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The One Ring was lost on its way to Lancashire. The comments make it ?

That spectacular architecture is unforgettable, isn't it. I knew of one squad who so annoyed their CO that they got the wonderful job of cleaning the interior and exterior of those buildings for the duration of the 3 week exercise. One of the party tricks I learned there was the superman jump through windows. Whip antennae for my 351 and 320s from my bergen meant that I couldn't do the normal hurry-in method so had to bend 90 degrees from the waist, aim and just hope everyone heard me shout that I'm on the way in and clear out before I sprinted & jumped through. Packing kit on my front to stop me shredding my combats was strangely comfortable.

Some places just do not change. Very few ex-squaddies won't have been here for some exercise or other.

?

Ahhh Suffolk, keeping it classy (NSFW wording and imagery!)

Seeing the BBC’s last few efforts at “reinterpreting” source material, I have zero hope this will be be in the slightest bit watchable. And that makes me unhappy as that’s one of the best Terry Pratchett books.

The Two Popes. Finished that today. Thoroughly enjoyable, even as a robust atheist, and humanised them both.

We had BBC Alba’s show on in the background and it was very worth it. The headliners were a band I’d only heard of in passing, a Scottish Islander band Peat & Diesel. Substantially different to the usual pipes and droning singing on the show. It did have bits that brought back traumatic memories of what Scottish primary schools call PE: highland dancing... Oh, and the tall blonde leading the Alba Choir was worth the show on its own...

If you ever get around to playing the first game, episode 3 will be very familiar!

It may not have destroyed the world but look at the date of the weasel error. Then think of the chaos in the otherwise orderly world since then. Before weasel, order. After weasel, Brexit, Trump, May, Johnson and so on for a long list. In future generations, we may even reset our calendar to BW and AW, this is 3AW.

They’ve taken the natural charm of the story and wrecked it. The redeemable flaws of Scrooge, the natural good of Cratchitt and the ghosts... The retellings in things like Scrooged and even the fairly rubbish made-for-TV ones set in modern life all have a fair reflection of the threads of the original. This? Beyond redemption. There’s nothing likeable about the script or characters. The story is beyond the watershed for a reason and completely inappropriate for youngsters.

Just finished ep1 and I’m very happy with this.

Started watching that and the wife said “one for you to watch on your own”. I’ll watch that tonight then

In summary: the frogs are too loud. ?

In fact, it needs more than this. Whoever thought up, approved and casted this script and production should be declared unfit to do even local radio advertising. Pointless and pathetic “shock value” vulgarity added to time-filler monologues that do nothing for the show. Add to that the BBC’s now legendary mumbling in its productions. One of my favourite stories treated this badly... even the Muppets steered away from diverting the story beyond a minor line from the original. This production alone has made me more sympathetic to defunding the BBC than the entire election chaos.

BBC’s A Christmas Carol. Dire.

On TV tonight

I’ve heard quite a few good things about The Mandalorian so went looking for it to watch. In the UK, it’s not out until March for some strange reason. This is why people pirate copyrighted content in these days of easy internet downloading.

Some holiday pics from earlier this year, sorted by rainbow colour. Red: Orange: Yellow: Green: Blue: Indigo: Violet: