rockershovel

It was common in Azerbaijan, revolting stuff. Referred to as "pyjama bacon" because it came in strips with evenly distributed pink and white stripes. One of the hotels I stayed in, I think the Kempinski had a "British breakfast" consisting of boiled or poached eggs, smoked salmon, toast with butter and marmalade, cereal or porridge and orange juice. They also did "Finnan haddock", or kedgeree which was all rather good. Breakfast or Earl Grey tea on request. If you wanted a REAL treat they offered beef sausages with mashed potato and onion gravy for dinner, or beef steak and mushroom pie... I do recall a quite pathetic attempt at breakfast on BA from Tehran to LHR in 2005 or so. There's nothing so simple that BA can't pinch the pennies and spoil it, and that extends to Business Class. They have a general practice of loading planes once for the return flight, which can mean short Commons all round on the homeward leg.

I'd regard it as a venture into the expanding world of television. This didn't work out and he returned to the stage. In some ways you could regard it as a fore-runner to Mr Bean.

- Godfrey is shown to have a MM awarded for his work as a stretcher-bearer in WW1 - Wilson was a Captain in the artillery(?) in WW1 - Fraser and one of the others go out to lay obstacles in the path of a tank - a suicidal errand. There is no tank, but they don't know that. - Jones is mostly depicted as an addled veteran of wars long since forgotten even then, but his chest full of medals is quite impressive A couple of my great-uncles were in the Home Guard. Don't forget that conscription age was 35 or so; these were mostly combat veterans in their forties and fifties in 1940

I've done rotations of 90 days on, 30 off - sometimes known as a "Yankee" because its mostly an American thing. Sometimes it's 10 weeks on, 3 off or 11 on, 3 off but it's much the same. Most recently in Sakhalin. Australian and NZ personnel in ME commonly work 6 months straight through. This used to be quite common fir merchant seamen. Captain Ericson from The Cruel Sea is described as being away from home for several months at a time in the 1930s.

The Phillipines actually have State funded training courses for deck crew, hospitality and catering staff. I've had plenty of experience of bo'suns, deck foremen and the like and they know their business.

Dad's Army also has that important ingredient often omitted, pathos. The episode concerning Wilsons appointment to his own branch is pure drama, you KNOW it won't end well. The sustained running gag about the unseen Mrs Mainwaring is essentially at Mainwaring's expense, as is the episode in which he pursues a potentially career-ending flirtation in the tea-shop

Keeping Up Appearances could charitably be described as "clichéd and under-written" but Hyacinth "Bouquet" Bucket is a gem, my late ma could be just like that....

I saw a version of this in which Malvolio appeared in plus-fours with vividly patterned yellow golf socks, matching tie and two-tone shoes. It worked very well, being conspicuous, out of character and rather absurd - but you COULD see a younger, more handsome man cutting a dash in a similar outfit.

Pure genius. Some of the best character comedy around.

Dads Army is COMPLETELY about English petty snobbery and social standing. Look at the relationship between the very middle class Mr Mainwaring and his supposed subordinate, the louche and at times dreamy but very much socially superior Wilson (whose knack of handling the platoon is ultimately revealed to be due to his WW1 combat experience) Jones is a complex character. There is his barbed tradesman/bank manager relationship with Mainwaring, along with his unthinking respect for Mainwaring's "commission" (which he shows at times, he is well aware isn't a true commission at all). It's also implied that Jones and probably Godfrey and Fraser know that Wilson holds a commission, and should properly be in command. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of Jones, because he controls the meat ration. There's the neat bait-and-switch regarding Godfrey's WW1 experience. Everyone (with the possible exception of Godfrey, and certainly Pike himself) knows perfectly well that Wilson is probably Pike's father. Mainwaring looks down on Joe the spiv, but still wants to do business with him... There is Jones' late marriage to Mrs Fox (was she the same actress who came on at the end in the Morecambe and Wise Show ?) The pompous, bullying Verger and ARP Warden, and the unctuous, ineffectual Vicar are straight out of the pages of Dickens, and more recent radio comedy of the 1950s and 1960s. I don't suppose it does travel well.

I've found that withdrawing entirely from modern thinking solves a lot of problems. I saw part of the "black Anne Boleyn" and found it unwatchable. THE WHOLE POINT of the Boleyn family is that they were people "of their time" and to assert otherwise is nonsense. Same goes for Bridgerton and the cringingly "socially correct" Downton Abbey. There was a whole documentary the other night "rethinking our attitudes to Tudor Britain" because one of the skeletons from Mary Rose appears to be African. The Tudors weren't stupid, they were well aware of Africa. It's hardly news that seamen might be from almost anywhere; read any sea story from Moby Dick to the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin stories and occasional Africans appear.

I can't imagine Blazing Saddles being made today.....

Khyber and to a lesser extent, Cowboy are much the best of the Carry Ons. The dining room scene in Khyber is a classic piece of dead-pan slapstick.

