The Sunday Rumble: 13.1.19

Get fell in, you 'orrible lot!   I trust you all followed my orders and watched the first episode of the TV series that took you inside the, er, 'hallowed halls' of the Parachute Regiment.  Looking back some 60-odd years it struck me as a perfect example of 'everything changes, everything stays the same'.  Obviously the uniforms, the kit and the weaponry were different but the psychological approach to the recruits was the same.  I was worried that perhaps the 'softie, inclusive brigade' might have got to them but no, all the recruits were treated with equal amounts of total shit!  Excellent, so tune in to ITV next Thursday for episode 2.

 

And lo, I am happy today:  Sorry to harp on about my, er, condition which, actually, is perfectly OK especially when I hear about what other people are suffering but this morning I feel great!  Last night I slept like a baby for nearly seven hours instead of the usual getting up and going for a pee every two hours.  Dammit, those 'death rays' might have done the trick already!  I wonder if they will let me off the next four weeks?

 

The uber-PC mob strike again:  I hear that James Watson, one of the three men who discovered the DNA double helix which must have brought untold medical advances to Mankind, has been hounded by sundry self-appointed 'PC Commissars' for remarks he made a few years ago:

He had told a magazine in 2007 he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" as "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - where all the testing says not really".

I have no idea whether that proposition is true or false not least because I do not know what the criteria is by which you define 'intelligence' and how you test it.  Nor do I much care because in my view people are people!

 

Mueller the mule, or the donkey:   And so it goes on and on and on!  As Ms. Clarice Feldman puts it at The American Thinker:

Despite spending millions of dollars, hiring 13 of the most vicious anti-Trump prosecutors available, and having allies in the DoJ and FBI continuing to delay congressional efforts to reveal the machinations of their anti-Trump colleagues, it is increasingly obvious that they have turned up no evidence of any Trump-Russia collaboration. (Something common sense would have indicated at the outset.)

One can only cry to heaven, or Washington, "How long, oh (Lord) Mueller, how long?"

 

A totally useless but fascinating fact:   I have mentioned before my peculiar habit in bed at night - not that one, behave! -  of sticking a radio ear-piece in my ear and listening to whatever is on.  Last night there was a science programme in which some swot informed us about the mysterious lives of viruses.  As the beastly little things can have a devastating effect on our lives I did my best to stay awake and listen.  What struck me enormously was when he told us the size of viruses.  Apparently, if you placed 50,000 of them in a line they would only just cross the diameter of a full stop - like this one.  Crikey!

 

So farewell then, Andy Murray:   A great deal of fuss has arisen over the fate of Mr. Murray, first that he is taking early retirement on medical grounds and second that he had a little cry at his press conference.  Most of it passed me by because first, I think 'plink-plonk' is a totally boring sport - and ladies' 'plink  (long pause) plonk' sends me to sleep!  Also, alas, Mr. Murray comes across to me as a man with whom I would not be over-joyed to share a pint one evening!  That is not to assert that my impression is true, obviously it is not, it is a mere impression.  Even so, crying in public because you can no longer play 'plink-plonk' is pathetic.  Man up, Murray!

 

I say, skipper, steady on!   According to The Mail on Sunday, the captain of a US navy submarine whilst on a break ordered not one, not two but TEN prostitutes to his hotel.  Gosh, those 'Yankee-doodle' sailors are real men!  Apparently, he was later relieved of command and stationed on shore.  Well, poor chap, he probably needed the rest.  I must await the expert opinion of our in-house US Navy correspondent, 'JK', to find out if this is normal behaviour!

 

On Tuesday Britain's 'brown stuff' will hit the fan:   I have avoided the subject of Brexit over recent days n0t just because it brings 'SoD' in here ranting and raving but because frankly I'm bored stiff with it all.  However, beneath my boredom there is an increasing amount of seething fury aimed not just at our useless government but even more so at the majority of hucksters, clowns and crooks who inhabit Parliament.  We didn't ask them to give us a referendum in order to make up what passes for their minds concerning in or out of the EU.  Even so, by a huge majority they did so and received an answer with a clear majority which told them that we wanted OUT!  With the assistance of that vile little toad who sits, or rather, perches on the Chair, they have now shaken British democracy to the foundations of Westminster.  Where it will end, I do not know but I think dangerous times are approaching!

 

No more tonight but I will try my best to tap out something next week as I enter my second dose of 'death ray' treatment!

 

 

 

Comments

[The Jannie]

"I was worried that perhaps the 'softie, inclusive brigade' might have got to them but no, all the recruits were treated with equal amounts of total shit!"
A friend was a senior officer concerned with officer training in one of the services. He retired early because he felt that too many allowances were being made to comply with political correctness.

[Whitewall]

Dr. Watson was and is right and will continue to be right. So much so that what he is right about can not be allowed to be true by the PC culture minders. It is not just Africa.

