Last week I received a large envelope in the mail from the International Napoleonic Society, an organisation I’ve had nothing at all to do with outside of the fact that their Vice-President J. David Markham has been my co-host on the Napoleon podcast for the last couple of years.

Inside the envelope was a folder containing lots of Napoleonic literature as well as this letter:

As you can see, it says that I am being made a “Fellow” of the society for my contributions to the remembrance of Napoleon. Do you think I’m the first podcaster to be made a Fellow of a historical society for his/her contributions to the field? It is a very great honour and I’ve been feeling both extremely grateful as well as extremely undeserving. I mean what do I do except hit the record button when David talks? The only thing I ever really did was have the idea to do the show and then talk David into it. When I rang David to thank him, he pointed out that the show now has 30,000 listeners every month and that very few Napoleonic books published sell 30,000 copies, so our little show is having a pretty big impact on spreading the word about Napoleon’s place in history.

The letter is signed by INS President Ben Weider, who is also co-founder of the International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) along with brother Joe Weider who is the guy who brought Arnie to the United States.

You’ll also notice that Prince Albert of Monaco is the Honorary President of the INS. No “Prince Albert” jokes necessary, thank you.

Now that I’ve achieved this honour, I feel a little closer to my dream award, a Légion d’honneur, established by Napoléon on May 19, 1802. The Grand Master of the Order? Nicolas Sarkozy. I wonder if any Australians have been inducted into the Order before? I know Canadian Ben Weider is. So are Americans David Lynch and Clint Eastwood. So perhaps I have a chance one day. I wonder what I’d need to do to be worthy?