Wednesday 20 October 2010

THE UNELECTED PRIME MINISTER AND THE PILOT


Can't stop,  just off to scrap the airforce.
You know their motto, per ardua ad astra, upwards to the dole office, 
Air Vice Marshal Cameron hastens to the front line.

Right, well,  the purpose of this morning is for you chaps to clap me and ask me some easy questions, so, who's first, you sir, over there, you look like a well-behaved sort, knows his place, knows who the boss is, your question,  sir.   No need to stand to attention, Call-Me-Dave, please, feel free....

 
       L/Cdr Kris Awkward, A soon-to-be benefits scrounger.

I've flown a hundred and forty missions over Afghanistan, why am I getting the sack, Dave?

Well, the first thing is that I am incredibly grateful  for all that incredible bravery you have shown for our country, often in incredibly challenging circumstances against frankly incredible odds and my thoughts are with you and your incredibly brilliant colleagues, yes and colleague-esses, doing such an incredible job of work for President Obama, I mean our country and we are all, as I say, incredibly grateful and that's why I'm sacking you. It's me, you see, who has to do the really incredibly brave things which are very necessary to my friends and family in the banking industry, Next question?

Baroness Thatcher?  Yes, it would be the decent thing. If she pops off now there'll be a state funeral and acres of newsprint and endless tittle-tattle, the nation gripped in a chav Griefathon and nobody'll even notice the broken glass  we've shoved up their arses. 

Aircraft carriers? No sweat, the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr George Spunkface, knows some nice Russian gentlemen with some actually quite large yachts which we might borrow, if push comes to war. Now, has anyone some proper questions?  Baby Cameron?  yes, she's doing incredibly well, looking forward to a life of pampered luxury and a career shitting in people's faces, just like her Dad. Thanks incredibly, must run, people to sack, ordinary people's lives to ruin.

Cheers, Applause, For He's A Jolly Good Fellow,

(BBC Choir  sings) Oh, The Grand Old Duke Of York, He Sacked Ten Thousand Men, He Marched Them Down To The JobCen-tre, And He Marched Them Back Again.

13 comments:

Dick the Prick said...

As soon as I left college I applied to do jet stuff, got quite far down the line but considering it costed over £1 million back then to train someone up (before fuck ups - like that BAE guy whose seat fell out whilst flying upside down!! - Err...bit fucking dodgy that one) so was quite happy that they gave us a fair stab at it.

Anywho, strategically speeeeking, it's quite a decent lock in that no more fucking daft US led campaigns can occur for the next 10 years so i'm quite ambivalent about it all, really. I think the chances of me feeling anything but blinding envy for Harrier pilots is improbable.

It's not necessarily a blame culture but this 'punching above our weight' shite is quite offensive reviewing post WW2 activity and ofcourse the military want all the toys they can have to keep themselves safe and have air, sea or land superiority. Bollox, bollox and thrice, bollox.

Every one knows the next hit is gonna be a dirty bomb dropped off in London. Hmm..Tories. I guess some of these decisions were a bit devil & the deep blue sea but as long as we don't fuck off into some theatre that may have geo-political, Kissingeresque, demogogic bullshit for the next decade - well, i'll take it.

Harrier pilot getting the sack - pass the fucking tissues - cunt.

call me ishmael said...

A long time ago, I knew someone who had been a Hunter pilot and was axed with the plane in similar circumstances, although married into financial security he remained bitter all his life.

Like this chap, he complained of reasonably held and State-encouraged views about job security neing trampled upon by some red-pencilling apparatchik, him or herself immune from culling.

All those being cut today will have been similarly assured that they and their tasks were important to the nation, seeing those assurances trashed by dilletante wankers like the current front bench will have an impact on the national temper which may not appear in City trading figures but which will diminish us all, fighter pilot, mr dtp, or dinner lady.

Agatha said...

Hi, Mr.I,
Glad you caught Call-Him-Dave's speech - I heard it on my way home from work - (thinks: I wonder how long that journey will feature in my future life? Hmmmm) I didn't count the "incrediblies" but I'm glad you did and brought it to the nation's attention. He doesn't need lampooning, that C-H-D, does it all by himself, and in that smooth posh voice that the great British public still has a hard-wired genuflect reflex to when heard.

Dick the Prick said...

I'm kinda glad that I didn't get through because of the gatecrashing of Iraqi & Afghanistani weddings that would have inevitably followed. I realised that there could be scurmishes but I hadn't anticipated the government just plain lying to people (ah, so young, so nieve).

I can understand said Pilot's resentment and the Harrier dude's irritation but there are better planes about. Had the Hunter been maintained then perhaps the Tornado's couldn't have been brought in. If the Harrier is maintained then the new fangled thingymygig won't be brought in. I do find it a little peculiar that these guys can't just change planes with a bit of training but being darned ignorant about these things then may be it makes sense. These guys had to work up to the Tornados & Harriers so flew everything up to and including that.

