Things They Didn't Teach at Sandhurst in 1980

"An officer should be comely, spratly and above all else, confident in his own dress and bearing. He should, where possible, eat a small piece of meat each morning with molasses and beans. He should air himself gracefully when under fire and never place himself in a position of difficulty when being shot at. He should eat his meals comfortably and ahead of his soldiers, for it is he whom is more important tactically on the battlefield and therefore he who should be well nourished. His hair should be well groomed and if possible he should adorn a moustache or similar facial adornment. When speaking to his soldiers he should appear unnerved and aloof and give direction without in any way involving himself personally in the execution of arduous or un-officer like duties. He should smoke thin panatellas except when in the company of ladies where he should take only a small gin mixed with lemon tea. He should be an ardent and erudite gentleman and woo the ladies both in the formal environment and in the bedroom where he should excel himself beyond the ordinary soldier with his virulent lovemaking prowess. These I say to you are the qualities of an officer that set him apart from the lay person and the common soldier."

Lt Gen Hubert Worthington, Commander In Chief, 5th Royal Indian Mountain Division, Bombay, 2th December 1907

Honest Aussie Sets Good Example

Australia wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist has revealed his dropped catch off India's VVS Laxman convinced him to retire from international cricket.

Gilchrist, 36, missed the chance in the final Test of Australia's series win and said: "I knew somewhere between the ball hitting my gloves and the ground.

"That catch - I watched a replay and I just moved really slow.

"I realised I didn't have the absolute desperation that you need to continue to maintain your standards."


Unaccustomed as I am to offering praise to an Australian sportsman, I make an exception for Gilchrist. Not only was he a demonstrably honest man, who 'walked' when he nicked one (never caught on with his team mates, Yes - that's YOU, Symonds!), he was the most entertaining batsman of his generation, which is saying something when Lara and the Indian middle order have been around these last ten years. Good on yer, Gilly!

Read his reason for going, admire his honesty and compare him to the incompetents we come across in all sorts of positions in life who just don't know when to quit, even when honour and responsibility suggests that they clear their desks immediately.

"I knew [it was time to quit] somewhere between Northern Rock/the Armed Forces/the new Wembley Stadium hitting my gloves and the ground" - insert your own disastrous event - and it is a sentence that one simply cannot imagine being uttered by a public servant in this country.

The Leaving Present

Rick, from Zimbabwe, had checked out of the halls of residence at Cirencester Agricultural College, and taken a room with a mate of Idle's, who had opted for mature student status at the college after leaving the army. The Idle mate had a wife and a mortgage and might even have had a child by that stage. Crucially, he had a spare bedroom, a fully-stocked larder, a big kitchen, TV and video, and laundry facilities. Having been raised on a farm in Kenya, he was sympathetic to an impoverished Zim 20 year-old.

Rick didn't pay his rent often, let alone a contribution to the Waitrose and Threshers' bills. It was put on the slate, in the expectation that the tobacco crop would come in at some stage and Rick's father would stump up the readies.

This went on, needless to say, until graduation. In the fog of celebrations, a drunken and morose Rick approached Idle's mate, fessed up that he didn't have a bean, and could he pay sometime in the future? Idle's mate, generous man that he was, said he'd call it quits if Rick could secure him a certain commodity available only in Africa. It was a deal.

Months later, the Idle mates were skiing. They returned to Cirencester after a fortnight and were approached by the shy old spinster from next door, who told them she had signed for a parcel for them during their absence, but "had to put it in the garage, because it was making a dreadful smell".

A soiled package was produced, opened at arms' length with clothes pegs on noses. There, untouched since the day it was sliced from the beast, was a Cape Buffalo scrotum.

"He might have cured it, at least" said Idle's mate. "Jesus!" said the wife "what the bloody hell are you going to do with THAT?"

"Turn it into a sporran", said our man. "It'll be the only one of it's type in the world."

And he did, and it is. A fine and splendid thing it is. My friend particularly likes being approached by aged Scots ladies at highland events who have an interest in this sort of thing. "Excuse me" they say, "but I couldn't help but notice your unusual sporran". To which he replies "How observant of you. I suppose you have already worked out that it is the scrotum of a Cape buffalo". They tend to scurry off after that.

Here it is:

One-Hundred-and-Eiiiggghhhtteeee!

Henry was very proud of his new watch. He hardly ever took it off, and when he did, he kept half an eye on it, from his bathtub, shower, or wherever. He didn't take it to away rugby matches because he couldn't concentrate on putting his knee on the opposing flanker's testicles in a ruck, thinking instead of a dishonest bastard half-inching his Rolex from the Away dressing room.

He made the mistake, however, of taking it on tour to Guernsey at Easter. His mate, captain of the team and scrum half, had a successful father who owned some sort of gin palace, modest but functional. The gin palace was duly motored across to the Channel Islands to provide cheap accommodation and totty pulling power for the duration of the tour. There were bunks for six, including a private double at the front (the bow?), which became the official shagging berth.

Henry pulled on Night One, a lovely balmy evening in late Spring. He got the islander well juiced up, winked at the lads to indicate that the Shagging Berth would be occupied for the next 15 mins, and went below (as they say).

