know, does Miller Light even count?!)