History on Trial 'optioned'

Historian Deborah Lipstadt's account of the libel suit brought by David Irving after she called him a Holocaust denier has been optioned (whatever that means) for a movie. As Lipstadt says, that's a long way from buying your popcorn and settling down for the previews, but if it happens it might be interesting. I see Ian McKellen as Irving, Kate Winslet as Lipstadt and Tom Cruise as Richard Evans. You need big names for a courtroom drama.

Irving, by the way, has a blog. Scrolling through lackadaisically, I found this in a post from Denver during Irving's triumphal selling-books-from-the-trunk-of-his-car U.S. tour last year (scroll down to September 2):

The Leftist-agitator Mr Martin phones me politely at seven p.m., no doubt from the Embassy Suites, to ask where the meeting is, as he "cannot find" it. Small wonder. I say: "Nor will you! I am refunding your registration fee. Goodnight," and hang up. I refund Martin's credit card payment online, before he can complain, and hit my bed after midnight.

It's even a pull quote at the top of the page. My memory differs slightly on the details, but, close enough for historical work.

What's our pal Irving up to these days, anyway? Well, he says he's found new documents that prove his figure of 135,000 (or maybe 250,000) deaths in the Dresden firebombing. Scroll down to April 24, and check out the comments under part 1 of the Russian documentary on the event he links to on his main website page. "Compromised frontal lobes." Jesus H. Christ on a Big Wheel.