Hello and welcome to the Battleground 44 podcast with me, Saul David.

Today I'm joined by comedian and historian Al Murray, who with James Holland, co-hosts our hugely popular sister podcast, We Have Ways, which of course discusses all things World War II.

Now, today we're going to talk about Al's new book, Arnhem Black Tuesday.

We're hearing that numbers are shifting quite rapidly already, Al.

I know you don't like to you know assume anything in advance but

it is looking quite good isn't it yes it seems to be it seems to be moving i mean it i'm always wary of

getting too gripped by the numbers because as a comedian i used to know um back in the day right

he he was completely obsessed with how he was selling at edinburgh in particular and so one year he played

120 seat and he sold it out for the entire three and a half weeks so the next obsessed with how he was selling at Edinburgh in particular. And so one year he played 120

Sita and he sold it out for the entire three and a half weeks. So the next year he booked a

300-seater and he sold 120 tickets every day for the entire three and a half weeks.

So you know, you've got to be wary of where your ceiling might be and all that sort of stuff.

So I'm, I sort of try and remain, I try and remain sort of in a state of nomic grace. I mean, I've, although I've had plenty of nights lying away thinking, is that bit rubbish, have I got the wrong way round, you know, and all that sort of thing. Because the last book I did command was a series of essays really and a sort of series of essays where I

tried to look at things for a different angle each time for each person each person in the book

whereas this is you know I'm I'm taking on one of the sort of be amoths of um or standards I

think it's rather like it's rather like trying to play you know a jazz stand at this and bring

something you know a Miles Davis standards try and bring something to it. I feel I've tried to do that. But there we are. So I'm a much more nervous of it because also there are lots of people who know this battle inside out and they feel like it belongs to them as well. So that's quite an interesting business to be running into. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of Zulu, this sort of iconic moment in British military history. And when I wrote a book, however good the book was, there were still people who wanted to take me to task. So you might get a bit of that, but I think the only signs are very encouraging. Terrific review in the times so far, Al. I mean, having read your Zulu book, Saul, when I was at Rourke's Drift. I couldn't disagree with many of your conclusions about the landscape.

Yeah, well... I mean, having read your Zulu book, Saul, when I was at Rourke's Drift, I couldn't disagree with many of your conclusions about the landscape.

Yeah, well, thanks out.

Okay, now, before we get on to the book, I should just mention, because I don't think he's mentioned enough, actually.

We've got this monster that is goalhanger.

It's our production company for all of us. But before anyone in the world had heard of, the rest is, history, politics, football, entertainment, money, the list goes on and on.

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