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23-01-2021, 03:10 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Looking at that, Jem, it is hard to believe the lovely Nancy is 80!
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24-01-2021, 10:39 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Fat Soldiers.

Looking at the news from Washington DC the day before the inauguration, thousands of armed soldiers in the capital walking around to be ready for any trouble. Thankfully it all went off peacefully.

I have to say I have the utmost respect for the men and women who serve in the military, putting your life on the line for your country is about as noble as you can get.

What I could not help noticing was that so many soldiers were overweight, what good is a fat soldier I ask myself?, how do they manage an assault course without having a heart attack? how are they able to crawl under a booby-trapped wire fence? how much does it cost per day to feed each overweight soldier? obviously they require more belly timber than the normal weighted soldier.
They say an army marches on it’s belly, by the look of things these days it won’t be long before it actually does.

Of course me being a civilian all my life I know nothing about soldiering, barring the two years I spent as a weekend one star private in the reserve forces here, I thought I’d never get out of it, definitely not for me the military life.

Times are changing when a good percentage of your military strength are overweight, but that could be a good thing if you think about it. It could bring forward an hasten the program for robot soldiers and let them do the fighting instead of losing precious human lives, if it comes to the crunch we already have the fat air force pilots sorted by using drones.

There were certainly no fat soldiers in my day, they wouldn’t accept you if you were overweight, and neither would you be accepted if you were too skinny and underweight.

Even as a boy when the brother and me were playing with our lead ‘soldiers’, they were all lean and fit looking specimens, the two fat pieces we had in the whole collection was the Farmer in our farm set, he had a smiling face with two jam jaw cheeks and a huge belly on him, and the village Policeman, but the peeler wasn’t as fat as the Farmer, all us townies used to say that there’s no such thing as a skinny Farmer, he gets hungry and out he goes to choke a chicken or two, whereas if poor old townie hasn’t got the price of a loaf of bread he has to go without it.

Somehow soldiers just don’t look right to me when they are fat, thoughts of an army of fat farmers comes to my mind.

My older brother went on to serve six years in the Irish Guards, he said he enjoyed his time there, but he got out because he didn’t want to end up a ‘lifer’ in the army.

Some lead Guardsmen similar to what we played with for hours on end, n’er a trace of lead poisoning in either of us after years of handling them every day, shame they introduced those horrible plastic solders, toy soldiers were never the same again.




I was being lighthearted with this post, but when I looked into it deeper on google it seems overweight soldiers are a big problem with the military all over the western world.
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24-01-2021, 10:48 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

"Ain't it funny how their Missus always looks the bleedin same".

So much for "Facial Recognition".
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25-01-2021, 10:50 AM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I hadn't really noticed the expanding girths of the military, but it appears to be a problem in law enforcement as well.

I spent a lot of time working in the USA and I was surprised how many fat coppers there were. Mind you, on my first visit there I was surprised how many fat people there were in the population as a whole.

There seemed to be two sizes of people; "normal" and fat, with nothing in between.

There were very few pleasantly plump, or chubby people. The problem appeared to be that people went to work, came home tired, and went out to eat because it was cheap and easy to do.
Supersizing was endemic, and pushed for all it was worth. "For only an extra dollar, you can have twice as much fatty processed food or teeth rotting fizz, sir," and that was in sit down restaurants.

Steaks in the 'States are usually juicy, tasty and tender, and carry the much vaunted USDA (US Department of Agriculture) endorsement. I had a very interesting chat with a chap in an airport bar once.
He had an organic pig farm, as well as working for the USDA. He told me that all that endorsement means is that it is fit for human consumption, not that it is good, or good for you.

He said that US steaks are tasty and tender because the animals are fed on corn or maize. The problem is that cows aren't designed to run on corn and maize, they are designed to run mainly on grasses and the plants that grow alongside them.

It's a bit like running a petrol engine on paraffin. It will work, but not very well. You need to tinker with the fuel and airflow. Bigger flow jets, more air, and increased cooling.

When you try to use corn and maize to fuel a cow, it gets upset tummies, and there are four of them per beast. This causes infections, so the cow has to be pumped full of anti-biotics, some of which can still be in the meat we eat. This isn't a case of using antibiotics if or when they get an infection, they are all pumped full of the stuff because they will get problems due to their forced unnatural diet.

The military, well I never served, nor did I ever want to. My job took me to several RAF bases, and an Army base in the UK, and two US Air Force bases "over there," so I got to see, and sometimes mix with the troops. I have a few stories I can tell about that.