The PC crowd are advancing a dangerous notion of Radical Egalitarianism. It flies in the face of human experience. This notion is so bad it does not even rise to the level of 'wrong'.

[Whyaxye]

The Jannie:

I heard something similar when I was subcontracted to work with sailors at Portsmouth. They said that discipline was traditionally delivered with astonishingly creative abuse focused upon race, sex, sexual preference, and disability. That had been discontinued, courtesy of the PC Brigade. But the brightest disciplinarians still managed to deliver blistering salvoes which cleverly avoided the proscribed words.

[JK]

Can't say where boats are concerned but as a Section Head (parts of a navy division) I once[?] had the pleasure of leading the "activities/entertainment" committee for an event scheduled for 'three days after, whenever the [hell] it is the Admiral manages, we dock.'

Wracking what passed as my mind then I set to deciding whether darts or horseshoes would be the more entertaining when my Second suggested I 'do a poll' and lo the heavens parted. (Similarly as did the thighs of #1 listed on all the slips I'd collected in response.)

And all these years later I wish to extend my sincere Thank Yous Very Much to the management & staff of JoLo's - working with, especially the staff, couldn't have gone off much sweller!

(And in case any y'all are readers of D&N now - Sorry, I couldn't get the regs-board to go along with my unit citation recommendation.)

[David Duff]

Thank you, JK, you are a No.1 obfuscator of the first order but I think we get the picture!

[Glesga]

The problems the British Armed Forces recruiters have is obesity and young people being brought up by well heeled Liberal hypocritical families who have benefitted from the British economic system but want others to defend their status. My three older brothers did their National Service without complaint. I volunteered to serve and would again if the magic pill was invented. We must give eternal gratitude to the Paras for their D Day actions at Benouville Bridge and holding the line in the bitter fight that ensued almost 75 years ago.

[Loz]

You remember dear old Brian - "Brickie" - and his sea-farin' Navy days stories, Gaffer?

He had a choice phrase to sum up taking the edge off the gaps between onshore visits: "Rum, bum, and baccy".

He also described a glorious bravado initiation ceremony called "Flaming arseholes". You clenched a rolled newspaper between your buttocks while someone lit it, and then you had to climb out of a porthole, reach around, and climb in through another without dropping the newspaper - or falling and being lost at sea!

Oooh arrr, Jim m'lad!

SoD

[Loz]

Ref the B word, I'll lay off it for a while.

I've found a new outlet to dilute myself - trolling the comments of the DT.

Jeez, those guys get uppity - and they make you lot look half sensible.

SoD

[AussieD]

if this is normal behaviour!

Memories of Bugis Street in the '60s immediately spring to mind. Normal had a different interpretation in that little place,

[Loz]

Jeez, OzD, you old Tasmanian devil you! ...

https://mothership.sg/2017/10/bugis-street-was-once-the-place-to-catch-the-dance-of-the-flaming-arseholes/

Just remembered I was born there in 1965. I'm not sure quite what that means.

SoD

[JK]

SoD?

Whyn't you 'spin the yarn out' for the benefit of those of us colonials who may be unaware of how, given there's a bicentennial coming up, a tactic originally developed to frighten the Zulus came to be adopted by your RN fellows?

[Hank]

David

Once a First Sergeant (you would say Company Sergeant Major) explained how things were in the new politically correct modern Army. He no longer had a “sh*t list” of soldiers who incurred his disfavor, he now had a “feces roster.” The function seemed unchanged.

[AussieD]

SoD I never did see that "dance" but Bugis Street was the "must see" place to go for Commonwealth "Pussers" and Aussie troops on R&R from Vietnam.

A complete and total rip off if you wanted any of the "services" on offer and also a good way to get a "dose" as some of my mates can attest to. A hell of a lot of fun to have a beer and watch the antics.

[Loz]

Aha, JK ...

http://the-singapore-lgbt-encyclopaedia.wikia.com/wiki/Haul_%27em_down,_you_Zulu_Warrior

The second recording is worth a listen.

SoD

[Hyam Phokdefarneaux]

A word of correction if I may be so bold. Ladeees tennis is 'plink ,grunt plonk' and therefore unbearable

[backofanenvelope]

I remember sitting in Bugis Street one night. On the next table was an East European merchant sailor. He was hooked up with two of the ugliest women I had ever seen - actual women. Before they moved off the women insisted on a street photographer taking a polaroid shot, which they tucked into his shirt pocket. I have often wondered how he felt the next morning!

[JK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1csr0dxalpI

[Whitewall]

Jk, that was one hell of a film. Seen it numerous times.

[Loz]

I remember seeing it with the Gaffer and Gramps at the fleapit in Sunninghill ...

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/24636

SoD

[Whitewall]

SoD, that looks like a cozy venue.