I have a soft spot for Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, which was built between 1934-36 and mothballed seventy-odd years later. Yes, it is a symbol of Nazi Germany but, even though its pedigree is suspect, the audacious sweep of the curved building, the 50m-wide canopy to cover the aircraft and its intimidating scale – like all Nazi-era public buildings it was intended to make you feel very small indeed – was and is very impressive.

Souce: Berliner Flughäfen/Archiv

Sir Norman Foster called it the ‘mother of all airports’ – after all, the main terminal building is a stunning 1.2 kilometres long. It also featured in my novel about the Berlin Airlift of 1948, Dying Day, re-issued this week by Open Road as an e-book in the USA (see http://www.openroadmedia.com) and I spent a fair amount of time back in 2006-7 poking around the airport.

So I thought it was a shame when Tempelhof closed to air traffic in 2008. Since then it has entered a twilight phase – the main runways have morphed into a popular public park, but the vast and iconic terminal buildings are only used for ad hoc fashion and music events. A recent conversation with Burkhard Kieker, CEO of Berlin Tourism, however, suggested that there might be an interesting future for the building.  ‘A long section of the roof was designed to support a hundred thousand people – so they could welcome Hitler when he landed and listen to his speeches. My vision is to turn that into something like the High Line in New York – an aerial park, with trees and shrubs and cafes.’

It’s a great idea. Much is being made by Berlin of the 25th anniversary of the wall coming down in November. 2018, though, is the 70th anniversary of the  Airlift, an almost equally important bookmark in the city’s history. It would be very apposite to have something opening on the roof of Tempelhof by then, overlooking the field where the constant flights saved the city from starvation.

The American company Open Road is to publish most of my backlist as e-books only in the USA. All have new covers, but I particularly like this one for The Last Sunrise because it finally gets a Flying Tiger on the front.

This from Marcel Berlins’ crime round-up:

The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan
Dr John Watson was not, it seems, quite as dim as he’s portrayed in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Robert Ryan (with the consent of the Conan Doyle estate) reveals his true mettle. The Dead Can Wait is in no sense a pastiche, but a seriously good, very readable, well-researched novel incorporating the First World War, detection and espionage. It is 1916. Watson has become an expert on the injuries and mental traumas suffered by soldiers in battle. The British are secretly developing a new kind of weapon. But, in its first test, seven men involved become insane, then die spectacularly. The sole survivor is rendered mute. Watson is commanded to discover the causes of the tragedy, but there are foreign spies around and enemies within.
The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan, Simon and Schuster, 463 pp, £18.99. To buy this book for £14.99, visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134

The novel is partly set on ‘the most lethal road in England’, of which more later:

The Winter Games at Sochi is the fiftieth anniversary of Britain’s greatest ever bobsleigh victory, when Tony Nash and Robin Dixon (above) took on the mighty Eugenio Monti of Italy and grabbed the Gold at Innsbruck ’64. It is tale full of daring, drama, drinking and exemplary sportsmanship. You can read the full story here: http://tinyurl.com/oq8l4t4

The BBC has released the first trailer (below) for the two-part Great Train Robbery film, ‘inspired by’ (as the credit have it) my novel Signal Red (as in ‘kickstarted’, which was its actual role; the finished product isn’t a film of the book). The first of the pair, A Robber’s Tale concentrates on Bruce Reynolds (Luke Evans); the second, A Copper’s Tale, centres on the dour but dedicated policeman Tommy Butler (Jim Broadbent). The screenplays are by Chris Chibnall (Dr Who, Camelot, Law & Order, United, Broadchurch), but with different directors, DOPs and editors, each has a strikingly different feel, although they both have at their core a powerful central performance from the lead actor. They are scheduled to be shown ‘soon’ – most likely before Christmas. STOP PRESS: Films now due to be shown on December 18th and 19th.

Well, talk about last minute, but we finally got a working edit of the new promo trailer for Dead Man’s Land. It features actress/singer Janie Dee reading Mrs Gregson’s little ‘rant’ early on in the book. It was recorded in her kitchen, with builders above and children doing homework, making drinks and chatting below and it is remarkable that it came together at all. Yet after every interruption, the talented Ms Dee dropped seamlessly back into character (about which she had extracted more than I knew I knew from me). There were a few volume issues, mainly because I kept moving the microphone (yes, I should have done it in a studio – everyone, including Janie, told me that), but I think that is sorted. So, I am going to show it (there are visuals as well) at the Barts event on Wednesday 13th, along with the new silent Sherlock short. Book here: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/autumn-seminar-6-dr-watson-in-the-spotlight-tickets-7847286445?aff=eorg

A little housekeeping on the event from organiser Carla Valentine if you are coming along:

Dear All,
To those who have not attended before (and also those who have) there are some works going on in the courtyard at Barts Hospital. They won’t cause a problem for you entering the museum but may make visibility of the correct entrance more difficult. 

