Tony Benn, the political architect of the project on the UK side, was once challenged by an irate Scottish voter about the added E, since it was officially added to represent "Excellence, England, Europe and Entente Cordiale". So Tony Benn added "Écosse". Now I thought this was apocryphal, but a few months ago I was sat next to his son, Hilary Benn, now the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, on a BA service between Boston and London - half his family is American - and he confirmed the story to be true.

Americans have many place names called Concord so it's tricky for them to add the E, whereas Brits tend to get the spelling right since the enduring legacy of the aircraft has meant that there is only one way to spell Concorde.