The current Royal hysteria.

[Alan Wood]

I think this is going way off topic now.

[The Duke]

Bang on topic given they the royals, are the crown, and that is the mark for crown property. The same mark that will be on the grooms dress, and the majority of guests and security.

And tbh so what? This isn’t some tech related issue that a new reader would get lost within. It’s a nothing thread that, as always*, has evolved. It may yet circle back to weddings if that is your true interest.

*a tradition that has followed its parent forum. So it’s hardly a surprise threads evolve here also. If they never, and was just ridged in its content, this forum would just be another cold forum with zero personality, and tbh would have no reason to exist. It’s not like FM has a dedicated reason for existence, bar that the users became friends over a long period of evolving posts. If this wasnt the case, this community would of died 11 months ago.

 

 

[JayCeeDee]

It’s in the Politics section – have you ever had an honest reply from a politician or have they prevaricated and changed the subject????????

[Bob Williams]

Sorry Alan, but that post from Steve is the best combination of mild put-down, explanation and reasoning possible. It isn’t possible to improve upon it, but I do agree with it. We are an assorted bunch of nerds, geeks and ex-everythings who got together over a magazine forum and decided to carry on, with the help of a Yorkshire part-time genius (!) who manages to sometimes keep us all in line.

BTW, Steve, the broad arrow was a part of the wrongful arrest I talked about here once. It was on the broken clasp knife that a local officer wanted me to hold. He passed it towards me “Have you seen this before?” and expected me to grasp it, without noticing that there were no fingerprint tags on it. No tanks, Ossifer!

Remember those clasp knives? The Services must have had millions of them. I gave mine to my dad, who used to cobble all our shoes in the days when you could repair shoes. Dad reckoned it took an edge better than any other knife he had, great steel. I had several from Stores, only had to ask. Mind you, my 2 best mates were an RAOC Sgt. storeman and a Cpl. AAC cook. I was not dumb!

Dad was a cobbler’s apprentice on leaving school at 12 in 1916, taken to the Pit Gates by grandad at 14. That was his life, underground until 65. If there is an actual Heaven, he will be spending it walking in sunshine through green fields and forests.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

I remeber those knifes well (if they was the same ones. Kept on a lanyard in your upper right chest pocket.

I don’t think I ever used it, as we was issued knock off lethwrmans. Really crappy copies, that was soon replaced with a real letherman or gerber, at our own cost!

Same as the majority of pussers kit. Shite!

[Bob Williams]

This was the knife, but I remember the WD broad arrow on it:

 

Then there were copies made, with an inscription, pretty pointless really but Yuppies might have bought them:

Most useful part was the bottle/can opener, which opened Ration Pack cans better than the crappy folding opener in the ration pack. (My favourite was Irish Stew and Oatmeal blocks.)

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Yes that’s the knife. My rat packs cam in silver bags. Boil in the bag stiff. All the mains where horrible. The sweets was OK, and the breakfasts, but oh my you had to be hungry to eat the mains. Especially as we use to eat them cold the majority of the time. Yuk yuk yuk.

I see the old ones, may be American, wad in a tin that heated its contents. Non of that in the 90s, a hexiburner that would take the best part of an hour to boil a mess tim of water, so you’d usually give up and have luke warm food, followed by a warmish wet.

Lol, not said the term ‘wet’ in 20 years. In training you was bollocked for calling it a brew, “why don’t you f-off and become a pongo, if you wanna talk like one”. It was hard for me as it was always a brew to me.

Stupid navel language . I think it has its own name I later learnt. (and then forgotten).

Day one, your given a RM dictionary. God knows what happened to mine. It was Gash. (rubbish)

[Bob Williams]

Cardboard boxes for us, 10-man Ratpacks. I was seen as weird because I liked everything that most others did not: Irish Stew, Oatmeal blocks, tinned bacon, tinned butter.

Contents:

Only thing I didn’t like was the Processed Cheese. Heated up, it was fairly good glue. Hot or cold, it tasted like tinned floor polish. The oatmeal blocks were hated because they gave some squaddies indigestion and diarrheoa. I never had a problem with digesting it, or moving it on afterwards. You could eat them (not all at once – that is what caused the problems) or make adecent porridge with them. Mind you, after a day back in barracks, the bogs — ohhhh, the bogs!!!! ??

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Just wondering what some people are making of the direction this Topic is taking now….?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[JayCeeDee]

Going down the pan – definitely!!

[The Duke]

Lol. Then rations look just as bad, but heavier than mine. And our 24h rat packs was remarkably heavy for what they was.

At least they wasn’t bulky like them you pictured.

[dwynnehugh]

MM  will always be alive in this Forum – still see everything going tangentially. Lets have a 2018 competition and see which posting will remain the most relevant and on topic the longest!!

That’ll be a hard one! ?

 

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[Richard]

During the 1960s some of the MOD ration packs had gone to the Civil Defence and as they aged, they were offered to various bit of the catering lot. I remember one site I looked after, the sales pitch for the tinned corn beef suggested that it was fine to eat, though as it was a bit elderly it might turn out of the tin a bit darkerer than expected. Some was black…, but still fine to eat and the colour would not show through the gravy in the right sort of cottage pie…

For some reason the site did not take up the magnanimous offer, I do not think anyone else was interested either. I am not sure it sounded any better or worse than you ration packs which I guess were largely dehydrated and possible more stable until reconstituted.

[Bob Williams]

Oh yes the corned beef. My mate Dave the ACC cook, had joined as a Para but destroyed his knee in a hard landing.* He remustered as a cook, had actually been a Chef in a big Nottingham restaurant before having a rush of blood to the head and becoming a Cherry Beret. I talked him into coming on Advance Party with me on Unit or NATO exercises: he was a genius with basic Army scran. His corned beef hash was absolutely delicious, he used to get as much of it out of everybody’s Compo packs as he could. He also took his own supply of herbs and other stuff, the lads would queue up for seconds. Being his mate, I fed well.

He eventually got fed up with cooking, left the Army, became a HGV trucker, worked up to a trucking business, got mixed up in a fraud at a closing pit, lost the business, was banged up. Worked up to another business, started shipping to Persia before it became Iran, got out and started taking stuff to Saudi. Some of that included very naughty publications and movies for certain Saudi Big Bods. They were sending gold ingots back with him in sealed compartments, and when he started telling me about that I stopped listening, on the principle that what I don’t know cannot hurt me. He was away during his final week in Saudi when his best mate and partner sold all the remaining trucks, the yard and legged it to Florida with his misssus, leaving his two kids with his mum. Not long after that he lost everything. Last I saw of him, he was alcoholic. Don’t know if he is still alive, but I had enough of watching him trying to drink himself to death and trying to help him.

*Should have given him two ‘chutes: Dave was a very big lad.

 

 

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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