THIS whinge is a common, indeed comical, strain throughout all Lipstadt's articles about the trial: shock, horror, bafflement, and amazement that she is expected to prove that what she wrote is true.
   To an historian this seems so self-evident that the dismay of Professor Lipstadt seems almost laughable, and places her firmly beyond the pale of proper scholarship.
   The reasons that Mr Irving commenced the legal action in England are simple: among others, he is an English citizen, resident in England; Lipstadt was peddling her book for profit within the jurisdiction of the English courts; and the New York Times vs. Sullivan protection afforded to libellers in the USA would have made it nonsense to prefer an American venue for the trial -- quite apart from the hostility shown by US law courts to litigants in person.