Bushcraft

King Harold's last words were reportedly: Watch that fucker with the bow and arrow, he'll have somebody's eye out! Another version is that they were: I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'A'.

Inevitable I'm afraid. I'm 70, and at the end of this month I'm taking my 28 year-old Thai wife to the UK for 10 days. Already looking forward to the comments (mostly from middle-aged women I expect) when I walk down the street with her.

Roundheads 1, cavaliers 0. Never had that problem but sympathise, get well soon.

Just had a long chat on Line with my 35 year-old daughter, who commutes into London every working day. She's disgusted and angry about what she refers to as 50% middle-aged schoolteacher types whom you might meet in the supermarket and 50% long-haired, unkempt or dreadlocked wasters such as you see latching on to any kind of civil unrest. She's particularly upset because she crosses Westminster Bridge each morning, a very beautiful bridge and a major London landmark. It's now closed to traffic by "protesters", which has been bad enough for people going to work, but she says commuters on foot have been abused, had stuff thrown at them and run a gauntlet of scum chanting "We own the bridge". It also stinks of rubbish and urine now. She's bloody furious, not likely to sympathise with this "cause" I think.

There is no doubt that the world climate is changing, as it always has over millions of years. What is hotly debated, and denied by a large body of scientists but propagated by others, is that man is responsible and can do something about it. I don't know, as science seems to have become a matter of opinion rather than demonstrable facts. But it's a global phenomenon, and any action we think will help has to be on an international level. GB has signed up to certain measures along with many other countries, and appears to be honouring its commitments in this respect. Others are certainly not, or not yet. And now a band of like-minded people who are convinced that we (in this case the UK) can do something but are not doing it fast enough have taken it into their heads to block city traffic and disrupt the Easter plans of thousands to make their point. They're doing it peacefully, and by law have to be released at once if removed/arrested, upon which they return to demonstrate. Police leave has been cancelled, and officers can do very little though they must be seething with anger. This is tantamount to mob rule, and is calculated to inconvenience as many ordinary people as possible, otherwise a huge but undisruptive rally in e.g. Hyde Park would have been sufficient to gain public and political attention, but not so much fun of course. I guess they're very proud of themselves. There are laws against obstructing public highways and behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace, but the kid-gloves are firmly on as usual, when very firm action would be fitting for these unreasonable people. Do we see Oklahomans and Texans disrupting life because another twister is on the way and the US government isn't doing something to stop it?

A doctor has just finished examining his patient, gives a sigh and tells him that things are really bad, he has about 5 minutes left to live. The patient is very upset, in a panic: "Is there nothing you can do for me at all?" The doctor thinks for a moment and suggests: "I could boil you an egg."

A doctor phones his patient and tells him he has some bad and some worse news for him. "Tell me the bad news first." "Ok, the results of your tests have come back, indicating you have only 24 hours to live" "Oh my god, what's the worse news then?" "I forgot to call you yesterday."

Notice in a computer centre Achtung! Alles lookenspeepers! Das computermaschine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das cottonpickenen hands in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten!

A married middle-aged bloke comes to the hospital with his wife, as he's due for a general health check. The admissions nurse tells him he'll have to give a urine, stool and semen sample for the lab to analyse. "Just give her your underpants, dear," the wife says.

A wife is giving birth in hospital, with her husband and nursing staff by the bedside. It's a difficult birth, and the midwife urges her to give one huge push. A tremendous fart rends the air as the baby slithers out. The wife is visibly embarrassed and apologises. Never mind, says the midwife, only usually in this situation it's the wife that farts, not the husband.

A bloke is stopped by a policeman when driving through town at 2.30 am. The copper asks him where he's going. "I'm off to hear a lecture on the evils of drink and womanising." Copper: "Nonsense, who'd be giving a lecture at this time of the morning?" "That would be my wife when I get home".

No plane was shot down near the Pentagon (perhaps I got the flight no. wrong, too busy to check). I'm talking about the flight crash over Pennsylvania of course. And yes, the BBC explained the inexplicable report of Building 7 falling when it was still clearly visible behind the reporter - "time differences" haha.

