Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

Who do you think is the single biggest supplier of military equipment to Ukraine?

It might or might not surprise you to know that it is Russia. They aren't doing it willingly, but the sheer volume of equipment the invading troops have abandoned outweighs what any other nation has supplied. Around half of Ukraine's tanks are captured Russian ones. That in itself tells you quite a lot about the conflict. If you are operating equipment that is useful to the enemy and it is going to be captured, then troops are generally trained to destroy them before abandoning them. That this isn't happening I can only really see coming down to two factors. One is that the troops simply aren't well-trained enough to prevent the enemy from taking and using it. The other is that they simply do not care enough about the cause they are fighting for. Kind of symptomatic of the whole campaign thus far from the Russian side. Imagine being sent to invade another country and not know about it until you are in a firefight. What is that going to do to your morale? Very little has went right for the Russian forces in this campaign, their command and control is abysmal, and they seem to have precious few effective junior officers in the field. Their airpower should be sweeping away all before them. Russian tactical doctrine has you annihilate an area with artillery and then roll in, and yet right from the start they have struggled. That convoy are armoured vehicles that depending on the source you listen to was between 23km up to about 48km... there is a name for something like that. You call it a shooting gallery. If at any point you didn't think that the Russians had bollocked up majorly on this invasion or you couldn't see that is it was a disaster from the start... well you just don't know anything about military operations.

What I am waiting on though is the end of the winter season and what happens just after that. Russia could still turn everything around and if they are going to, it will happen when the bad weather subsides (unless we have a very mild winter). They have a chance to reorganise and rearm which could turn the war around. If they do, and they start winning in Ukraine then the world becomes a much more dangerous place and all bets are off. If Ukraine pushes Russian forces out of its territory and then crosses the border, the world enters a much more dangerous phase. From an outsider's dispassionate viewpoint, the best result I can see is that Ukrainian forces push Russian ones back, but then get caught in a stalemate. Personally, I'd like to see Ukraine retake all their land, including Crimea, but what that might mean for the worldwide balance of power and the potential use of nuclear weapons if Putin feels his position is desperate enough....

I guess you have to decide at that point at what cost freedom and would you rather live on your knees or die on your feet. I mean you could kowtow to Putin, give him what he wants and then as he has done previously, he'll feel empowered and want to claim more. What we are seeing now is now different to what we saw before World War 2. Some people have learned the lesson from giving in to petty tyrants, and some quite clearly haven't. The human race seems to have a natural predication towards repeating its previous mistakes though. Had Putin been stood up to previously then things would not have gone as far as they now have. His strongman image would have collapsed and he wouldn't have amassed the political power he now has. We all let him get away with it though in the name of avoiding something worse and all it did was allow him to gather more power and the stakes haven't lessened any. I didn't sign up to stand by and let s**t like that happen, but our political masters seem to have decided it is what should happen and only now have we reached a point where we draw a line in the sand. Even if that line is paid for by another nation's blood. Yeah, we've seen that tried before and it didn't work then but hey we will try a failed policy again and see how it goes a second time. The last time it ended with an attack on Pearl Harbour.

I can only assume that Putin genuinely thought his troops would be welcomed as liberating heroes and was so convinced of that, that they just didn't bother preparing for a full campaign. I've read about battles and sometimes campaigns where the ineptitude shown by one side is just stunning, like the British defence of Singapore, the US Vietnam campaign, the French Vietnam campaign (well to be fair, most French campaigns), If over 20 years of military service have taught me anything it is that 1) Politicians should not in any way be involved in the planning or execution of military campaigns (especially those who have never fought in one, or (and especially) those who have avoided military service) and 2) Officers should not be solely responsible for planning such conflicts without the overriding opinion of experienced NCO's.

