Just thinking. I don’t think this Spitfire is an aircraft. I think its an aeroplane.

When built it wouldn’t/couldn’t have been “an aircraft,” since “aircraft” was a plural word, signifying more than one airframe. In the 1930s, you could have an aeroplane, or an airship, but you needed two, or more, for them to be called aircraft.
It was some time in the middle of the war that the Air Ministry accepted that the word “aircraft” could be used in the singular.

I am now wondering when the earliest noted use of the broad rudder on a Mk.IX would have been?

Should be around February 1944, since that was the date that it was introduced, as “the Mk.XII” rudder, on the VII, VIII, IX & XI.

She’s better off without the smug sod; he could have used the waiting time to shave, as well.

It’s somewhat ironic that you can be sure that the vast majority of these people, who are busy telling the U.S. what they should do, will be up in arms when the E.U.’s legal arm tries to tell the U.K. how to behave.
One of the saddest items, to come out of this is that one of the victims was the son of an English father and American mother, who, only a few days ago, decided to make their home in a “safe” American town, and sold the house which they’d been hanging on to, just in case they changed their minds about the move.
Give a bit more consideration to the central, suffering, characters, in this, and a bit less to telling another country how to behave; it is, after all, none of our business, and our “ruling classes” are no shining example to hold up for inspection.

It was paid by her ex-employers, not us (unless you buy their woeful rags.)
Can you think of a better way for them to ensure her silence, while (if) she goes inside?

What is more sinister is that a democratic country can produce people that are so mentally disturbed they can kill their parents, women and children.
Also this person has been described as evil. That is just a way of passing the blame. “Oh, he was evil that’s why he did it”. Rubbish. Mentally disturbed, brain washed, psychotic, the inevitable product of a failed capitalist society yes.

Absolute, utter, total, political hogwash; was the Chinese man, who stabbed so many, a member of a “democratic country,” and “the inevitable product of a failed capitalist society?”
Was he heck; people get mentally disturbed, in all walks of life, and trying to excuse, or compartmentalise, them, by blaming a particular political system, is another nice neat way of sweeping the problem under the carpet. Too often we read of the mentally ill being turfed out onto the streets, to let others look after them, to save a little money, and, when they go off the rails completely, we’re told, “Lessons will be learnt.” Yes, right, until the next time, of course.

My father was in the Royal Corps of Signals, and spent 1944 in SHAEF H.Q. He told me how, contrary to all of the later accounts, the Battle of the Bulge was not an all-American affair, but there was also a major input from the Guards, since he watched the battle develop on the wall maps.
Montgomery saw what was happening and got his troops moving, from the North, before anyone else, and they joined up with the Americans coming up from the South. Before anyone starts on at me, read Charles Whiting’s book “The Battle of the Bulge Britain’s Untold Story,” which confirms what my father said; it wouldn’t have been easy, since he couldn’t stand Montgomery, calling him a stuck-up prig.
He also told me how, on his arrival at the H.Q., Eisenhower endeared himself to every ordinary soldier; while he was being shown round, he was shown his private toilet.
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” and he turned to indicate the men nearby, saying, “If these men are good enough to die for me, they’re good enough to p–s with me.”
“After that,” said Dad, “We’d have done anything for him.”

Does anyone know the truth? Can anyone speculate? Could this be a genuine hoax? I think we should be told.

You’ll find it in the Wash, with the rest of the fortune that the then-King lost.