All the directions are on our museum info page as usual: http://www.potts-pots.blogspot.co.uk/p/museum-info.html and they will make it incredibly easy for you to find the entrance to the museum from the Main Gate (Henry VIII Gate)
If you don’t enter the courtyard via the main gate (which is the one on West Smithfield, opposite the meat market, consisting of a huge concrete arch) then I suggest just circulating the courtyard until you reach it and going from there.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,
Regards,
Carla

There is an evening of “Dr Watson in the Spotlight” at the Bart’s Pathology Museum coming up. This venue, as regular readers will know, is the rather wonderful former teaching space in Bart’s Hospital that looks like a set from the latest series of Ripper Street. It is in the same complex of building where Sherlock Holmes is reputed to have first met Dr Watson (‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive’) and where Conan Doyle both worked and wrote. On Wednesday November 13, there will be the premiere of a short silent film by Celine Terranova called Sherlock Holmes and the Stolen Emerald, done in ‘steampunk’ style and filmed at the museum. That will be followed by a talk from me about Watson’s medical career in World War 1 – how he came to be there and what he would be doing. There might also be a new trailer for Dead Man’s Land if we edit it in time. And a raffle to win the film and the book. The doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start (finish by 9pm) and costs £6.50, including refreshments (wine or soft drinks). As the museum is not open to the public, coming to an event is the only way to get past the doors into this wonderful world of medical curiosities. See http://potts-pots.blogspot.co.uk and book on http://bartsautumn6-eorg.eventbrite.co.uk.
And here is another chance to see Assistant Technical Curator Carla Valentine explaining about Bart’s and Holmes and Watson:

It seems to have taken an age, but DML is finally out in paperback today. There should have been a new video to go with it, but technical issues (as we call my incompetence) means there isn’t. So here is the previous video to be going on with.

Holly Smale, 32, started modeling at 15 before leaving the industry to study English Literature and an M.A. at Bristol University. She is the author of the very successful blog The Write Girl and the novel, Geek Girl (Harper Collins), is out now. Single, she lives in South London. Geek Girl: Model Misfit is published by HarperCollins at £6.99 RRP.
I have this terrible urge to travel that builds and builds inside me until it just goes pop and I have to leave. It’s a very powerful drive. When I finished Geek Girl I turned to my parents — I was living at home at the time — and said: ‘I’m going travelling to India and Nepal. In three days.’ They were used to it by then and I could see them steeling themselves for the phone calls in the small hours because the truth is I am a very klutzy traveller. I do things like leave my bank card on a bus or get mugged – I’ve been mugged twice, once in Hollywood, which rather took the edge of the glamour, and once in Australia. I realise I am meant to be a grown up now, so I have to stop relying on my parents to bail me out – I’ve recently discovered travel insurance, much to their relief.
I probably get my love of travelling from my dad. My mum doesn’t like it at all, which is probably why when we were little we stuck relatively close to home, France and Italy, but once my sister and I got a little older my dad insisted on something more adventurous – Egypt, Dubai, Morocco.

So, after Geek Girl, I did head off three days later to Delhi and it turned out to be more of a culture shock than I was prepared for and I did have a little bit of a weepy meltdown. I had lived in Japan for two years, working as a teacher, and I thought I could cope with any alien culture after that. But India was on another level. But the meltdown passed, I began to enjoy myself and the country, and I travelled to Varanasi on the Ganges, which is about as remote from clean, ordered Japan as you can get, and on to Goa and then flew to Nepal where I sat in the rain for three weeks. It wasn’t the wet season – it was meant to be dry. But it just poured every day. The teahouses were full of miserable looking climbers in their fleeces and hiking boots. It was like waiting for a bus – I should have given up but after a few days I thought, I’ve invested so much time in this, what if I leave now and tomorrow it clears up? And every weather forecast always said it would. I went to Pokara with its lake and the Anapurna range as a backdrop, which is meant to be stunning – and the mist was down to the water. In the end I left Nepal without seeing a mountain, which must be some sort of record. I think I got my taste for travelling alone from a school trip to Moscow, which actually allowed us a lot more freedom than that suggests, it certainly seemed freer than travelling with parents. So once I finished school I took a gap year and headed for Australia by myself. To be honest, I am not sure I really plugged into the country, more the backpacker trail, meeting other people from home. But I was eighteen, so it was first steps.

I did get to see the Whitsunday Islands, perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. And seven years later, I was living at home again and trying to write a very serious book about, well, about death and I think I was driving my parents mad being terribly artistic. My dad thrust a newspaper and under my nose for ‘the best job in the world’, as ‘caretaker’ of Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. So I applied and I did get to the last batch of fifty but then in interview admitted I really wanted somewhere to finish a book. Which, quite rightly, scuppered my chances.

So having not got that I decided I had to do something and I went off to Japan. I was offered a chance to go there when I was modelling, but my mum said no and I was secretly relieved – I was only 15. I spent some time teaching English through drama in Yokohama but then moved way south to Nichinan, a little fishing village and I taught the children of the fishermen and rice farmers English. The nearest city was Myazaki, over an hour’s drive away and it was also the closest Starbucks. So every few weeks I’d get on my scooter and do a Starbucks run along the coast road. It is a fabulous part of Japan – the climate is Mediterranean, there are palm trees and my parents came to visit and thought it was like the Riviera. And the beautiful beaches are all empty. The Japanese do not sunbathe, it is culturally unacceptable – only surfers get away with a suntan — so if you saw anyone laid out on a towel on the beach, you could bet it was a foreigner, of which there were about twelve in the whole region.
The problem with having spent so long in Japan is that it has spoiled me for everywhere else. By the time I left after two years I felt I was finally getting under the skin and it’s made me realise what a superficial experience most of our travelling is. I really want to go to China, but I don’t want to just tick off the sightseeing boxes. Still, I can’t let that put me off – I added up recently that I’d been to 21 countries so far and I started hyperventilating in panic – it’s just not enough. I’ve got to get travelling again, I can feel my inner nomad ready to pop.