Oh well, in a few month's time this will no longer matter to me and people who have never had military service between the ages of 18 and 55 can s**t themselves instead. I know every time I've been told I've been going to a warzone that is how I've felt about it. People who have sat all smug and s**t, thinking they could comment on stuff they are clearly clueless about could potentially find themselves in positions where they'll find out just how wrong they have been. I'd like to feel smug about that, but the truth is, I'd be recalled to active service and be in charge of them. In the full knowledge that they weren't expected to achieve much more than a slight delay and cost the enemy a bunch of ammunition.

D&D last night was entertaining. Mostly because of me (he said modestly). We'd just rescued a bunch of prisoners from some lizardmen by agreeing to kill some trolls. One of the rescuees though turned out to be less than grateful for our efforts. Turns out he was a rather arrogant wizard. Well, my arrogant wizard took that as a personal challenge and proceeded to make the other guy his b***h. The spell I used was called Charm Person and basically, it made him like me for 4 hours. We'd set camp and he'd gone to sleep by the time it wore off, but when he awoke he was rather angry about my mind-control spell. I did tell him if he was that p**sed off, then he was free to challenge me to a wizard's duel (although the DM had dropped some subtle hints that he was slightly more powerful than me, I still figured I could take him (I did say my wizard was arrogant)). He said he'd never seen such ineptitude, so I told him I could solve that problem for him and cast a spell that blinded him. I thought this was just a short-term thing, but after casting the spell it turned out to be permanent. Oh, I also reduced all his mental attributes.

Anyway, it turns out that his guy has connections in the nearest city (Neverwinter), and while he himself is viewed as a joke I might have made an enemy of his family.

Boy, are they going to regret that mistake. :P

Tomorrow, the son of a family friend is coming to stay with us. Friday, I am going to escort him to a recruiting office and help him join up. Every instinct in my body screams at me to tell him not to, but is it really my right to say that to someone? If they have their heart set on serving their country, or (as I found to be more common) they view the military as an escape from a poverty-ridden existence where you work minimum wage level jobs until they die. To my way of thinking if you have left school and you have no idea what you want to do with your life, then the military is great. It will provide you with direction, multiple paths to self-improvement and will generally motivate you. I'll be quite honest and say it is something I needed. I could sit any exam and score highly, but none of it brought a single penny into my pocket. I left school with a whole bunch of ideas on what I'd like to do, but absolutely no experience on how to achieve anything I wanted,. The military gave me direction there, and for my first seven years in the job gave me impetuous to aim towards the goal of promotion, but the more I saw of what promotion would cost me, the less it appealed to me. Now, I saw a lot of people who said the same thing as me who simply lacked the talent to go any further. The adage says that you will always be promoted to the level where you are no longer competent.

To get back to the point of my post, should I encourage someone to follow the same path I have trod? Well, my answer would be "Do I have the right to tell this person that this is the wrong path?"" Hell, I've managed over two decades of service that might have had more in common with Sergeant Bilko than Sergeant Rock. I've done what my nation has required of me, without overly doing extra (ok, not 100% true. I have done some stuff that has been regarded as above and beyond, but honestly mostly I view that as being episodes of temporary insanity than being anywhere near heroism). This is the general impression I get of people who earn high-level medals. They were looking to do something normal, but ended up dying doing it and got big shiny medals out of it).

I feel I am kind of randomly rambling tonight (yeah, like there is a difference between that and my normal posts). I might have had a point to make when I started, but if I did, then it has been long since lost. Less so than people with zero military experience who think they are even slightly qualified to comment on things happening during warfare.

Oh gods, if only they realised just how naive and uninformed their positions really are. If it wasn't for the fact I know people who have been injured and crippled in these conflicts, I'd happily laugh at people who think they have the slightest idea of what is going on without having served any military service themselves. How f**king stupid they sound just mouthing off empty opinions handed to them by media outlets... Oh well, such is life. People who really have no idea of what is going on and lack the credible experience of what is will try to sound loud and important to give the impression that they do know what is happening, just because it suits the world view of what they would like to be happening rather than what is really going on.

