Bon Accord

Goin' down to Mexico - ZZ Top

And the band played Waltzing Matilda - Eric Bogle

About that, I think the figure was nearer 90. Most of it in the bulb under the fore part and electronic gubbins therein. We used to carry them as cargo on a regular basis when rotating them to/from the Gulf and it always made me laugh that whilst you had this very expensive aircraft the first thing it would normally do when it came onboard would be to "drop it's guts" (hydraulic oil) all over the deck and the hi-spec/expensive airframe lashings would unravel themselves if not given regular attention.

Best stay indoors Dave, a bolt of lightning from the heavens is sure to strike you dead for such a grievous sin! Looks good though, although what's holding me back in buying one is the conviction that I "don't do modern stuff". Aside from some 80's guilty pleasures my world is firmly stuck to that of sulphur, paraffin and brasso!

Some excellent work there from both Graeme and Gary, well done fellas.

Another good film which is probably more interesting for the background than the plot is "Hell Below Zero" starring Alan Ladd. It's the usual love/murder storyline with Stanley Baker looking providing the evil atagonist, however the film features extensive footage of the Salvesen whaling fleet operating in the Antarctic. This includes the catchers chasing and harpooning the whales and the carcasses then being brought onboard the factory ship and being processed, the men working etc plus some brief descriptions as to what is going on. Not only that but it's all in colour. It's all very graphic so perhaps not for the cuddly toy lovers out there but very interesting all the same. I grew up in an area where a lot of men went "chasing the whale" with the very well known firm of Christian Salvesen of Leith and this usually meant them being away for upto 2 years at a time in the South Atlantic, during which time they lived and worked in very primitive conditions and endured much hardship. However, when they came home they were rich men, although the first thing their wives/mothers etc usually did when they came back would be to burn all their clothes and send them off to the steam room at the public baths. Anyone who's been in the vicinity of a whaling factory ship will know exactly why!

Not only is "Get Carter" a good film in itself, it's a great piece of NE social history when you look at the locations and all that goes on in the background. Great memories of a NE that is now long gone - one of my few claims to fame is that I've drank in both boozers featured in the film!

As part of the production process Scott Glenn spent some time with the CO of a Los Angeles class SSN such that what appeared in "The Hunt for Red October" set alarm bells ringing in the Pentagon. Of course at that time the old CCCP was falling apart so it didn't cause anything like as much of a drama as it may have done so 10 years previously!

I read Iron Coffins some years ago and it's probably one of the most sobering books on war and it's effects I've ever read.

Doubtful it could do anything. The Sea Hawk, Gannet and their crews only needed a 1950's carrier to operate from. Typhoon does of course require a land airbase, with the boys in light blue requiring nearby minimum 4 star hotels (ideally resorts) for billets and local 18 hole golf course which can issue temporary guest memberships.

In the mid 2000's one of my AB's got in/out of MOD establishments quite easily with an ID card he'd fabricated which was similar to a MOD90. The difference being that where the photograph should go he inserted a snap of Bin laden and when the combined services logo should be he'd placed a copy of the SS runes, The chap in question was ex Foreign Legion and whilst an extremely clever bloke had something of a screw loose - to put it lightly.

How it used to be.... ALBION leading ARK ROYAL out of Gib in October 1957. Two (fixed wing) RN carriers out of a fleet of no less than fifteen such vessels available under the white ensign at the time.

What's the background to the two tone grey model. Is a it a preserved livery?

Of course the other problem with Harrier/F35-B is that without arrestor wires the landing weight is severely limited due to the need to land vertically. What that means in practical terms is that although the aircraft takes off complete with a fuel/weapons fit, it cannot land with that same weight, so the weapons and/or fuel have to be dumped or used prior to returning to the carrier. Ergo, every aircraft that takes off carrying some very expensive missiles and does not use them in action (that being the overwhelming majority of sorties) has to dump them into the sea before being able to return onboard. When you consider the cost of effectively wasting these unused munitions - potentially up to £100K per missile - over the service life of every single aircraft you're talking about some quite staggering numbers. The kind of numbers which could have paid for catapults/arrestor wires and then some. Still, they're long term rather than short term costs and the MOD/Govt doesn't care about them as in time they become a problem for someone else.

Trident is basically a US missile with a UK warhead which uses the US GPS system for primary navigation. As a secondary backup it has an onboard computer capable of taking celestial observations so as to plot a "fix" whilst hurtling along at Mach 24, this will hopefully make it possible for the missile to hit a target the size of London - maybe.

If it's anything like the TS committee of "experts" which we have to deal with I would put little stock in their advice.

Looks to me like a film prop - the tender side sheets appear to be a mixture of canvas and wood.

It is?

Great stuff as always Eric, I never can get enough of seeing the ex NB locos plus the rarities like the V4. Your 64B-isation of the pacifics with Klear is very smart indeed. I try and visit more and more exhibitions these days up here and a Scottish layout is never really that unless there's some pre grouping types in evidence. I still haven't managed to find a J37 kit unbuilt or built!

Nothing much has changed. Any visit to a port with a USN PX still witnesses some serious purchases being made. One trip it did make me laugh watching some Matelots wheeling back a gas fired BBQ from the Bahrain PX during a weekend jolly ashore. The intention being to take it home by ship at the end of deployment (they did too). When you consider that even those PX in theatre have an array of goods comparable to a Walmart it puts the NAAFI somewhat in the shade. For quite some time I never paid much attention to the PX and didn't even visit one until the recent Gulf adventure, and only then somewhat sceptically visiting the one in Kuwait (the alternative being to visit tent city). I think every one of us came out of there with a KBAR, camelback the requisite set of Oakleys and a mountain of beef jerky and other treats.

That same trip the Booties hadn't been issued with any radios, we had a Colours (Comms) with us and before they left Pompey he had to go to Tandy to buy some of the plastic kiddie style type radios so they could at least communicate. They did this using their own money. Just another very British shambles.

In 2005 whilst operating off Iraq we had a detachment of Marines onboard for ship protection, however they'd only been provided with a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition per man and hardly any 7.62 (cost!). That which had been provided was barely sufficient for any ship protection work in anger and no ammunition was allocated for training. As you say, in the UK forces EVERYTHING has to be accounted for and even one round going either missing or being used for non-sanctioned activites causes a major drama when it comes to bullet counting time. The solution was that our WO2 went visiting some US Army personnel whilst we were in Umm Qasr and somewhat embarrassingly had to beg boxes of ammunition from them so we could have a SHOOTEX, which they were more than happy to provide in return for beer. This was far from a unique situation at the time, both with regard to ammunition and even down to basic things like rations and toiletries.