Snapper

I can put you in touch with an ex Czech army officer who is an editor of a MV mag there. His name is Martin Koller. He is an amazing bloke - mad, but likeable in spades. He walked round Beltring in sand coloured trousers and white trainers and didn;t have a speck of mud on him - he put it down to "Superior Czech army training"!!!! MB

Thanks lads. James got his webbing and some good kit at Beltring for a pittance. I don't know why he wants to do RMP, but hey, I'm not fourteen. I think it is a good period to collect for him (meaning me!) because the kit is a lot cheaper. The sticking point will always be the hardware. My wife, who is his mother - the poor soul - does not like guns at all and won't have them in the house - even though we've sneaked in a few decent enough airsoft replicas. I would ideally like to get a Sterling for this game of soldiers - so he has a proper weapon - but he may have to do with an airsoft in a holster. It doesn't really matter that much - but the look is down to him. I have been concidering chopping the Iltis in favour of an LR - but in the last couple of days this idea has faded. I want to paint it field grey, stick a German cross on the side and do American war film re-enacting with Lightweight. I even have the correct wrong period M1 helmet to be an American and my Dutch army trousers go a treat with a very modern dot matrix camo US jacket. Thankfully the look is more Mothers Pride than gay pride. All we need now is a Telly Savalas lookalike to get things going properly on the road to Malmedy via Yugoslavia. Watch out for the Belgian drivers....

Mantrucker, I've always liked you. Two eggs please - no fried bread. You can insult me at whim. None taken. As for drinking, it was too hot in the Med..and I'm on a ban anyway. The shandy tasted lovely. I would genuinely love a GMC. It is on my list of dreamed of MVs and after Bolero, who wouldn't? To achieve balance - the REO Thunder run at Beltring was brilliant - but there was a mob of civvy traffic mucking up the vista despite the best efforts of our escorts. It was a shame we never got a Red Ball Express this year - but the mud was....just too muddy. I'll be on the Somme in October - hopefully the French mud will be more amenable than the Kentish.

A colleague at Beltring said that there is a lot of interesting stufff still in store in NI. Wonder what will happen to it all?

My Iltis sometimes has no doors and is 24 volts. Vorsprung Durch Technik - as they say in Vestcliff Von See.

I'm afraid I often specialise in off topic. None of it seems to make sense after a while and is mostly done to get a response from Jack, who spends far too much time in "Man's truck" mode for most people's liking. Cleaning the clubhouse is a task for all new forum members and after the War and Peace show we have a surfeit of mud to concern ourselves with. The pop music angle is definitely off topic - but we can handle it. Billericay in Massechusetts derives it's name from one of the home villages of the Pilgrim Fathers - as you well know, but a big Mantrucking numpty like Jack would not. I hope I have offended him enough to get a response. Sit back and watch. All this will probably mean I am never invited to breakfast in his camp again. It matters not, because Joris will always have decent beer next door. Party on...Welcome to the forum. Never been to Nebraska - only heard it on a Bruce Springsteen album - here I go again.....!

Jack - why should you worry about mud in the clubhouse. We can mop it up with the pink cushions.... James' and my boots are still in the back garden. They look like a Tracey Emin artwork. I've got a nice pic of Hardyferret's boots - which is not to suggest a new boot fetish string by any means (...Maybe New Boots and Panties can be the LP of the day...Plaistow Patricia was some bird - but Billericay Dickie is alive and well in many ways....I digress. Canadians may prefer Bob and Doug McKenzie...) but you can run with it if you like. My rucsac and several bits of camera kit are still mud covered and the Iltis stands idle - caked in the stuff - a duff battery prevents action of any sort - not sorted until after Odyssey. But there is time enough. onwards and upwards......

Blue Star will always be MY preferred carrier. None of your Cunard or White Star riffraff please.

And bung in another shower block or two..... you'll manage in the time available. Doing all this will get you off the clubhouse cleaning rota.

Good. It is a great book in it's own little way.

Paul - I am very peed off I missed a rendezvous with you, given we had talked about it. Maybe we can get a proper photoshoot together like we intended. I am really sorry not to have covered your displays..it was one I was looking forward to. I can't work out how I was on site for five days and still missed things I planned to do. The mud is a bit to blame as is the fact I didn't have an All Areas pass for my Iltis which led to a frank encounter with some of the Barmy Army diligently manning the bridge. There were not enough passes to go round and I was not prepared to risk travelling around to do stuff if I could not go where I wanted with ease. It is another little bit of organisational stuff that will hopefully be ironed out next time. They want me back again, so I must have been doing something right.

Thanks for posting the snap of me in the bondage gear. The cherry picker proved to be very useful at times.

Should have said James uses the name Stryker on the forum....if he's awake.

I'm really sorry Mark, but I missed the Falklands and several arena events covering other things on site. There were three of us working for the website (sometimes four when the webmaster needed a breather) and it was a physical impossibility for me personally to be everywhere. There is no concerted planning of coverage, we tend to do what we can get to, or work to suit other agendas. I was usually covering a mix of things from 8am to 8pm most days and I know I left some people disappointed. I am really sorry. The press team was cut from four to three this year for separate reasons and perhaps this did not help on occasion. In an ideal world we would have one or two snappers in the arena all day and others roaming the site doing all the other stuff. But resources only go so far. Hopefully we can redress this next year. cheers, Mark B

I met Richard in the market. He was with G503.

James and I are on either end. He is the younger slimmer version.

I only took £200. No pix sales this spring..... We got a P38 holster for a pound. Two norgies for £7. a near full set of 58 pattern webbing and pack for £15. An airsoft Desert Eagle pistol for £15. An airsoft AK47 misakenly marked for £25 - they let me have one. Should have been £150 or there abouts. Various bits of Soldier 95 for under a tenner. Some old pattern ACF trousers for £1 a pair. A shirt for £1.50. Two decent campbeds for £30. A wad of Dragon stuff for £40. The rest went on milk, beer and noodles.

Good man!

I'm told it was nicked one dark night. It was borrowed from another Panther owner. What a bloody shame. I hope they catch the idiots... MB

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Sorry chaps - but I am workblitzed and Beltring bound...more to come soon; I hope I haven't let you down with the delay. Health, family stuff and work have made life difficult these past weeks. I would have liked to have included my snaps in with Jessie's disk. Maybe we can. But this will have to wait til after Beltring and after anything appears in CMV. My pics are always available to friends in need. It just takes me a while to get anything done.I need to go full time pro - but my kids also need to eat and Mr Murdoch is a better payer at the moment.... see you at the Hop Farm, MB

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