You've got to hand it to Al Qaeda, they must have been everywhere. They even managed to have the entire US continental air defences grounded on that day - a matter of fact admitted but officially justified by an "exercise" simulating attacks on buildings using planes, which coincidentally took place on the same day. But an exception must have been made by somebody, as Donald Rumsfeld subsequently and unguardedly stated in an interview that a plane had been shot down over Pennsylvania. That would have been Flight 77, one of whose engines was found half a mile from the "crash site", with other debris scattered over several areas over a mile away. It therefore can't have dived into the ground intact, it was clearly blown out of the sky as its passengers were fighting terrorists with box-cutters.

What would be the point of the Pentagon having surveillance cameras capable only of such blurred, low-resolution images such as to be worthless. Cameras were far more advanced in 2001. The article in the link carefully states "appears to show" because it's not at all obvious what is in the frame, and its author naturally has to take the FBI's word for the number of cameras, locations etc. And far from being organised and put in motion within an hour, all these strange events making up a huge lie must have been planned in detail months in advance.

Right on, and to date not one single image of a sodding great passenger jet roaring across the lawn at almost ground level and ploughing into the building has been released. Why not? Because there is no such image, it never happened. My best guess from the damage, the only 16 ft diameter of the hole and the lack of debris is that a cruise missile or similar hit the Pentagon, and it certainly wasn't fired or directed from a cave in Afghanistan. Which in turn raises the question who fired it, and what really happened to the plane and its crew/passengers. These and other anomalies are highly suspicious and surely impossible to ignore.

A man walked into a bar and got taken to hospital with head injuries - it was an iron bar. A man walks into a bar with a live lobster under his arm. Bartender: Are you taking that lobster home for dinner? Customer: No, we've had dinner, we're going to the movies now.

Oddball to look at what happened and use common sense to deduce that the official explanations could not possibly be true, as they were physically impossible according to a large number of physicists, engineers, architects, accident investigators, demolitions experts etc.? Are you really happy to accept that a jumbo jet hit the Pentagon and simply disappeared? Or that one crashed in a field and simply disappeared? Or that Building 7 suddenly collapsed into its own footprint when just slightly on fire and unhit by anything? Or that the 2 towers collapsed just because they were hit by planes? Or that hundreds of cars parked a fair distance from the towers inexplicably had their engine blocks and door handles melted, then burned out? If you are, fine, but it doesn't sit well with me and many others who would like to see an independent investigation.

Some people are in complete denial though the evidence of an inside job is overwhelming. I'm not going to go over the arguments again, as they've been covered by threads on this board. I remember being ludicrously challenged by Joekicker to prove that the Pentagon had security cameras at the time, at which point I gave up responding. And why was CCTV footage from the gas station opposite confiscated and never returned. Oh yes, national security reasons of course, BARF.

Yes, a jumbo jet with huge wings, engines and a 40 ft high tailplane disappeared into a 16-foot hole in the Pentagon wall, leaving the lawn outside untouched and no debris, security camera images withheld. A succession of miracles happened on 9/11, there have been plenty of posts on this board about the whole disgusting affair.

That's the flight that was supposed to have crashed in a field, right? I saw an interview with the local sheriff, in which he said that he was alerted, drove to the scene and was the first to arrive with a deputy. To his amazement, all he saw there was a smoking hole in the ground, no debris whatsoever. Nothing! After returning to his office he drove back to the 'crash' scene later and it had been taped off by FBI and other personnel he didn't know. He was refused entry. Yet another miracle that happened that day.

555, saw that on FB as an example of true English wit.

Another multi-million baht cockup.

I agree Yogi, if I were doing border runs again, I'd use this service as I have in the past.

I did Vientiane once - never again, and now I don't have to do visa runs anyway. The delays are notorious, though I did my run privately and you may have an easier time using an organized visa run agency. And watch it if you're a smoker: a friend did the border run there with a couple of non-smoking friends. He bought 3 sticks of cigarettes in Laos, and gave one each to the friends to take through customs. On the other side he collected the 2 sticks from them and was pounced upon by a couple of uniformed goons who accused him of smuggling. Took him at least 2 hours and a lot of shouting to be allowed to go on his way.

The fingers on my right hand have gone increasingly wonky over the years, and I can no longer play my beloved Martin D35/12 as I once did. So I've decided it should go to a better home now. It's a real classic made in 1969, with a superb sound and in good condition barring a couple of minor burn marks on the front (flying ash from a campfire I guess). Martins of this model and vintage auction for around 2000 UK pounds, am open to reasonable offers.