Gavin Mortimer

I've been in Bayeux this week. Not to admire the tapestry but to plant a cross on the grave of Private Thomas Bintley, one of the 4,144 British and Commonwealth servicemen who lie in the immaculate cemetery on the outskirts of the town. Bintley parachuted into Normandy on the night of 17 August, one of a small team of SAS troops, and three days later he was killed in a skirmish with German troops. A local man was made to dig the Englishman's grave and while he did so, he later testified, the Waffen SS 'danced on the corpse of Bintley'. Having found Bintley's grave I walked among the forest of white headstones, a rare British pilgrim in a summer unusually quiet for battlefield tourists. A couple of inscriptions caught my eye, such as the one on the headstone of 20-year-old Lt.

One of the most craven moments in the recent history of the British media was an interview Sky News conducted with the French writer Caroline Fourest days after the staff of Charlie Hebdo had been massacred in January 2015. Fourest was a former columnist for the satirical magazine and a friend to many of the dead. To show her contempt for the extremism that was responsible for the murders, she held up a copy of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo, on the front of which was the Prophet Mohammed. The panicky Sky newsreader admonished Forest and then apologised to any viewers who ‘may have been offended’. France was appalled and the clip appeared on their primetime news as evidence of how terrified the vast majority of the British media was of offending Islam.

By the time I was 15, I had put two rugby players in hospital. I broke the arm of one and knocked the other unconscious. Both were legitimate tackles, I was just better developed: bigger, stronger and more aggressive than my opponents. I got my comeuppance in New Zealand when, as a 19-year-old, I launched myself at a Polynesian second row in an Under-21 match. I have a photo on my wall of the aftermath of my attempted tackle. My face is a tapestry of pain: a broken nose, a broken cheekbone, one eye black and the other glazed with concussion. I came off lightly by comparison to Max Brito. He was an enthusiastic but inexperienced winger for the Ivory Coast in the 1995 World Cup; three minutes into their game against Tongan a ferocious tackle left Brito paralysed below the neck.

For once I find myself on the other side of the argument in agreeing that 'Big Chief', the erstwhile tomahawk-wielding mascot of the Exeter Chiefs rugby club, deserved to be axed. He was an affront to Native Americans, perpetuating the calumny that their ancestors were – to quote the Declaration of Independence – 'merciless Indian savages'. Exeter has retired their mascot but retained their 'chiefs' moniker, explaining that they have gone by the nickname for nearly a century. Rugby clubs in Devon had a tradition of referring to their 1st XV as the 'chiefs' and that is why it was chosen in 1999 when the club wanted a gimmicky name.

Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument was raging, with the country split between those who wanted the wearing of gas masks to be made compulsory on pain of financial penalty, and those who maintained it should be an individual choice. Unlike today's virus, the threat facing the country in the summer of 1940 was a destructive Nazi war machine that in a matter of months had torn through most of western Europe. Britain was next in Hitler's sights and an aerial gas attack was what the government feared most. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain's government, aided by a coterie of academics and intellectuals, launched its own 'Project Fear'.

Two well-known women were degraded last week as Britain continues to be ethically cleansed. The first was Nancy Astor, whose statue in Plymouth was dubbed with the word 'Nazi'. The second was Baroness Nicholson, honorary vice-president of the Booker Prize Foundation, who was relieved of her duties after her views on trans issues and gay marriage were judged insufficiently respectful. ‘The issues are complex but our principles are clear,’ the Foundation said in justifying their decision. ‘We deplore racism, homophobia and transphobia and do not discriminate on any grounds.’ Is there any difference between those who defiled Astor and those who demeaned Nicholson? Only, it would appear, that the latter are more civil in their intolerance.

Winston Churchill: hero or villain? That was the question the BBC asked on its website on 10 June. It caused outrage in some quarters, but was Auntie taking its revenge for the humiliation it suffered at Churchill's libertarian hands during the second world war? In the summer of 1940, a movement was launched in Britain called the 'People's Convention', which brought together a disparate alliance of Marxists, socialists and pacifists. Among its most prominent backers were Robin Page Arnot, Harry Pollitt, and Willie Gallacher, all veteran communists.

Seven weeks confined to a city apartment changes a man. Trees, for example, have never been a particular passion of mine but recently I've spent many happy moments studying the plane tree outside my bedroom window, and in particular the magpies' nest therein. On Saturday a baby magpie emerged from the nest and edged tentatively along a branch. There it stayed for several minutes until it retreated to the security of its nest. On Sunday, the Observer reported that a similar nervousness now afflicts the British. According to the paper, fewer than one in five of the public believe the time is right to end the lockdown. Britain is not alone in its apprehension.

The mayor of Paris's 20th arrondissement has asked residents of her neighbourhood to stop denouncing each other. 'When it's a question of violence against women or children, or selling drugs, I'm still all ears,' said Frédérique Calandra this week. 'But these calls stigmatising Parisians who wish only to get a breath of fresh for a few minutes, they're unacceptable.' Passing on a message from the police, Calandra told people to stop denouncing their neighbours for petty infractions of the confinement regulations because it was overwhelming their emergency phone lines. In reporting the case, Le Parisien newspaper headlined its story 'Halte à la délation', which is the word for passing on information to the authorities.