Yeah, you can argue with those idiots, but honestly, the best you can do is ignore them. Let them mouth off as much as they want and let them be proved wrong in the long term. If they'd realise what they are doing is wrong and accept that, then pointing that out would be a better idea, but people are far from perfect. They will listen to what they want to be true far more than you'll ever hear people accept what is really the truth. Listening to what you want to hear, even when it is a complete lie, is so much more comfortable than having to confront the truth.

[Alex]

Took a friend's son up to the local airforce recruiting office as he'd expressed an interest in joining up. I checked on the website for the AFCO opening hours and whatnot. Everything seemed fine. Got to the office and it was closed with a sign saying to phone this number for an appointment. He phoned the number and got told he should have checked the website. We told them he had and he was then told he'd need to phone next week to see if an appointment is available. In order to attend the appointment, he will need to travel to either Glasgow or Edinburgh. That is a 4 to 6-hour journey. Depending on the time of the appointment, there is a good chance that would mean paying for accommodation for an overnight stay. That's a pretty big ask just for the chance of joining up.

Maybe we are only recruiting people from the central belt these days.

[Alex]

I am doing a resettlement course at the moment. The lecturer asked us "What has been the biggest obstacle to you doing your job?" My answer was short and simple. "Officers".

She looked shocked and said "Well, you must have a problem obeying orders. It can't be the officer's fault."

Hah! Want to bet she is an ex-officer.

Pretty sure if you spoke to any of my previous CO's (with one exception, fu Tudge! No wonder your own senior staff were working to f**k you over), that isn't what they'd say about me. I might not always agree with orders. If I believe it is wrong, I'll even question the orders, but unless they are illegal, ultimately I'll follow them (believe me, I've had times when I've spent a full day making sure my orders were all fully legal before and not taken no for an answer).

[Alex]

Mentioned to my sergeant about what the recruiter had said. The surprise on his face gave me his answer. Went to a recruitment fair yesterday and got a very positive lead on working for an organisation I'd be quite happy to be involved with and doing something I'd like. It would then come down to a matter of where and how much.

The course was all about marking yourself as a brand and how to sell yourself. Most of the ground they covered is all theory that I already know about. There were some useful tips from it though, especially with using LinkedIn. Not sure I'll use the advice as the jobs I am looking for aren't in that kind of arena.

Sorting out making a complaint about the recruitment office stuff. I am tracking down who I need to speak to, which in the military is not an uncommon problem.

Things just aint ordered like they should be.

[Alex]

Well me and Kristi snuck off for a weekend away and went to see The Thing on the big screen.

I blame ET for me not getting to see it there sooner. It has only taken 40 years. Went to Nando's for the first time. The food was fine, but I am not sure why everyone goes on about it like it was something special. I mean I'd go back, but it wasn't any better or worse than anywhere else that I eat at regularly. The hotel was good for a Travel Lodge. A bit more out of the way than usual for one of them, so it was quieter and more secluded than usual. Not going to complain about that.

All in all, it was a nice weekend. Picked up a church and a new tank, then had a whole load of figures turn up unexpectedly for a Kickstarter I'd backed a while ago. I hadn't seen anything saying that the figures were coming out already, so it was all a bit of a surprise. Samhain tonight. We'd prepared sweets enough for 120 guisers. That went in the first half hour. This time though I didn't run to the shops for extra supplies. We just had hordes of kids turning up constantly, 10 to 20 at the door at any time. We took Ash out around a few houses, then came back. He was quite upset when the doorbell rang and we didn't have any more stuff to hand out, saying "Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en" each time.

I keep seeing people with, oh what's the correct term currently? Different skin tones, people of colour, BAME? I dunno. Every time I get used to one term, they declare it racist and say I need to learn a new one. But anyway, they are complaining about immigration into the UK. That always makes me chuckle, although not in a good way.

Kristi bought Top Gun 2. I really should do a review of that one.

