THE BRITISH THREAD II

Ascension Island is a British posession. We build an airfield there during WWII, and have operated it and a variety of missile/satellite-tracking; communications; and submarine detection systems there ever since. Most of the folks there are, as McTag implied, American. However, like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean it is a British colonial relic, and ultimate control rests with them.

I once had the interesting experience of diverting there from a carrier returning to the East coast from the Indian ocean via the South Atlantic. One of my landing gear wouldn't come down, so I got to do a wheels up landing on a very strange runway there, cut through a large hill. Even with the cut through the hill, the runway had a pronounced hump in it near the midpoint. It was high enough that from the cockpit it appeared that one was approaching the end of the runway while only at the midpoint. A zone of black rubber coated concrete there demonstrated the effectiveness of the illusion to many previous pilots.

I was stuck there for several days arranging for the repair of the aircraft (one could land an A-4 on its wing drop tanks with relatively little damage). The center of the island is dominated by a 3+ thousand foot mountain. At its base the land is semi arid and with very little vegetation. As one drove & climbed up the mountain, the climate became wetter and wetter and the terrain greener. After passing above a semi permanent 1,500 ft maratime cloud layer the vegetation became lush green, and the air cool & damp. There was even an English style farm there with sheep, a few cattle and red brick buildings - very strange after the desert below. Above that, one then had to go on foot. As we climbed the vegetation became increasingly tropical, finally becoming a sort of rain forest with, of all things a bamboo grove near the top. A memorable experience.

Anyway - the place is British.

That's nothing George.

I was once stuck for several weeks in the Mesopatamian desert due to a similar sudden and unannouced unserviceabilty in an engine which fell onto the runway half-way through a take-off procedure in a shower of sparks and bits flying off as it bounced merrily along.

Fortunately it was in an oasis the British had built at Habbaniya on the banks of the Tigris about 40 miles west of Baghdad. Outside its perimeter stretched miles of flat dunge brown sand with an occasional shrub sticking up and at night the pyeards could be heard howling in the far distance. All night.

With nothing to do but wait for a replacement engine the days were spent getting mildly pissed, playing snooker and cards, swimming in the biggest swimming pool I've ever seen, avoiding the spinsters in the WVS, going to the 2,000 seat open air cinema with bars along the length of both sides, writing to loved ones and sunbathing. I was blacker than Mr Obama. There was a good tarmac road to Baghdad which started about 10 miles from the main gate and stopped about 20 miles from the city. Sometimes a taxi driver would miss it and then it was sand driving all the way.

You could lose a gallon of sweat with constipation. The bogs were not air-conditioned and Kilroy had been in them all. Never paint over graffiti on a bog door. The world contains an unmeasureable amount of mordant humour. I hate "forced" graffiti of the type I've seen in footage of New York. It's so beta-minus I feel. Like having the decorators out.

The NAFFI club in Baghdad was a veritable paradise after coming in off the crazy roadway where donkeys were being beaten to pull piled up carts with a few cars zigzagging around them all blaring their horns, ragged urchins running everywhere and iced melon and Coca-Cola stands every few yards. Once inside those swing doors you were in a London gentleman's club.

There was a nightclub where European ladies danced to sensuous exotic strains with nothing but two ostrich feather fans to cover their shame for gentlemen whose success in life could be measured by the fact that a bottle of beer cost half a week's wages. The shame was only visible in brief flashes which I should imagine it takes considerable patience to perfect without risking it becoming boring or chthonic and the gentlemen showed their appreciation when it happened with a polite round of applause at which the young ladies sometimes smirked.

Anyway an engine finally arrived and that was that.

Did my story seem THAT self-absorbed?? If so, I apologize for it.

I did find the experience memorable, and the variation of the land and atmosphere as one climbed the hill quite interesting and beautiful.

Climbing hills is not my cup-of-tea I'm afraid. I've watched the Tour de France a few times from my sofa and I don't fancy it one bit.

But I suppose I could have been persuaded to take a walk up a hill which became wetter and wetter and greener and greener until it eventually became cool and damp. If only for artistic purposes.

I would never go as far as the bamboo canes though. I've read Don Quixote.

I climbed Ditchling Beacon today. To Hove. Got a medal and a burger. Then trained it back. 72 miles pedalling total. And totalled I is. G night.

Well done Stevie - proud of you hun. You did good for your charity. WELL DONE

I once did the Three Peaks/Three Pubs yomp for a dare.

I have a certificate to prove it somewhere in the bowels of this paperwork. I would look for it for a big enough bet.

I've never heard of Ditchling Beacon. Is it a small mound at the end of the Bakerloo Line with National Trust direction signs and green litter bins.

It always makes me titter when I see green litter bins.

A burglar broke into a house one night. He shone his flashlight
around, looking for valuables; and when he picked up a CD player to place in his sack, a strange disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying,

'Jesus is watching you.'

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off, and
froze.

When he heard nothing more after a short while he shook his head and
continued.

Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires,
clear as a bell he heard once again,

'Jesus is watching you.'


Freaked out, he shone his light around frantically, looking for the
source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight
beam came to rest on a parrot.

'Did you say that?' he hissed at the parrot.

'Yep,' the parrot confessed, and then squawked, 'I'm just trying to
warn you.'

The burglar relaxed.

'Warn me, huh? Who in the world are you?

'Moses,' replied the bird.

'Moses?' the burglar laughed.

'What kind of people would name a bird
Moses?

'The kind of people that would name a Rottweiler 'Jesus.'

Titter ye not as Frankie Howerd used to say. They are made of none recyclable re inforced polycarbonate, dyed green. Ideal for holding sweat wrappers until hell freezes.

Ditchling beacon is a hill. I'm not even going to post the wiki link, you can look and see if motivated enough.

Which I'm not.

The pub was amazing tonight.

So much so that I daren't tell you about it.

Yes;-

The Landlord no doubt propped two more corpses up by the bar, so that the idiot wouldn't feel so lonely.

ok...i'm intrigued enough. I dare you.

No way.

A2Kers have a low enough opinion about me as it is.

Jennifer Whiteside taught me not to play the dare game a long time ago.

There's no need to bring Jennifer into it. And in any case I can quite believe you encouraged her.

Alls quiet on the British Isles front.

McT is sailing anticlockwise via the Kiel Suez and Panama canals to...? L'Orient?

Everyone else is watching tennis.

A boy from Stevenage did several circuits in his motor car faster than anyone else. Yawn

ok nighty night

That's nothing Steve-

Boris loses No2 after a few weeks in office.

They can't mark the exam papers.

The troops are in the Mid-east on a shoestring budget.

MPs refuse to be accounted.

No wonder they are all watching the tennis.

At least there's a change in the weather due Wednesday

today heavy showers
tomorrow light showers
wed heavy rain.

I think I prefer rain to showers. Not as fickle.

Rain can be fickle too. Heavy bursts and light bursts. Accompanied by blustery winds.

Have you never done Bed and Breakfasts in the Cotswolds.

No but i seem to remember getting exceedingly tired of rain "on holiday" in Ireland.

Cycled off to the pub last night. Got trapped by a thunderstorm. There are worse places.

When I got back...soaked...I didnt get the reproachful look, out of sympathy I presume. So rain can have its advantages.