My Dad was a Quaker, and Conscientious Objector during WW2. When he refused to be called up he went before a tribunal to plead his case. He once told me that he didn't know if he was going to be put in prison, or up against a wall and shot.
Thankfully he was excused service on religious grounds, and was conscripted into the Land Army instead and set to work on a five acre small holding in the grounds of a large private school.
My Mum started there as a nursery nurse when she was sixteen which is how they met. He took her to the cinema a few years later and there was newsreel footage of the death camps.
It changed him completely. He lost his faith and decided that actually there were some things that were so evil that actually it was right to take a life. He went and joined the British Army, but was too late by then to see action.
He was promoted a couple of times, and offered a commission to become an officer, but was injured during a training exercise and was given an honourable discharge.

I didn't know any of this until I was about forty when our eldest was doing a project on the war and decided he was going to interview his grandparents and great grandparents to find out what it was like for them, including the women who were at home bringing up the children whilst their men were away for several years.

I have since found lots of things about my grandfathers and great uncles who fought during WW1 thanks to a suitcase full of photos and documents, including a postcard album.

One snippet from my research revealed that my great uncle Vic was a staunch socialist, and refused to take a life.
He won a medal for bravery as a stretcher bearer.

I too have the greatest of respect that serve to keep our shores safe.
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25-01-2021, 11:45 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

All the history I have accumulated was live, and of the minute, not sure if it is factually correct, but, it was from the heart, for better or for worse.
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31-01-2021, 12:22 AM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Very enlighening post Fruity, I’ve never been to the USA although I have plenty of relatives there and in Canada.

Most British men I know of my generation served in the forces at one time or other, I remember the conscription over there.
My maternal grandfather was gassed in the first world war and died as a result, I would have loved to have known him, my mother told me he was a steeplejack before he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers.


Live history is the only true history you’ll ever get Spitty, see it yourself before anyone has the chance to twist it into something else to suit their own ends.

Some things I have personally witnessed in my time have already been doctored for the young, history is 90% lies and exaggeration as far as I’m concerned.
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31-01-2021, 12:26 AM
16357

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

“Some concentrate while others spread themselves thin”

That was the answer given to me by an old retired watchmaker when I had asked him why he became a watchmaker in the first place.

This chap could make his own cogs and springs by hand when he had to and used to oversee all the government clocks on their buildings throughout the city, he really knew all there was to know about clockwork, whereas meself who’s been a goldsmith all me life knows absolutely nothing about watches and clocks, nor do I want to, cogs, spindles, and springs are not my cup of tea.
What he meant was, to be great at something you had to give it your all, and if ever a man concentrated it was old Sammy.

’Spread yourself thin’, that was going through my mind when I got home to my dear wife, she was spreading the butter on a plate of freshly baked scones (that’s sko-ens, and not scons in my neck of the woods), she was lavishing it on a bit thick and I says to her, “You’d want to watch your weight love, don’t slap on too much butter”

Now before I’m accused of being nasty to her let me point out that herself and the daughter always ask me to remind them to watch their weight if they eat too much or look too fat, I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked the question “Does my bum look big in this?”, anyway she said to mind my own business and she’d eat what she likes when she likes, fair enough but why involve me in the whole fat thing in the first place, It matters not to me if she’s the width of ten as long as she has her health. God you never can win with the female sex can you.

Now there’s an idea for a new low fat butter, the slogan could be “Spread yourself thin”

I forgot to switch off the landing light last night, when I came down this morning I found two flyers had come through the letterbox.

“You know you're getting old when you stop to think and forget to start again.”

That was said to me years ago by Ben Oculars, a man of great vision.


“A World of our own”
An appropriate song for lockdowns I think, good on ya Judith, a fine Australian girl and she’s still going strong, what a voice that lady has.

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01-02-2021, 11:31 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

The Seekers, then the New Seekers, who needs all this reinvention?
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01-02-2021, 11:32 PM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Fit Birds or not, this needs to stop!
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02-02-2021, 01:00 AM
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Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Originally Posted by spitfire ->
The Seekers, then the New Seekers, who needs all this reinvention?
Indeed Spitty, as I once said in Rome when an Italian fella came at me in a side street with a stiletto in his hand, “You have a point there”

The Beach Boys and the Pet Shop Boys, in fact any old band with “Boys” in it should cop on to themselves, hairy old boys as me granny would say, they ought to change to “The Beach Old Lads” and “The Pet Shop Pensioners”, one must remember that one is a boy for only so long, they did not think ahead.

And where would you leave “Boy George”, how’s he going to out of that name when he’s collecting his pension?, good job Billy the kid was a lousy singer, he is remembered still as a naughty kid, but he was lucky, he got shot while he was still young.

They should all engage a little foresight in these matters.
 
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