Snapper

He has. Colin - next time we meet, I promise not to be late. Mark

I parted company with the army 30 years ago today. I was eighteen and had wanted to be a soldier as far back as I could remember. Alas a number of misfortunes in childhood affected my health and I was illequipped for the enterprise. I got in OK but things went from bad to worse and I ended up back in grey old London full of regrets which have never completely gone away. I think about it almost every day, but life has it's way of making up for losses. Coming out lead me to get myself self-educated and eventually to make best use of my alleged talents. Que sera sera.

I heartily recommend Garrett Mattingley's Spanish Armada book. It was written in 1959 and comes in a similar prose style to Cornelius Ryan's Longest Day of the same year. It is a truly wonderful account you can read several times over and will treasure.

Building links with the French makes massive sense to me - so I agree an interview with yer man would be a good move. I'm immensely jealous of the experience of you longer serving, but not necessarily older blokes, who've been out there in earlier times when sites and stuff were less sanitised. A chap I met at Tilbury Fort show years ago once told me about his friend Alain and what a good guy he was. I was chuffed to ufck when I finally saw the Vimoutiers Tiger.

We have the conflict to thank for a dozen Kops in northern football grounds - most famously at Liverpool of course. The Battle of Spion Kop was a disaster for the British. The war also put the army into khaki, but it is the Lee Enfield that endures. The war also ascended the careers of several staff officers who would rise to supreme field rank - most notably Douglas Haig and to a lesser extent Horace Smith-Dorien and it also clinched glory for Baden-Powell, Bobs Roberts and a ambitious hack....Winston Spencer Churchill. On the other side, it also raised the status of the excellent Boer commander Jan Christian Smuts who went on to become one of the bastions of British imperialism. Ironic.

dive in.....enjoy yourself. Ownership is no barrier. Welcome.

I still want to see one of the Danish cabbed Bedford RLs this lot look fantastic though. The Chevs definitely look Ok - but have to agree the Mogs look really usable. don''t think I'm allowed something that big.

I dunno. I come on here for some good sound advice and off you all go at a tangent. I have one of my own: It takes me back to when I was a sixteen year old kid working in the Daily Mirror readers service. We used to get all the letters for the agony aunt Marge Proops and I wasn't allowed to read any with a red star stuck on them because I was under eighteen. Needless to say I only read those ones....and phwoaarr - the things people put in letters to total strangers. Now I'm thirty odd years older and enduring looking after the snaps for Deidre's Photo Casbook (aside from all the page three girls and bloody footballers). None of this gets me any closer to a decision on an MV and I have to sell the Iltis and buy a garage whatever happens. Oh yes, and the wife SWMBOAAC - already has a car - sometimes I'm allowed to drive it. She never wants to drive the Iltis - but favours a proper jeep. What proper is, I do not know. For fear of opening up a WW2 versus PW battle again (zzzz)I shall move on swiftly. Pass the Solpadene...

Who's Shirley? Burley Chassis? Think Iltis

Riffraff - the Arandora Star, if you don't mind. Oh and can we see a snap of you in your hair net (for the HMVF calendar).

Good to have you aboard Peter. Jack will give you a list of the rules at some point. You are not allowed to park your Leopard in the clubhouse car park - because it is full of pigs and ferrets - and an Iltis, which is German for polecat. We are all animal lovers here. MB

It is a gem. Got at home somewhere.

That looks more like the old London County Council emblem to me. I think our man Tim will do the honours with the older snap.

Very amusing. I would imagine the Clancy they're talking about is Peter Crouch's squeeze Abbey Clancy. Another night at China White for the WAGs. yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Never eaten emu - but had ostrich in a chinese restaurant off Leicester Sq. Very nice. Sorry got to run, a road roller has just run over my Skype phone.

Havn't advertised the Iltis yet. Tardy. So much to do. I also have to find a garage in Southend. Ha ha.

Sounds pretty risible. I am surprised that the editing would be so lax. This raises the questions whether these "name" authors do any writing at all. Ghost writing is not a phenomena, in fact if you look at the classic Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson, written in 1943-44, it is not entirely clear whether he wrote much of it. He was getting help from Roald Dahl, who was with him on his north American tour when the book was penned. I don't have a problem with ghostwriting as such - with exception of the annual Wayne Rooney biographies in the shop reflecting on another season of Bentleys and grizzled growlers in the young star's stratospheric ascent to divinity.

Yes the poor old Prince Imperial, son of the deposed Napoleon III. His mother, the Empress lived in exile in Chiselhurst and they named a road after the hapless Louis after his untimely brush with an assegai. I have a similar situation here at News Int helping care for a 15-20 million image archive of glass plates and prints and all manner of other negatives/transparencies/autochrome that nobody in a suit could give a stuff about. It breaks my heart. Computers rule.

Excellent. The HMVF Bumper Book of Battles will be in the shops in time for Christmas. Recommended Retail Price Two Guineas.

Another quality item. Is this not the same family Congreve as the later father and son who achieved high fame?? Tony B will know. He is a guru. MB

keep smiling

Carry On Jessie...

Are you sure this was an advisable name for this string? We'll be getting more spam than Monty Python at this rate. I was only saying the same thing to my Nigerian financial advisor the other day while we were investing in internet pharmaceuticals.

Is this another sly dig at me from you lot????

Steve, You're too flipping clever by half. MB