moonraker

Whilst Jason is from Bath I think he was a £50k transfer from Bath City at 18 or so.

Couple of points, trooping the colour is a Household Division event so includes the Blues and Royals (Donkey Wallopers) not just foot guards. The Duke of Westminster is the senior Territorial Army officer, nothing honoury about his rank he is a serving long standing member of the TA.

The acid test is whether the Armed Forces are offended by members of the Royal Family donning the uniforms of their service without actually earning it through military service. Whilst there may be some who object my experience of 40 years working in and with the armed forces is that they welcome the Royal Family in all its guises and do not object to them donning of military uniforms.

Or very enlightened countries like Sweden, Noray and Holland, last time I looked Uganda and Libya were not constitutional monarchies.

It is pretty normal to confer honoury titles, ranks and awards on members of the Royal Family in a constitutuional monarchy it is not unique to the House of Windsor and the United Kingdom.

Your ability to misinterpret is boundless, Freudian it was not just a pop at your unproven claims an, officer at the AIB telling you something proves nothing. I have the greatest respect for the Royal Navy officer cadre and have many good friends who are or have served including some who have reached very senior rank. I am fully aware of Engineering Officer academic requirements, you may have achieved those but the tone of your posts tell me the navy was/is better of without you.

All service men are born and spend time as civilians, not all civilians spend time as service men. As to the AIB telling Alpine he would get into Dartmouth, by his own admission it was never tested was it, so he is claiming something that was never proven, and in any case getting into Dartmouth is nothing to shout about 2 A Levels and lack of chin generally suffice!

True but elected presidents are politicians, the British Riyal Family have a historical tradition of serving in the armed forces stretching back before any of the 3 countries you have named existed within their current borders or under their current constitutional model.

So the AIB did its job and kept you out.

Charles served as full time naval officer and commanded the minesweeper HMS Bronningtion, where he was much respected by the crew. There were no 'conflicts' during this period and few servicemen racked up a chest full of medals, the most common campaign medal awarded was the General Service Medal for Northern Ireland and as a rating if you stayed in long enough and behaved yourself you got a long service and good conduct medal. The Silver Jubilee (1977) medal was a restricted award, in my submarine 3 were given out for a crew of 70 as opposed to the Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals which were awarded to all serving servicemen including reserves. The Royal Family have a very special and important relationship with the armed forces. Many comments here stem from ignorance of the honours and awards system, no Royal current has ever been awarded a British medal for bravery or valour (Prince Phillip was mentioned in dispatches), the campaign medals they have have been awarded on the same basis as all other servicemen (Harry, Phillip and Andrew). It is common for heads of state to be Commander in Chief of there armed forces even when they have no experience of the military.

Wanting to design a nuclear submarine and being able to are two very different things. It is often said, with very good reason, that nuclear submarines are the most complicated thing ever designed and built by man, only 5 countries have managed it to date. Whilst nuclear propulsion will give great range and endurance the science and engineering required to support the crew and all of the other auxiliary systems for sustained dived operations cannot just be bought of the shelf or developed over night. Add to this the the technology required to remain covert by reducing acoustic and other signatures to a minimum and I can not see Iran building an effective Nuclear submarine for a very long time.

To add a few more pointers on my home city. Pubs (real pubs) The Old Green Tree - Green Street The Raven - Queen Street (Great Pies) The Salamader - John Street The Hop Pole - Upper Bristol Road (Slightly out of the City centre near Victoria park) The Garricks Head (Sawclose next door to the Theatre Royal) There are loads of other good bars and pubs. Avoid The Grapes Westgate Street, The Crystal Palace, Saracens Head, Lamb and Lion The Roman Baths are a must, but the best way to get an understanding of Bath and its Georgian history is to simply wander around the upper part of the town, take in the obvious gems of the Circus and the Royal Crescent (there are actually 7 crescents) but just follow your nose down the side streets, if you are feeling energetic take a walk up Beechen Cliff to Alexandra Park for the best panoramic views of the city, Sydney Gardens is a gem of a Park, walk over Pultney Bridge down Great Pultney Street to the Holborn Museum which is at the front of the park, the Great Western Railway and the Kennet and Avon canal traverse the park.

I see the RN are doing their bit for SAINTS / SKATES harmony http://www.seateamimages.com/big103484.html

Your statement that they export wind energy to England is real Samondism, this infers that they generate more wind energy than they need, not the case currently they have 4,796 megawatts of installed generating capacity (if all the wind is blowing under the perfect conditions) Scotland needs at least 6.5 GW to serve her domestic market, so very very occasionally there may be times when Scottish demand is low and the wind is right when they have a surplus.

