Just remembered that it's nine years today since I started blogging. I sometimes get mortally sick of seeing myself witter on but I think I'll stick it out for the full decade at least.
Meanwhile, celebrate with me and the homespun firearms philosophy of Ivan Chesnokov.
UPDATE: It's something to have outlived a major league fascist. That bindi on Thackeray's forehead looks like a bullet hole, which is kind of appropriate given his politics.
NINE MORE YEARS!
Apparently no apologies were necessary; here's your homespun firearms philosophy of Ivan Chesnokov previously mentioned (ahem) on this very blog (albeit not the full treasure trove in the link above).
Posted by: Barry Freed | November 17, 2012 at 05:00 PM
That's what happens when you get up to over 8000 posts...
Posted by: jamie | November 17, 2012 at 05:27 PM
Tragically, I suspect that Ivan is probably not real: while it is true that Russian doesn't have articles or a present tense of "to be" (except for the infinitive), learning to use them is something that Russians seem to do fairly early on in the learning-English process, in my experience. (And someone who's using idiomatic English phrases like "shits where it eats" would be well past that phase.)
Learning to use pronouns, on the other hand, is something that a lot of them have trouble with even when quite advanced - you'll still find people saying "Is true" rather than "It is true".
True or not, he's very funny, though. And the description of the M4 as shitting where it eats is spot on. I'm just sorry he hasn't covered the SA80...
Posted by: ajay | November 20, 2012 at 10:40 AM
I'm sure he's as real as this Feliks Dzerzhinsky. I'd like to see him discuss the Sten gun.
Posted by: Barry Freed | November 20, 2012 at 01:52 PM
IVAN WILL NOT LEAVE BED EARLY TO DISCUSS HALF-DESIGNED FINGER BURNING MURDER WEAPON OF GENERAL IRONSIDE.
PS - anyone fancy a 10th anniversary party, this time next year?
Posted by: Chris Williams | November 20, 2012 at 02:15 PM
...anyone fancy a 10th anniversary party, this time next year?
Are you suggesting a MGI somewhere near Deansgate Chris?
Posted by: CMcM | November 20, 2012 at 02:55 PM
Loosely related to the Sten, it is a true fact! that the man who designed lots of the dirty-tricks apparatus for SOE (time fuses, limpet mines, invisible ink pencils etc) was actually called Gubbins.
Posted by: ajay | November 20, 2012 at 03:01 PM
I was hoping that that particular research establishment could have got round to making a machine for assisting people to deny things called the Wel-I-Never. However, they did do a submersible powerboat. Of course, by the time they made it work the war was over, but the fun, the fun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_IX
Posted by: Chris Williams | November 20, 2012 at 05:27 PM
It is kind of where I imagine the Yorkshire Ranter ending up ("Look, Major! It's a packet-switching radio base station disguised as a packet of Gauloises! We've made it in raspberry flavour to confuse the Gestapo!"), as opposed to jamie and Barry Freed, who, as has already been established, would be at the Office of Sleazy Intelligence (based in Soho, telegraphic address UNSEEMLY, LONDON) and the US Bureau of Dubious Activities respectively.
Posted by: ajay | November 20, 2012 at 05:43 PM