But the opportunity to fly one of those things, banging it 17 degrees up from the horizon and kicking the after-burners on is a perk of a job that i'm never gonna have; some of the buffet's been left and there's some cakes still is about my limit. Sure, they've handled this bad but for a top-gun pilot to have a whinge takes a while for me to take in.

lilith said...

Don't know much about Harriers except that one of the original test pilots was into wife swapping and shagged his own daughter. Heard him being interviewed on the radio yesterday which is what reminded me.

call me ishmael said...

Tut, Ms Lilith, very tut.

In the second war the lady pilots of the ATA, who ferried aircraft all over the shop, were just handed an operator's manual and told to get on with it. They would take off with the book on their knees, cruise with another page open and land reading yet another chapter. One woman flew seventy-six, yes, 76, different kinds of sircraft without any dedicated training on any of them.

Some of them were shot down by marauding Hermans yet at the end of the war none of them was able to get a job flying for civilian airlines, apart from one who managed a shuttle from Bristol to the Channel Isles.

Puts LCdr Awkward's complaint in context, mr dtp, but doesn't, I think, detract from its contemporary validity.

Anonymous said...

My father flew Lancs, I grew up inter alia on airbases, and I also enjoyed some flying training c/o the RAF. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight I now realise how testing and potentially dangerous it used to be to fly fast jets let alone fly combat missions. I cannot agree with Dick the Prick, but I guess the clue is in the name.

Dick the Prick said...

Mr Anon, dunno, pretty much sure it's kinda obvious jets are dangerous. And, let's be fair - the stats on Tornado pilots in the last decade has been pretty fantastic (I can only remember 2 but could be wrong). It's better than being on the ground. Now helicopters scare the bejeezus out of me. If you get engine failure on one of them, it's curtains.

76 differnt planes! I guess there's loads of computer displays these days but...can't be that hard.

Anonymous said...

Re "it's kinda obvious jets are dangerous": I have to say as a teenager I did not really consider the dangers of flying training. I was quite surprised recently to discover how many jet fighters of a type I went up in crashed in the early years of their type.

PS

If you get the chance, Sharkey Ward's book is a good read.

PPS

Agreed about choppers.


PPPS

As for Call Me Dave, can't stand him.

call me ishmael said...

Often, hereabouts, mr anonymous, in this quadrant of cyberspace, noms des plumes are opaque, misleading, even; mr mongoose is anything but a nasty little rodent, Mr PT Barnum is neither svengali, nor circusmaster and Mrs Woman On a Raft is almost constantly on dry land, the clues, if any are sought, will be found in the writings. Mr Right Wing Git, for instance, is just an old softie.

I cannot mention all who form these commentaries but just remark that as a rule they do not insult one another, not when such sport abounds in MediaMinster - skymadeupnewsandfilth and The Great Latrine of State.

Mrs Ishmael once bought me a helicopter lesson as a gift, Fucking thing went sideways, backwards and downwards, all at once. Wanna take the controls? Enquired the pilot. Just get me down on dry land, mate, you keep the rest of the lesson, give it to some lunatic.

I will try the Sharkey book, thanks, had never heard of it until the noo, until the bearding of CallHimDave.

Dick the Prick said...

The Captain Sullenberg who dropped a jumbo in the Hudson river a bit back - now that's what planes are made for. Unbelievable skill.

The thing about Gals not flying after the 2nd world war is a bit irritating, really. I guess somewhere like Alaska or Canada is where you have a plane instead of a car. I think, given the choice, it'd be a nice rotary engine jobby that never really went more than 1,000 miles in any direction rather than one of those horrid Lear jets - horrid, horrid things.

These days with GPS and everything, well, you can't go wrong in a run-around unless there's a dickhead on the runway which seems to be most death cause thing or, like Farage, getting some numbnuts to tie a bloody curtain around the tail - penis!

mongoose said...

It was indeed, Mr DtP. Let us land a very large, dying, falling, stalling, fucking aircraft in the most upbuilt city in the world. Where shall we do it? Ok, the only flat bit is the river. We'll do it there then.

Fantastic pilotry.

call me ishmael said...

Pilotry? Well, I suppose so.

I think it was more than irritating, the girls being grounded, just, you know, one of those assumptions which Power makes, unchallenged and which, among other things, many other things, kept women's expectations suppressed until equal pay ( not really) legislation in the sixties or seventies. Well, OK, Ladies, you've been a great help but the war's over now so go back in your kitchens. Bastards. It's the sort of thing these coalition cunts would and will say. We Know Best. A plane of the Great Latrine of State, that's the thing.