War in ukraine interesting perspective outside western media hype

[johnofgwent]

As usual, Vlad will show his trust and respect for those who he feels deserve it. 

So, I presume by next week the Russian Federation will complete the job they failed to do with Hitler, and the iron curtain will fall from Finland to the North sea and the bay of Biscay and Gibraltar and the euro will be replaced by the rouble as the new European single currency ??

Thank god those castor bean plants are coming ing nicely in the greenhouse....

[HDQQ]

Don't forget that it was Russia that left the USSR, under Boris Yeltsin, and this spelled the end of the USSR. Now Russia is invading a state that was part of an entity that Russia itself chose to leave. If Russia hadn't left, the USSR it would probably still be in existence today - maybe not as the restrictive communist superstate it had been, but as a sovereign nation of some sort.

As for how anyone can question the right of Ukraine to exist as an independent state while also calling for Scottish independence - utterly beyond belief.

[Sheepy]

I'll stick with the "cold and miserable". Certainly true of the beacons proper a little to the east ...

When I lived at my previous address, a guy up the road was one of those volunteer mountain rescue bods. He had a spaniel (of all breeds, not the one i would expect) search and rescue dog. And for my sins (i must have been an evil bastard in a previous life) when he mentioned they had an exercise and needed volunteers ....

Basically, a bloke in a land rover drove us to laybys on farm tracks where a pair of us would get out and bugger off a mile or two to some hell hole and dig in and "wait for rescue" (which would be some time coming)

The idea was they brought the searchers and dogs to where we were dropped off and tried to pick up our trail. Nobody on the mountain at the time actually knew for real where we were, we'd left details of where we HOPED to be back at the mountain rescue HQ in case we got lost for real....

I believe a bunch of people have actually been rescued for real by these guys over the years since and if that was in any way down to the practice they got with me then fair enough but as you have found out it is sodding miserable out there. I must have been mad because you and and the other squaddies were being paid (albeit as miserably as the weather) but i did it for sod all except gratitude and a couple of free beers if i could peove i wasnt still hypothermic

Dunno but I hear on the grapevine that when Dawg was at Sennybridge he realised where those awful Nazis got their camp designs from. 

[johnofgwent]

Its funny, but long before I'd ever seen Back to the Future, I'd always had this image of "boffins" looking pretty much like Dr Emmet Brown, with wild frizzy hair and thick beer jug bottom glasses. Anyway, we weren't important enough to meet any proper boffins from Raytheon or Plessey - the best we might get was the occasional overhead projector presentation from some biffed up officer in the scaleys or some Chegs filling out his time in the lower reaches of the MOD

As for TR7s, not really my bag either, more of a Ford man myself, if I could have got my hands on a Mexico or a Cossie and not spent all my beer tokens on...erm...beer...instead.

And yeah, Sennybridge. Variously and unaffectionatelty described by generations of squaddies as "a series of steep hills on the side of a mountain", or "at 90 degrees to everything else", or simply as "cold and f*cking miserable"

I'll stick with the "cold and miserable". Certainly true of the beacons proper a little to the east ...

When I lived at my previous address, a guy up the road was one of those volunteer mountain rescue bods. He had a spaniel (of all breeds, not the one i would expect) search and rescue dog. And for my sins (i must have been an evil bastard in a previous life) when he mentioned they had an exercise and needed volunteers ....

Basically, a bloke in a land rover drove us to laybys on farm tracks where a pair of us would get out and bugger off a mile or two to some hell hole and dig in and "wait for rescue" (which would be some time coming)

The idea was they brought the searchers and dogs to where we were dropped off and tried to pick up our trail. Nobody on the mountain at the time actually knew for real where we were, we'd left details of where we HOPED to be back at the mountain rescue HQ in case we got lost for real....

I believe a bunch of people have actually been rescued for real by these guys over the years since and if that was in any way down to the practice they got with me then fair enough but as you have found out it is sodding miserable out there. I must have been mad because you and and the other squaddies were being paid (albeit as miserably as the weather) but i did it for sod all except gratitude and a couple of free beers if i could peove i wasnt still hypothermic

[DeppityDawg]

I am indeed a boffin from a line of them.

If it helps, I once had to wear one of those suits and run up a lot of steps and ramps at porton down

Something about an escape drill but who were they bloody kidding we all knew by the time we got to the top of that lot for real, what we were running from would have dissolved us in our own blood and shit.

Its been a good couple of days. The younger daughter buggers off to her future mother in law's for Christmas dinner these days leaving just four round our table, and comes over here with her other half to be on boxing Day. Thank god there's two days of peace and quiet tomorrow and Tuesday before work, and then some end of year insanity .....

