Salute the Warrior Prince? Hell yes.

Prince Harry has recently qualified as an Apache attack helicopter pilot. Huzzah, Sir!

I have watched you and your fellow trainees flying over my house since we moved here last September and I forgive you for not spotting me and waving at me whilst I was working on our clay lump barn or walking our dog along the Suffolk fields and byeways. I know you saw me but I also know that cool dudes like us don't wave, even though I occasionally looked after your late Mother when she visited my neck of the woods and even though you, cousin Beatrice and I met last year, up in North Yorkshire ( hope you enjoyed the wedding ). I understand, H, lets stay cool, your OK by me.



To complete that course, to `ride the dragon`, one of the most complex and potent machines in the British Army, is to enter the small and exclusive world of its elite aviators, the very best of the best. To those who have no interest in such things but who like Tom Cruise and therefore need a simple analogy, Prince H has entered the British Army equivalent of "TOPGUN". If you want to read more about this remarkable piece of kit, there is a link to the right of my main blog page under the "Well Worth a Visit" header. Click on Ed Macy MC.

That a member of our Royal Family has achieved this and who, as likely as not will go into harms way (again in H's case, he was a JTAC in Af. until the media bubbled him), is actually something I feel very proud of, and I don't get that feeling very much these days. Bloody good bloke.

Police Reform, Police Cuts, ("its life Jim, but not as we know it")

I joined the Metropolitan Police in 1969 as a cadet. Three years earlier, three police officers had been murdered on the streets of Shepherds Bush. They were in what was known as a "Q" car and had stopped and checked a suspicious vehicle containing three equally suspicious men, something police officers do most days, assuming they see something suspicious or at least something fitting the  modern definition of the meaning of `suspicious`, after it has been twiddled with by lawyers and politicians). On that occasion in 1966, the officers were spot on with their suspicions and, within minutes of their decision to stop and check the car, they were all dead, each having been murdered by gunshot. "Q" cars were crewed by an experienced detective sergeant, a sharp detective constable or Temporary DC (an officer who had shown particular acumen and who wanted to be a detective) and a constable as pilot, who was usually a grade 1 advanced driver. "Q" Cars were very effective anti crime units. The crew of Foxtrot 11 and the story of their murder affected, greatly, my generation of police officers.

In those days there was a crime fighting unit at Scotland yard known as The Flying Squad but universally referred to as "The Sweeney", as per Cockney rhyming slang Sweeney Todd = Flying Squad. There were lots of little jokes and anecdotes about this legendary unit. Eg: Have you seen the latest `Action Man` Flying Squad doll? It's suit is covered in cigarette ash, it smells of beer and scotch and when you pull the cord at the back, it says "Squad" out the corner of its mouth.

The Sweeney would turn up in all sorts of vehicles. Once I was at the front counter of Deptford police station when a bloke sidled in wearing a tatty jacket bearing the badge of a London taxi driver. He pulled out a warrant card and said, "Squad" out of the corner of his mouth, just like the aforementioned joke said he would. He was driving an authentic black London taxi cab, except I swear this one had twin exhausts and didn't sound like a diesel.

I was in the local area car one day when a call went out to support a Sweeney unit who had put out an odd call, requesting handcuffs. They had gone to arrest a man called John McVicar. A unit delivered said item as requested, but the strange thing was that the arresting officers were well tooled up with .38 revolvers so they were clearly expecting something interesting to happen. Funny how they forgot the 'cuffs? I always wanted to ask Mr McVicar about that. The Sweeney was a very effective and much feared anti serious crime unit.

Then there was the SPG. We always knew when `the group` were working our ground. Nobody actually told us, we just knew, because most of the regular street crime would come to an almost complete stop. The SPG was a very effective anti crime unit. We were almost as wary of them as we were the villains.

Anyone in the job out there know what the modern equivalents of the above are? If indeed they exist at all? Genuine question, I'd really like to know.

PS: Just in, this info on what the modern police officer has to contend with. Clearly I was right to leave as soon as my 30 was up:

Hi ho, hi ho.

The last clear definite function of Man - muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need - this is man. To build a wall, a house a dam and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national religeous, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes.

and all because the lady loves.........

No,wait, scrub that mission, she wasn't on the boat after all, she was at home in Dorset

Do rats really leave a sinking ship? (or "Oh Captain, my Captain!")

At last I have seen the light. I now realise what all those `time wasting`courses I had to attend during the latter half of my 30 year police career were all about.

I always felt that "Diversity Training" was a pathetic substitute for reasonableness, good manners and of treating one's fellows as one would wish to be treated. I never felt prejudiced about anyone because of their race, colour or ethnic or religeous origins and inclinations. I laughed at lots of jokes, winced at lots of others, voiced the occasional comment of disapproval and on a few occasions I intervened and gave a few quiet words of advice. With one noteable exception, my words and advice seemed to carry some gravitas and honours were usually left even.

So when I see stories like this I refrain from telling tired old wartime jokes about Italian tanks having one forward, and eight reverse, gears - it's not funny and it's not clever.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;   For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;     Here Captain! dear father!       This arm beneath your head;         It is some dream that on the deck,             You’ve fallen cold and dead. (Walt Whitman)

Nothing topical

Sorry but this little `pot boiler` of a post is something of very little or, one could say, much ado about not very much.

I thought about commenting on the mysterious case of yet another Iranian nuclear scientist getting himself blown up,but that is hardly a mystery. Then there was the survey today about some of the nations children being `unhappy` but, again, nothing new there especially from my own anecdotal evidence of screaming, uncontrolled brats, gathered in the various shops and supermarkets of this here vicinity.

A bigger mystery was `who killed the peacocks?`. There were six wandering at large in the village. By the time we moved here 3 months ago they were down to three, then we saw one half a mile up the road or, to be precise, on the verge, `brown bread` as a dorrnail. Sadly, there was one lonely chap on our roof today, pining for the fjiords - or his late departed friends and as feral as peacocks can be, which is pretty tame and laid back. I think someone told us they were abandoned when a couple divorced - wonder how their children fared? Either way it was heartbreaking to hear him honking for his missing chums.

Finally, an update on Chez Hog. We have a new first floor in the barn, as well as new rafters, felting and that fantastic Celotec insulation board. Its quite snug up there and I reckon mother-in-law would be very comfortable when she comes to stay. This afternoon I started to lime-putty wash the ground floor walls. This is not whitewash although it looks the same, sort of ... white. It's lime putty wash, which is lime putty 50% diluted with water, because the barn is made of clay lump and is also a Grade 2 listed building so one must be sympathetic to this rare construction material. My old police firearms team flame resistant coveralls are now a white flecked pattern, ideally suited to the Royal Marines Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre. At least if it snows before Spring I'll be a bugger to spot.

I'm re-typing my story about how I ended up starring in Fred Zinnerman's classic film, "The Day of the Jackal" and may well type it on Wordpress, although I haven't deserted Blogger yet - apathy may yet rule.

Hope you enjoy reading the interesting links I've added to the text.

Bye for now.

Blogger Hitch

For anyone who accessed the blog and got a title, expecting a post and ended up with more gobbledegookthan usual, there has been a monumental mess caused by the system (not me). I have pretty much had it with Blogger and am in the process of finding out how I can transfer my current stuff onto a new form of blog publisher. I'll be back after this short intermission. (Grumbles off for tea and Xmas cake, cussing and griping about bloody google blogger and all things computerish.....)