Now you've given me an excuse to re-read to search for the Mikado reference!

Certainly all the history I knew before I read the books fitted, and a lot I've learned since also tallied. I know DD had huge notebooks full of research.

As for slapping Lymond, I'd like to do an awful lot more to him than that, some of it quite unsuitable for a respectable middle-aged teacher... I do seem to have a thing for blue-eyed blond men of athletic physique.