Cheers and hopefully sanity will return in time for me to get to a Greek island next year ...

PS. There are no flat bits in Wales. The only flat bits are where they infilled the valley with what they dug out of the mines below.

I remember Sennybridge ... The rally circuit and the crazy right hander before a huge drop and a vicious right hander at the bottom. Right at the base of the hill was a brick shithouse... The BBC and other camera crews used to set up on top and film up the hill.....

One year my crazy arsed little brother stood on the outside edge of the top right hander with a canon with a power winder. This bloody fool in a TR7 refused to slow for the top bend, just made it but flew in the air until it was far, far too late

In my old photos I've got a shot or by two of the car from the inside of the top bend. It is airborne a few feet off the dropping road, a third of the way down the hill,  but my brother's power winder shots are perfect, they show the car careering to its destruction and with each frame, more and more photographers abandin their cameras and jump off the roof and run like hell.....

The car driver lands and pulls the car round but slams sideways into the shithouse. A HELL of a bang but both driver and codriver get out and walk away.....

Its funny, but long before I'd ever seen Back to the Future, I'd always had this image of "boffins" looking pretty much like Dr Emmet Brown, with wild frizzy hair and thick beer jug bottom glasses. Anyway, we weren't important enough to meet any proper boffins from Raytheon or Plessey - the best we might get was the occasional overhead projector presentation from some biffed up officer in the scaleys or some Chegs filling out his time in the lower reaches of the MOD

As for TR7s, not really my bag either, more of a Ford man myself, if I could have got my hands on a Mexico or a Cossie and not spent all my beer tokens on...erm...beer...instead. 

And yeah, Sennybridge. Variously and unaffectionatelty described by generations of squaddies as "a series of steep hills on the side of a mountain", or "at 90 degrees to everything else", or simply as "cold and f*cking miserable" 

[johnofgwent]

Being a bit mischievous John,Ukraine has been ruled by a few.
Borky asks where it is,in the unfortunate position Poland held of being under the heel of various others.

From Wiki

Bloody hell I've just read that and seen the map. It really did stretch that far. I had no idea.

[johnofgwent]

I think you are what would once have been called a "boffin" John. When doing my NBC training way back when Adam were a lad,  I'll always remember thinking that whoever designed these fu*king Noddy suits should be made to run up the side of the same mountain we had to with their arses on fire. That includes you. Mind you, that was Sennybridge, just down the road from you, where every direction except backwards is up. F*cking Welsh. They can't even live in a country which has a flat bit.

Anyway, don't worry about Cromwell. Hes a Liberal. He'd probably give the Channel Island back to the French if he could

I am indeed a boffin from a line of them.

If it helps, I once had to wear one of those suits and run up a lot of steps and ramps at porton down

Something about an escape drill but who were they bloody kidding we all knew by the time we got to the top of that lot for real, what we were running from would have dissolved us in our own blood and shit.

Its been a good couple of days. The younger daughter buggers off to her future mother in law's for Christmas dinner these days leaving just four round our table, and comes over here with her other half to be on boxing Day. Thank god there's two days of peace and quiet tomorrow and Tuesday before work, and then some end of year insanity .....

Cheers and hopefully sanity will return in time for me to get to a Greek island next year ...

PS. There are no flat bits in Wales. The only flat bits are where they infilled the valley with what they dug out of the mines below.

I remember Sennybridge ... The rally circuit and the crazy right hander before a huge drop and a vicious right hander at the bottom. Right at the base of the hill was a brick shithouse... The BBC and other camera crews used to set up on top and film up the hill.....

One year my crazy arsed little brother stood on the outside edge of the top right hander with a canon with a power winder. This bloody fool in a TR7 refused to slow for the top bend, just made it but flew in the air until it was far, far too late 

In my old photos I've got a shot or by two of the car from the inside of the top bend. It is airborne a few feet off the dropping road, a third of the way down the hill,  but my brother's power winder shots are perfect, they show the car careering to its destruction and with each frame, more and more photographers abandin their cameras and jump off the roof and run like hell.....

The car driver lands and pulls the car round but slams sideways into the shithouse. A HELL of a bang but both driver and codriver get out and walk away.....

[cromwell]

I think you are what would once have been called a "boffin" John. When doing my NBC training way back when Adam were a lad,  I'll always remember thinking that whoever designed these fu*king Noddy suits should be made to run up the side of the same mountain we had to with their arses on fire. That includes you. Mind you, that was Sennybridge, just down the road from you, where every direction except backwards is up. F*cking Welsh. They can't even live in a country which has a flat bit.

