@djshackson
Welsh-Aussie Assistant Headteacher, historian, in London at a Girls' School. Traveler - 74 countries so far , Cycle Commuter. PC games. Former Intelligence Corps Reservist. Surrey CCC. Irony warning. #NAFO, NATO Matters. Will block DMs unless a friend.
@dermotncosgrove.bsky.social Well done Ireland.
Pleased that Wales were competative. Also, as an Australian where cricket rules, the fact that the grandson of Ian Botham scored a try for Wales is a bonus.
I was preparing for a thrashing. Pleased to see Wales making ot close.
Can't believe it is this close. Also, for a Welsh Australian it is very signicant the last Welsh try was scored by the grandson of Ian Botham.
@dermotncosgrove.bsky.social Only 2 points at half time. Did not expect this.
Trump reckons Starmer is no Churchill. A good thing for him. For all his many faults, Churchill callled out Hitler as evil ahead of other conservatives. Based on his record and speaches he would have called out Trunp as evil and a threat to Western Democracy in 2016.
Not like red and green are confusingly similar.
Why the fuck are Wales in white?
Yeah because the world's most powerfull fuckwit is going to just know.
@dermotncosgrove.bsky.social
Know we are going to get crushed but still heading to a local pub showing the game like this: Cymru Am Byth!
Were not where FFS
Yeah, it was a rare moment. Should have just shut the fuck up.
Once, at a dinner with teaching colleauges who where all younger than me by a far margin, I was drunk enough I described what they did to me as part of that exercise... realised Gen Y,Z etc were very uncomfortable with that.
In the last military exercise I took part in, Kangaroo 92, I did deliberately run in front of an enemy MG position so they would declare me dead. It was tropical Northern Australia 35+ celcius. I had been on exercise for over 3 weeks, not had a proper feed for days, I just couldn't be arsed anymore.
Yeah, should have joined the infantry.
But reckon I might have shit myself if it had been done while I was in civilian mode and unexpected.
I guess because, although I was a lowly and pretty insignificant reservist, on account I was Intelligence Corps with a fairly high level security clearance, the bastards put me through an unexpected capture and interrorgation exercise. Not as bad because I kind of expected it at some ppint.
That image is haunting.
If you want to know why we stood up an office specifically to deal with CIVCAS (disbanded). Why we study the laws of war. Why we restrict ROE. Why we keep JAGs close in the targeting process. Why some of us who had to make hard decisions can still sleep at night. It was all there to prevent THIS.
The absolute cringe.
Rudyard Kipling: "Tommy"
O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
A writer misappropriated and paraphrased it as an Orwell quote (he never wrote or said any such thing) and the mistake has carried on ever since.
Reckon Rudyard Kipling might be more pissed.
How I arrived on Bluesky
I talked with David Kay right after he came back from Iraq in late 2003.
What was the number one thing we got wrong, I asked.
His answer: the complete breakdown of societal trust among the Iraqis.
Saw this earlier on my thread and was just thinking what to make of it in terms of what is says about a society. Your response here absolutely encapsulates the thoughts swirling around in my head. Your friend David Kay is so right. No social contract through social trust: no society.
Good to drink at a good old fasioned East End independent pub in Bethnal Green. Don't get to this part of Tower Hamlets much since I stopped working locally.
And just to not be guilty of disinformation myself: it was one parent suggesting the policy changes, but others just having varying degrees of other hysterical over-reaction.
The police asked schools in my area to send out a message to our community and, yes, it just meant we spread disinformation amd made it more visible. Some parents just lost it and were emailing school with hysterical nonsense suggesting we change our school day and uniform policy. Just nuts.
In my imagination I like to think of my Great Great Grandfather Michael O'Neill from Munster who had a career as an NCO in the British Army, as something of a Harper type.
He has just reached that age that all men do whereby you suddenly realise you start noticing and know the name of lots of birds even though you never actively tried to do so and you feel the need to point them out to everyone. Bless him.
Ah yes, the Kurds can totally trust the USA to not screw them over and leave them stranded... this time...