[Alex]

Went to give blood yesterday. The needle stung a bit more than usual going in, but nothing spectacular. In just over 5 minutes I'd filled the bag and they came to take the needle out. That is when the problem started. The blood wouldn't stop flowing. Nothing arterial spurting out or anything, but it was a fast and steady flow. Figured they just made the hole a little bit larger than it needed to be and I ended up having a ridiculous amount of bandages wrapped around my forearm. It wasn't severe or anything, but I am sure I'll get interesting results when I go for my leaving medical this afternoon when they check my blood pressure and it is a lot lower than they expect. Got a small medal thing for the number of times I've donated.

Yay. I'll put that with the other ones then. I was surprised when they said I hadn't donated since 2019. I thought I had given more recently, but I guess with all the covid stuff, it is something that had just slipped into the background. Oh well, I've done my bit to keep blood stocks up. Even if I was tempted to ask for some of it back to replace the extra they'd taken.

I am glad I don't have a fear of needles. Strangely, the majority of people I've met who do have such a fear have all been sergeants (including my current one). Of course, I took great delight in telling them all the details of the needles going in. There were a couple of people deployed on the vaccination program with me who did have it too, but they were just told to man up and get on with it. I stood beside one of them while he gave his first injection just in case he passed out. He was fine though. Hmm, Dean should be out of the RAF by now. I wonder how he is getting on? Poor lad. He was my go-to, to torment when I was bored. Surprised I've not bumped into Dan though (Lieutenant Dan, he's got no legs!). I did see the Royal Marines band is releasing a charity single for xmas. I worked beside quite a few bandies from the marines. Wonder if any of them play on it? To be honest I was surprised at just how many of them there were.

With my mum up visiting, we didn't have any D&D this week. Looking forward to getting back on with our sessions. It is looking like my assassin might have to kill a third fellow party member. Seriously, these murders are like buses. Over 30 years without a single player-on-player fight, and now I am looking at my third. I blame Generation Z. Gen X was way cooler.

[Rev. Powell]

Good for you on donating blood. This is something I've taken to doing twice a year. So easy, and so valuable. No way of knowing but its nice to think I could have helped save multiple lives over the years.

[Alex]

Wrapping presents today and listing them here so I can remind myself what I've bought and not buy something twice.

Kristi.

Alan Rickman Diaries (Saturnas eve).
Star Wars/Hobbit calendars.
MT:G Expansions.
Fluxx Star Trek expansion.
Chocolate Harry Potter wand set.
Avantasia CD.
Bootyard Bandits CD.
US Army order dice.
Pink marbled dice.
Small World: World of Warcraft.
Munchkin Unicorns Expansion.
Harry Potter lego*2.
Zombie Kittens & Streaking Kittens Expansion.
Pink and black dice.
Thorin Oakenshield & Company.
Top Trumps Wizard & Witches: Harry Potter.


Ash.

Box of soldiers.
Large toy car.
Hot Wheels Playset.
Playmobil Novelmore Playset.
Playmobil Novelmore Catapult.
Playmobil Police Car.
Matchbox Playset.
Construct a road playset.

Ran out of wrapping paper, so I'll need to come back to this and finish it another time.

[Trevor]

Well me and Kristi snuck off for a weekend away and went to see The Thing on the big screen.

I blame ET for me not getting to see it there sooner. It has only taken 40 years. Went to Nando's for the first time. The food was fine, but I am not sure why everyone goes on about it like it was something special. I mean I'd go back, but it wasn't any better or worse than anywhere else that I eat at regularly. The hotel was good for a Travel Lodge. A bit more out of the way than usual for one of them, so it was quieter and more secluded than usual. Not going to complain about that.

All in all, it was a nice weekend. Picked up a church and a new tank, then had a whole load of figures turn up unexpectedly for a Kickstarter I'd backed a while ago. I hadn't seen anything saying that the figures were coming out already, so it was all a bit of a surprise. Samhain tonight. We'd prepared sweets enough for 120 guisers. That went in the first half hour. This time though I didn't run to the shops for extra supplies. We just had hordes of kids turning up constantly, 10 to 20 at the door at any time. We took Ash out around a few houses, then came back. He was quite upset when the doorbell rang and we didn't have any more stuff to hand out, saying "Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en" each time.