After a few minutes of unrewarding foreplay, Doreen (for it was she) asked Henry to take his watch off, as the chunky strap was marking her back. Gentleman to the core, but briefly forgetting that his first love was his timepiece, Henry unclipped it, put it in his left hand, and reached out for the ledge beside the bunk, without missing a beat in his quest to locate Doreen's ribs with his tongue, via her throat.

The porthole was nine inches wide, barely wider than Henry's knuckles. Did he touch the sides (as it were), as he reached blindly to his left? He did not. Was the porthole open? You bet it was.

Henry opened his grip, and waited for the clunk of watch-on-ledge. Clunk came there none. Instead, a muffled splosh.

Doreen and Henry's lust was not consumated that evening. He sulked all the way through the tour, and cannot hear the name "Rolex" to this day without wincing.

Idle knows this story to be true. The Rolex pictured is - wait for it - a "Sea Dweller".

Considering a Name Change

Those employers can be most unsporting in the run-up to the winter pagan holiday.

This is a blue-arsed fly, according to google images. I know what he feels like.

If my seasonal drunkenness and irrascibility goes unpunished, I will post again in 2008 for the three loyal posters on this site.

More wealth, health, happiness and less imbuggerance to you all next year.

Planes, Trains, and Firearms.....

DO NOT MIX

Idle planned to be far too busy to post this weekend, but if I tell you that I am marooned in the Executive Lounge at Heathrow Terminal One, you will begin to catch my drift.

It's a long story.

Last time I travelled with my shotgun in its splendid, burnished leather case, battered but beautiful, I was told that the lock was insufficient and that next time I should expect to have it refused entry to the plane. The cheek! Vintage guns come in vintage cases, c'est tout. But the jobsworth made it clear he was planning to obstruct me at the next opportunity.

So, this week, I planned ahead and googled for airline-friendly cases. Being of Aberdonian stock, and owning, as I have said, a burnished beauty of a case, etc, I opted for the *oh dear* bottom of the range. It appeared at my office yesterday, a limp-wristed and poofterish excuse of a shotgun carriage case, barely able to withstand the negligence of a trotskyite BAA baggage handler, let alone a determined Mozzie with evil plans for the denizens of Slough. And did it have any locks? Did it fuck.

Instead, there were holes through which padlocks could be attached. Three of them. So, rushing from lunch at the Savoy, I espied Mr Robt Dyas' emporium and summoned the manager. In broken English, he advised me on the quality of his padlock collection. A budget pack of four small-but-strongs were purchased.

Of course, I got back to the office and discovered they didn't quite fit. Furthermore, the hinges along the spine of the case were so easily jemmied as to be worthless.

So Idle, discovering this just as he was about to head to Heathrow, had to make a detour to the architectural ironmonger near Piccadilly Circus. Took me an age, heavily laden with guns and baggage. But reasonably strong chain-link was provided (£1.50 a metre), and the padlocks could be affixed, and a circumference of chain round the whole shebang, to boot.

Now the pressure was on. The Bakerloo got me to Paddington alright, but the Heathrow Express was expressly NOT express, if I make myself clear. In fact it was suffering"congestion", and my journey time was nearly doubled.

I sprinted, Alan Wells-like, from the train at Terminal One, cunningly leaving a small case holding my work papers on the train. I arrived at the check-in, sweating like the Chief Stoker of the Great Britain, and was offered seat 2F. But wait! Production of the shotgun caused much discombobulation. Magically, seat 2F disappeared, and the flight was "closed". Why? Because the trotskyite baggage handlers will not commit to less than an hour to walk a WW Greener 12 bore approx 300 yards to the plane, despite my having booked the gun onto the flight a week earlier.

Some fucker is sitting in 2F right now doing my crossword and drinking my BA bloody mary, and I hope he bloody well realises it.

Me? I'm booked onto the 1940 (expected 2020), and my whisky-drinking is taking place not on Deeside but in the Exec Lounge. The company is commercial folk, I believe. Thank god granny isn't alive to read this.

My papers? Not yet found by the Heathrow express guards, or cleaning staff. I have been advised by a nice skinhead on the desk at Terminal One to manage my expectations lower, as it were.

Have my Three Bad Things happened? Or was the loss of work papers a mere inconvenience, and I shall be prised out of a mangled fuselage somewhere in the Peak District tonight?

It's a bastard, the whole thing. Plus I exchanged short sentences with a plutocrat this afternoon and will have to pretend he was right and I was wrong when I see him next week. Oh, woe. Another whisky, please, Manuel, and is there an update on the delayed 1940 to Aberdeen?

Idle's Edwardian Manners, Part 2

When it became clear that the Second World War was going to take much time, treasure, and manpower, civil servants were dispatched from Whitehall and county councils to have a quiet word with the bigger landowners and stately homeowners, to address their staffing levels.

One such official made a visit to Chatsworth and spent a morning counting the number of gardeners, footmen, gamekeepers and chefs. Before lunch, he had an audience with the Duke.

"We thought" began the chap from the county council, "that you might be able to reduce the number of gamekeepers, Your Grace".

"Bother" said the Duke. "Oh, very well"

"And perhaps one less man in the kitchen garden" said the official.

"Has Birtwhistle said he could spare one? I suppose so, then"

"And one less pastry chef, we thought" said the public servant.

"Dammit all" said the Duke, "can't a chap have a biscuit?"