World politics has turned into a game of Risk and the UK isn’t ready for it
As the world goes mad, we have fewer soldiers now than were killed on the FIRST DAY of the Battle of the Somme
RISK is a wonderful board game in which you rush about the world with your armies attacking anyone who looks a bit weak.
I’m not sure, however, it works very well if people start to play it for real.
The current problems began back in 2001, when America decided that because some Saudi Arabians had flown a couple of jets into the World Trade Centre it would respond by attacking Afghanistan.
And then, when that seemed to go well, they attacked Iraq as well, which caused various people in Tunisia to attack themselves.
Then Britain and France thought they’d attack Libya, which caused Russia to invade Syria, from where Iran launched an attack on a bit of land the Israelis had occupied after their war with Jordan and Egypt.
This caused Israel to get permission from Russia to attack Iran and that seems to have not been noticed by America, which is busy trying to stop North Korea from attacking South Korea, which is hard because the leader of North Korea is in China doing God knows what.
Meanwhile, after the people of Libya pushed a scaffolding pole up the bottom of their leader, there hasn’t been a government at all, so that’s now where all of the world’s freedom fighters are readying themselves for a full-frontal assault on Europe.
At this rate, we could wake up tomorrow morning to find we’ve been invaded by Norway.
And are we ready for that? Apparently not. The Ministry of Defence is so far into the red, it’s wondering whether it can afford the 138 F-35 Lightning jets it had promised and may have to downsize to the point where James May’s Piper Cherokee is pressed into service.
Meanwhile, we have an aircraft carrier with no planes on the deck and a hole in its propeller shaft, and an Army that’s now smaller than it has been for 100 years.
In fact, we have fewer soldiers now than were killed on the FIRST DAY of the Battle of the Somme.
We have fewer deployable men and women than Poland.
Which begs the question — what are we spending the money on in these difficult times if it’s not men and weapons?
Well I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but I learned this week that the Royal Air Force is hanging on to land it hasn’t used since World War Two, and the Army has 48 massive training grounds in Wales alone.
It’s just a shame, as the world goes mad, that we don’t have enough people to do any actual training on them.
KO'd by a hose pipe bang
OVER the years we’ve worked together, James May and Richard Hammond have suffered many injuries.
Hammond has been hospitalised three times, twice when he went upside down in a car and once when he fell off a horse.
May, meanwhile, broke some ribs in another horse-related incident in Argentina and his head when he was knocked over in Syria.
I’ve always been lucky. But this week, that luck ran out as I tried to operate a hose pipe.
I’d been warned that it was a very powerful hose pipe and that I wouldn’t be able to hold it.
They said it would writhe about in my hands and that if the heavy metal tip were to hit my head, I’d be killed instantly.
I fixed them all with a withering stare, planted my feet firmly and told them to get on with it. . .
Anyway, when I came round there were two of everything and as I lay there in the mud, having landed on my head, I couldn’t help thinking that there are easier ways of making a living.
Sitting in a chair and asking people about scouting, for example.
I enjoyed doing that much more than I thought I would.
I prefer good time Charlize
AS a general rule I’m a huge fan of Charlize Theron.
She can be funny, intense, exciting and, in Atomic Blonde, eyes-on-stalks arousing.
However, her latest movie is Tully, and it’s a right old dog egg.
What annoys me most of all is the montage in which we see poor, stressed, fat Charlize, endlessly changing her baby’s nappy before getting her two slightly older children into the car and off to school.
On and on this goes until, eventually, you are forced to think: “Hang on a minute. She’s just doing what millions and millions of women all around the world do every day.”
She should go back to kicking Russians in the face and taking Algerian girls off to bed.
Sexism? It's got #metoo
I FACED a #metoo moment this week when, on location, I needed a researcher to go into the nearest town to find a building which we could dress up to look like a lap-dancing club.
One of the researchers was a boy and one was a girl, so wishing to spare the girl’s blushes, I sent the boy.
And then I spent the rest of the day worrying if I’d been sexist by not sending the girl.
Tricky times we live in.
- A SENIOR judge announced this week that as more and more people carry mobile phones, it will be easier for the Police to check alibis and that the number of prosecutions will reduce.
Reduce?
I’m not sure he’s thought that one through.
NH-Sense?
THERE are plans for doctors to examine camera phone footage before deciding whether to send an ambulance to the scene of an emergency.
On the face of it, this sounds sensible.
It would save the NHS a fortune if it didn’t have to send one of its big vans through the rush-hour traffic only to find some halfwit has a hurty paper cut.
There is, however, a problem with the idea.
Because it won’t be doctors on the other end of the phone, will it? It will be people with a GCSE in biology.
And if I have a stroke, I don’t want someone like that deciding whether it’s an emergency or not simply by looking at the blurry selfie I’ve sent of my face, which is lop-sided anyway.
Wild dreams
MY colleague, Rod Liddle, pointed out in the Sun this week that people criticising plans to re-introduce the lynx to Northumberland should shut up because, in all of history, not one single human has ever been attacked by one of these big moggies.
Ramblers, he explained, would therefore be safe. Yeah, but you see Rod, that’s my problem.
What’s the point of introducing a new species to the remote parts of Britain if it’s going to run off and hide whenever the cagoule people hove into view?
We need something that puts its head down and charges.
Wolves anyone? Rhinos?
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Wet wipe-out a good plan
AS the world plunges into a plastic-free future, it makes sense to get rid of wet wipes, which clog up the sewers and strangle turtles.
A damp flannel does the job just as well.
I’d like to go further, and suggest we also get rid of plastic water bottles.
If you must drink water, you can get it from the tap. And while we are at it, plastic cutlery. Just no.