I keep seeing people with, oh what's the correct term currently? Different skin tones, people of colour, BAME? I dunno. Every time I get used to one term, they declare it racist and say I need to learn a new one. But anyway, they are complaining about immigration into the UK. That always makes me chuckle, although not in a good way.

Kristi bought Top Gun 2. I really should do a review of that one.

Nandos is quite popular here but I haven't had their chikin burgers for a while. My special sister always gives me stinkeye if I eat too much red meat 😝

[Alex]

We had some new people around for a board game day today, playing Firefly. Hadn't met any of them before (we found each other via Discord), but by pure coincidence, it was two gay guys and gay women. Not that this is a problem, I just wondered what the odds were on that happening. A fun game was had by all, although we never got around to completing the final mission.

Shame about the times of the last buses on Sundays.

We are having another session next Sunday, with more people turning up. To the point where we may have two separate games going on at the same time.

[Alex]

Well, Friday and Saturday were spent moving stuff around and scrubbing carpets. About to take the cleaner back, and then we have about an hour before people should start arriving. Looking forward to some boardgames, but I'd like some free time too.

Finally got Ash's school pictures. You'd have thought with everything being online now, we'd have had them within days. Instead, we had a wait for around 6 weeks. Still overpriced either way.









Started working on next years yuletide ornament for Kristi. This years had a Charles Dicken's theme. Next year I am going with evil snowmen and a mutant Santa.

[Alex]

After a couple of weeks of interrupted sleep for everyone in the house (including the cat), we finally all got a good night's sleep last night. Ash has taken to sleeping with his favourite hat on, which is odd, but on the other hand today for the first time he accepted wearing a bodywarmer, and didn't insist that it was broken because it didn't have sleeves.

Got a vegan friend who has been going on about how eating animals is immoral and bollocks like that. Morality is a human concept and is very much subject to individual interpretation. Not to mention how much it changes over time. He mentioned he was going to watch the world cup games in Qatar. I may have made comments about the morality involved there, where you have a country that highly restricts human rights, and has the death penalty for those who decide that they don't want to be muslim anymore. Any time he brings up the subject of how we treat animals in the future, I'll be bringing up how Qatar treats its migrant workers and so forth. He could always just decide that he is vegan and that is fine without trying to push his beliefs on other people.

If you aren't going to commit to these things fully, it is just virtue signalling.

In my Friday night D&D game, the party messed up quite badly and doomed the world. I asked if they wanted to play through to the end of the world, or just call it where they'd f**ked it up? I could have repaired it, but ever since the whole Deck of Many Things incident derailed the campaign, I've felt it should be called. I am looking at running an entirely different system, one where the players don't have their stats in front of them. They'll have a rough idea of what they are good at, for example, better than average fighter, strongest person you've ever met, an absolute idiot who's never been able to get a boy/girlfriend and so forth, but they won't know that they have a 45% chance of hitting someone with a spear, or that their fireball will do 10d6 damage. I've been getting tired of people coming up with superpowered builds and trying to break the game. I can always come up with a counter, but I want a game where people actually play the game, not play the rules.

[ER]

Well, Friday and Saturday were spent moving stuff around and scrubbing carpets. About to take the cleaner back, and then we have about an hour before people should start arriving. Looking forward to some boardgames, but I'd like some free time too.

Finally got Ash's school pictures. You'd have thought with everything being online now, we'd have had them within days. Instead, we had a wait for around 6 weeks. Still overpriced either way.









Started working on next years yuletide ornament for Kristi. This years had a Charles Dicken's theme. Next year I am going with evil snowmen and a mutant Santa.

I can't believe how much bigger he's gotten. A handsome young fella you guys got there, Alex!

[Alex]

Well, Friday and Saturday were spent moving stuff around and scrubbing carpets. About to take the cleaner back, and then we have about an hour before people should start arriving. Looking forward to some boardgames, but I'd like some free time too.

Finally got Ash's school pictures. You'd have thought with everything being online now, we'd have had them within days. Instead, we had a wait for around 6 weeks. Still overpriced either way.