Some very good points being raised, Bath Saints gets the huge problem faced in defence procurement illustrated by CEC and my differing assessments of the need and solution, it is not a problem unique to the UK, having been involved in major overseas defence programmes believe me the UK MOD is pretty good and the much maligned civil servants are very professional. As to the QEC, we have the age old problem of not having a crystal ball and to many people fighting the last war. If you only get your knowledge of defence procurement from the press and ill informed on line bloggers then it will be difficult to grasp the complexity and reality of defence procurement. I am convinced that the QEC ships will go into service, they will provide the most flexible and agile asset available. Whilst the numbers are very big the cost is in reality incredible value for money, a US carrier procurement cost is 4 times more, yes they do have CATS and TRAPS and twice as many aircraft which means they cost considerably more to operate, man and maintain. As long as the UK Gov want to maintain a credible expeditionary war fighting capability QEC will deliver incredible capability at a price we can afford, whether our defence policy is right is totally different argument.

Football is a simple game, the team scoring the most Goals wins, you must convert possession and or territory into goals if you don’t you draw or loose any change that impacts on this basic principle will be bad for the game. The penalty shoot out was introduced to avoid replays, one answer is to re-introduce replays a much better approach in my opinion. One alternative, along the lines of the suggestion at post 4 is to reduce the teams to 7 men for the extra time period thus opening up the game considerably and hence creating many more goal scoring opportunities you could refine this by adopting the Golden Goal approach thus the reward for scoring is much greater that reward for avoiding conceding.

Only in a rather sad 'the lad needs help way'.

Torpedoing with one of these might be little difficult http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Ships/Patrol-and-Minehunters/Scimitar-class

While on face value this all seems like incompetence on the part of the defence planners what the article really does is betray the incompetence or lack of knowledge of its author and commentators. All of the arguments for CATOBAR (CATS and TRAPS) are based on the greater capability of the F35C over the F35B and the view that during the 50 yr service life of the QEC ships manned strike aircraft will remain the primary combat delivery platform. On the first point it seems an easy choice however we all know that this is not the case, the SDSR case for the F35C variant was flawed and skewed by RAF doctrine stuck in 1940s and a SoS who was at best out of his depth and at worst uninterested. On point b there is a very real possibility that the F35 will be the last manned combat aircraft this country buys, UAV's will in 20 years be the front line combat platform of choice, these do not need CATS and TRAPS so investing in them for a single platform is very questionable. You refer to the F18 Hornet, oh how the RAF would love them, they are obsolete (still capable but not the future) and will end there days filling secondary combat support roles and in the inventory of 2nd division defence forces. As to the paint issue and the flight deck melting LOL, the exhaust may be hotter compared to say a Buccaneer or F4 Phantom (both of which we have successfully operated without melting decks) he doesn’t provide any figures, but his use of the term fumes is the key to his own betrayal and confirms he is talking out of his own fume generator, oh and finnaly why do we have to beg the Americans for the paint?

Seems that table is based on point gained irrespective of league, hence Bristol City and Rovers are above us so it is not comparing like with like, a realistic table for the whole football league should be based on finishing position across the 92 clubs.

Sounds like an apprenticeship, and a long one at that. This is not about apprenticeships or trainees, its about recruiting the right people who on their CV and through interviews and other selection processes an employer takes on to perform a particular task or range of tasks, if the employer has not established that they are qualified and trained to do the job then 11 months should be enough. I used to manage a small precession engineering factory, the guys I employed were operating their machines within a couple of hours of joining, if they couldn't do what they had claimed they would not have been invited back for a second day. In my current job we have apprentices and graduates they are normally gainfully employed for some of their time within a couple of weeks, we invest in them, mentor, coach and train them and they repay us with loyalty, staff turnover half the CIPD average for our industry, and high quality work. The other consideration is salary, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Whilst there are some work shy malingerers they are few most shortfalls in staff performance is due to one or more of the following: bad management, a poor working environment, a poor work place culture and low salaries note none of this is in the gift of the employee.

They really would be incompetent if they took on extra staff when direct demand for their product/service was falling, my assumed scenario was the business was growing hence demand was growing. Even in these times not all businesses are retrenching in fact in my experience small companies can often benefit in harder times as they are more agile and can react quicker to market changes than big companies. My own companies 3 biggest growth period in the last 25 years have all been at a time of a fall in overall demand in our core market, growing organically from 10 staff in 1988 to 220 today and expecting to be at 250 by the Autumn.

From my experience of working for and with small firms ( If not bering able to hire and fire at will is preventing a company expanding I suggest it may well be the owners lack of of competence or confidence as a manager and leader that is questionable and needs addressing Large companies have govenance structures, processes and staff who protect the comapny and staff so whilst a poor line manager may cause employees problems the employees have a route to redress that is not practical in small firms. The suggestion above that the Gov provide small firms with better HR and employment support would be far more positive than this Victorian approach.

Tanning Parlours

The accounts above are fairly accurate, Orpheus was the first boat fitted with the system and this was one of the earliest trials. I served in two other boats with the same systems and fortunately there were no other incidents like this.