Rhodes on royal tours, army mules and can we believe Boris's views on Putin?
Read the latest column from Peter Rhodes.
Do royal tours achieve anything? Does anyone really enjoy them? Is it not a bit weird for wealthy white rulers to be paraded for the well-rehearsed adulation of poor black citizens? The British Government may see the Cambridges' tour of the Caribbean as a chance to extend old customs into a new century but if, as it seems, people don't want them there, what's the point?
This, if we believe our Prime Minister, is the outlook for Vladimir Putin: "He has been in a total panic about the so-called colour revolution in Moscow itself, and that's why he's trying so brutally to snuff out the flame of freedom in Ukraine.” This is exactly what the world wants to hear. Snag is, Boris has form for presenting wishful thinking as facts. So is his assessment of Putin the whole truth, or just a Boris truth?
Supposing the proposed swap of fighter jets between Poland and the US had gone ahead. What would it have achieved? The Ukrainian air force would have acquired a few old Mig jet fighters designed to operate from modern runways. And in the age of cruise missiles, nothing is more vulnerable than a runway.
There once was a warplane designed to fly and fight from concealed woodland clearings. It was the British jump-jet, the Harrier. If some of them could have been spirited into Ukraine, they might have been a game-changer in today's conflict. But like so many useful bits of kit, the Harrier was declared obsolete and scrapped.
In the same way, some soldiers fighting the 1982 Falklands War thought how useful mules and barrage balloons would have been in that conflict. But they, too, had been abandoned years before in the name of progress. What happened to the Army's old mules? I am indebted to the website of The Army Rumour Service (ARRSE) for some answers. According to one old soldier, the mules are “no longer used in the British Army but are still cooked”. Another suggests: “I think the mules moved on to higher positions in command.”
Proud grandad moment. Our live-in grandson is two. He has no idea what a week is or what a player is. Yet at Rugbytots, he's just been named Player of the Week. It's called getting 'em young.