Anyway, don't worry about Cromwell. Hes a Liberal. He'd probably give the Channel Island back to the French if he could

He bloody well wouldn't ........feck off.  

[DeppityDawg]

I must admit Cromwell's confused the hell out of me. I thought Ukraine was somewhere near the rightmost edge of the EU but he suggests it belongs to the Lithuanians ? I thought they were somewhere near Finland.

Truth is both used to be targets for dads weaponisations and mine too.

I think you are what would once have been called a "boffin" John. When doing my NBC training way back when Adam were a lad,  I'll always remember thinking that whoever designed these fu*king Noddy suits should be made to run up the side of the same mountain we had to with their arses on fire. That includes you. Mind you, that was Sennybridge, just down the road from you, where every direction except backwards is up. F*cking Welsh. They can't even live in a country which has a flat bit.

Anyway, don't worry about Cromwell. Hes a Liberal. He'd probably give the Channel Island back to the French if he could 

[cromwell]

I must admit Cromwell's confused the hell out of me. I thought Ukraine was somewhere near the rightmost edge of the EU but he suggests it belongs to the Lithuanians ? I thought they were somewhere near Finland.

Truth is both used to be targets for dads weaponisations and mine too.

Being a bit mischievous John,Ukraine has been ruled by a few.
Borky asks where it is,in the unfortunate position Poland held of being under the heel of various others.

From Wiki

The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation into several principalities in the 13th century and the devastation created by the Mongol invasion, the territorial unity collapsed and the area was contested, ruled, and divided by a variety of powers, including the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Tsardom of Russia.

[johnofgwent]

I think my comment was a somewhat tongue in cheek (if not entirely inaccurate) observation about the past, wheras I think your reply is a somewhat mischievous attempt at sport with Thomas

I must admit Cromwell's confused the hell out of me. I thought Ukraine was somewhere near the rightmost edge of the EU but he suggests it belongs to the Lithuanians ? I thought they were somewhere near Finland.

Truth is both used to be targets for dads weaponisations and mine too.

[DeppityDawg]

I have nothing against the Scots and taffies and Micks conquering and running the empire while the English sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labours. And I quite like meeting folk from different cultures. It is the bit about the Ukraine writhing under the heel of the Russian bear that gets me. I mean, just to start with, where is the bloody place?

I think my comment was a somewhat tongue in cheek (if not entirely inaccurate) observation about the past, wheras I think your reply is a somewhat mischievous attempt at sport with Thomas 

[Borchester]

It used to be relatively simple, Borchester. The Jocks, paddies and taffs were all technically on our side, but not to be trusted with lending money to. Everyone else was Johnny, or JF for short. It was perfectly acceptable to fight with any or all of these if there was nothing else to do, though there was always the potential risks of extended views of the inside of the guardhouse wall or the local hospital

These days, we have to like everyone, even when we can't f*cking stand the ****s, and therefore there is no such thing as "baddies" anymore, just people with different cultures.

I have nothing against the Scots and taffies and Micks conquering and running the empire while the English sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labours. And I quite like meeting folk from different cultures. It is the bit about the Ukraine writhing under the heel of the Russian bear that gets me. I mean, just to start with, where is the bloody place?

[Sheepy]

Good to read that some people at least are interested in the facts and not the just the self serving US scripted narrative.

The truth is that the current borders of Ukraine were intended as internal administrative boundaries with the USSR and were never intended to be International Borders as they have now become.
The Crimea and some of the nearby Eastern Districts were only incorporated into the Ukraine in the early sixties under the premiership of Ukraine born Khrushchev.
It really is a country built from the left over bits and pieces of other countries and the steppe between them. Hardly surprising that despite being large, prosperous and with a good geographic position, it has failed abysmally to become anything other than a basket case. Seldom has the case for returning a territory to its constituent parts been quite so clearly obvious.

As usual, Vlad will show his trust and respect for those who he feels deserve it. As for the rest of them, he couldn't give a flying one, not such a bad way of looking at it.

[DeppityDawg]

Who are the goodies and who are the baddies?

It used to be relatively simple, Borchester. The Jocks, paddies and taffs were all technically on our side, but not to be trusted with lending money to. Everyone else was Johnny, or JF for short. It was perfectly acceptable to fight with any or all of these if there was nothing else to do, though there was always the potential risks of extended views of the inside of the guardhouse wall or the local hospital

These days, we have to like everyone, even when we can't f*cking stand the ****s, and therefore there is no such thing as "baddies" anymore, just people with different cultures.