Started working on next years yuletide ornament for Kristi. This years had a Charles Dicken's theme. Next year I am going with evil snowmen and a mutant Santa.

I can't believe how much bigger he's gotten. A handsome young fella you guys got there, Alex!

Thank you. We like him ourselves.

This is what my players are getting as a character sheet. Imagine you are playing a computer game and you get this, instead of a bunch of numbers.

In most ways you are a perfectly average person, neither excelling nor being truly terrible at things. You do however have a high tolerance for pain and bad weather. If you have any weaknesses it is your tendency to panic under pressure and a lack of confidence when it comes to taking charge. You consider yourself to be more intelligent than most people.

As a hobby, you have found a talent for writing and breaking secret codes. Sometimes you get a bit too excited when you are talking to people that you find yourself speaking so quickly that it confuses and overwhelms your listener. When you enter this state, you find yourself just spouting random, meaningless gibberish. Of course with your work, you are an expert in identifying plants and their properties for healing injuries and treating disease. Working in an apothecary, you have learned how to read and write and have been inducted into the Apothecary's Guild (even if your membership has since lapsed). Still, you remember the secret phrases the guild members use when talking to each other and additionally have picked up the secret signs that those who follow the Old Religion use in the wilderness to mark dangerous places, holy sites and so forth.


Equipment-wise, you carry a knife (for cutting herbs), and an old spear that belonged to your grandfather, although it serves you more as a walking stick, or to fend off the occasional hungry animal. You have light clothes, not entirely suited to being outdoors in wet weather. The knife normally lives in a sheath in your belt, while on the other side hangs a waterskin and a purse. In your trusty sling bag, you carry an empty scroll case, a cooking pot, firewood, a tinderbox, and a rolled-up hammock.

Your purse contains 2 gold and 10 silver coins.

Would you find this interesting or just irritating? The three players are certainly intrigued so far.

[Alex]

In last night's D&D we were trying to reach an inn that was in the centre of an unnatural storm. We found some people nailed to the walls by tridents. They were still alive, although our hapless warlock did accidentally rip the heart from an old woman's chest while trying to rescue her. He tossed the heart to our druid's pet wolf, so at least it didn't go to waste.

Remember the old woman though. She has a role to play later.

Kicking the door to the inn open, we found worshippers of the evil god Talos (master of storms), who had sacrificed most of the people although a few were tied up at the side. The more combat-orientated people in the group ran in to fight the bad people. I decided on a more poetic and karmic course. Drawing on my magical powers I raised the dead up as zombies and commanded them to attack their killers.

Yeah, remember that old woman that the warlock killed? He found this ancient, toothless old crone returned to life and attempted to gum him to death (lacking any teeth). Anyway, we killed the cultists, cleared out the ground and upper floor of the inn and then descended down into the cellar (there really should be a DUH DUH DAH! noise every time someone says "the cellar").

That is where it all went wrong.

We found a 12-foot copper statue being animated and a woman commanding it. The melee lot as per usual just charged in without waiting for buffs and found that the 12-foot-tall walking metal statue did a lot of damage. Juan ran over to provide said buffs and got splattered over the cellar floor for his efforts, in a very dead way. Afterwards, the party attempted to cast a spell called Reincarnation which would bring him back to life but in a new body. Dice were rolled and the body he is going to come back in, is that of an Orc. Physically, his attributes will be modified, but not his mental ones. This means I get a huge strength increase, but no loss of intellect. Handy that for a spell caster really. I am now the strongest member of the party.

Boy is that going to be a shock to the rest of the group. Everyone else is thinking that Juan is going to be really upset about being in an Orcish body as he is a rather proud and haughty personage. Truth is, Juan doesn't care about physical appearances. He only really cares about magical power. He isn't going to be upset that he is in a stronger body than he had before. Doubtless, he'll have some social problems. Orcs aren't like a good credit card and accepted in most places. Still, he has a lot of enchantment and illusionary spells that can solve that problem.