The times they are a-changin' - the death penalty was really politically untenable when it was suspended, and eventually shelved altogether. There had been too many difficult cases, particularly Craig and Bentley and the Rillington Place murders, in which Tim Evans may well have gone to the gallows on the testimony of the likely culprit.

Lenin was a minor aristocrat, or at least land-owning minor gentry supporting himself on "family money" during his exile in Switzerland. He was well aware of the danger posed by the middle and upper-middle classes, in early Soviet times the possession of a wristwatch could lead to execution. He was also the originator of the policy of "mobilising the intelligentsia", by which he meant not only the academic elite but also anyone with a good secondary or any tertiary education.

The Tony Martin case was a difficult one revolving around the realities of rural policing.

Perhaps it's time to revive the practice of "outlawry" by which individuals can be declared beyond the protection of the law, liable to be constrained or shot on sight. That, or the medieval practice of oath-taking, by which the accused was liable to produce supporters to take oaths for his good behaviour, on pain of their entire worldly goods being forfeit? If anyone can suggest any legitimate reason for possessing such a weapon, I'd be interested to hear it.

Leaving aside the likes of Penny "Dolphins" Mordaunt and that ex-military back-bencher whose name escapes me..... Quite so. I was absolutely appalled by the decision of the government of the day to send in the RAF to assist in the destabilisation of the N African littoral a few years ago. The likely consequences were obvious to anyone acquainted with the region.

Oh, I don't know. My late father was given to referring to servicemen in general as "some other mothers' son".

Orwell couldn't define Fascism, and I'm not going to try. One thing I DO recall from those distant days of A Level British Constitution, is the proposal that Fascism was an intrinsically European concept deriving from the contiguous, landlocked Empires of that Continent, in which the State could exert a degree of control unknown in the widely dispersed British Empire and North American region. Hence the rise of Fascism post-WW1 was the result of specifically European circumstances in which the infrastructure remained largely intact, and the people confined, while the Soviet version of State controlled totalitarianism took place amid forced industrialisation at a tremendous pace.

I've long held the view that no Cabinet Minister should be allowed to put our Armed Forces in harms way, who has not themselves served or has a next of kin who would accompany them. Perhaps we might extend the principle. No legal representative should be allowed to represent such defendants without having experienced violence of this nature. I always had a deeply ambiguous view of the activities of Greenpeace, but anyone prepared to sail under the bows of a Japanese whaler, or abseil up a derelict oil platform is a braver man than me and has earned a hearing. Perhaps the "Human Rights" circus would also benefit from some equivalent jeopardy - Perhaps "if they go, you go with them"? Whatever else might be said about Admiral Byng, there's no doubt that he DID "encourager les autres" for many years

Depends on your definition of "sinister" but they are definitely a "sinister" organisation in the heraldic sense. More to the point, they trace their origins to a time when Fascism, in the literal mainstream sense was a mainstream political philosophy and mass franchise mostly didn't exist. Shaw and Webb were hardly "horny-handed sons of toil". In the 1930s they adopted an overtly undemocratic policy of Constitutional and structural change to work towards Communism, resulting in an Oxford Union motion to that effect. They also founded Ashridge College, explicitly to produce "Liberal Tories" - there are links from this to the emergence of "One Nation Toryism" in the 1950s 229 Fabian members were elected in the 1945 General Election. Most would lose their seats in 1950-51.

To clear up a few canards which have flapped their dusty wings.... Common Purpose is a registered Charity providing "leadership and personal development". It is quite easy to find if you look. It operates internationally and is certainly deeply secretive about some of its purposes. The concept of "Cultural Marxism" is also well documented and quite easy to find. It originates from Soviet efforts to study why they were unable to export the concept of "World Wide Workers Revolution" (particularly following the failure of the attempted German revolution in 1918-23). They bought a department in Frankfurt University, which subsequently dispersed among US Universities in equal fear of the NSDAP and its original, Soviet sponsors. The Fabian Society is also worth a read. Founded in the early 1930s, its aims and current members are well documented. Why anyone troubles to create conspiracy theories, considering some of the things which make no secret of their aims and existence, I'm not sure.

The concept of "shoot to disable" is a fallacy among those unfamiliar with firearms. Any strike from a bullet is likely to lead to massive fractures, bleeding to death or various other complications. As for trying to hit a moving target, known or believed to be armed and dangerous, in a specific spot.... Last time we were in Florida I took my two sons to a firing range. It was an instructive experience for both of them (and I got to shoot a Winchester rifle like John Wayne, a lifelong ambition). The lawman who brought down Bonnie and Clyde favoured a BAR. Marksmanship among US law enforcement officers has never been a strong point. They do however operate under a general presumption that any person they engage is likely to produce a lethal weapon.

I seem to remember that Sgt Rock of Easy Company was usually shown wearing bandoliers of 50 cal ammunition which he would have no possible use for?