You’re the second FA commentator I would put into MOD procurement if it was within my power. Honestly, there is more forward and lateral thinking in the quality comments on this blog than in the entire Department itself.

You make some very good points here, especially about multiculturalism, and I think there is a fundamental difference between how Americans and the British view it.

Retired is a gentle euphamism for ‘too old to fly proper aircraft, sod off and fly airliners’, essentially!

Nothing spectacular I’m afraid as I was not one of the Sons of Valhalla. C130s, in various stages of ermm ‘continuous refurbishment’, as we liked to put it, fending off rude remarks about the luxury accomodation in the back from our self-loading cargo...

The British Empire is....ermm.. some small islands in the Atlantic. The Empire has long since ceased as a part of the consciousness of the UK - even we relegate it to costume dramas and period documentaries, because that’s exactly what it is - history.

The offer from a previous post still stands. Come to the UK and I’ll give you a tour of the house of the one person who has a job here. Obviously we’ll still need my ex-airforce buddies for protection because, you know, Muslim no-go zones but, hey, I’m sure we can manage it without you getting shot or drinking…

The snag is that 50,000 people every day are trying to do what you want to do, hence the need to organise it. It does, as you say, sap some of the fun out of the experience.

Each to their own I suppose - I have a few friends who really enjoy ski holidays, for example, but the last thing on earth I want to do is stand on top of a mountain in freezing conditions and then repeatedly throw myself down it, risking life and limb, and ending up wet, cold and miserable at the bottom!

Totally the opposite to me. Last time we were in the States my wife and I picked up a rental Mustang in Orlando, headed west and then turned south when we would have driven into the Gulf.

Hi Bob, I’m guessing you have nerve damage from the line of work you were in but a model doesn’t have to be perfect. I am, frankly, neither an enthusiastic or a skilled builder myself but I wanted a large scale C130 for my study. Pre-built models were too small or too expensive so I thought.. hey, I used to build…

You don’t need to. You are now an adult which means you can spread glue accurately and not make blobs of it part of the structure, or put gluey thumb-prints on the transparent parts. The nosewheel is unlikely to stick to your palm these days and your mum is not going to be picking a missile fin out of the gaps between…

I had to look again and you are absolutely correct - with a blatant disregard for all things vegetable you could escape the so-called dead-end. I will be writing to the local MP immediately, demanding that this misleading sign be replaced.

A road leading to a dead-end or cul-de-sac. A quick google maps expedition shows it’s a loop of housing. Quite how that place isn’t the scene of an automotive massacre every day is astonishing, and I’m British; stick ‘magic roundabout swindon’ into the maps website and look at the satellite view...

I can’t fault anything you’ve said.

Schoolboy error there! - talked through the maths and then didn’t apply the exchange rate so, of course, you are correct.

And, in the same vein as Daryl, I too have no problem with EVs. This particular model, though, is not a good value proposition and I’ll try not to patronise you in the same way you did me:

Brings a whole new meaning to #disrupt ...

Finally! Someone who gets the argument!

Doing the conversion from litres to US gallons, working on a £1 to $1.50 exchange rate, our petrol is $3.75/gallon. It’s a slightly meaningless figure on its own because you then have to figure in cost of living, average salaries, etc., etc., but I’d agree with your rough estimate; compared to disposable income, gas…

Unfortunately I think we’ve lost this one.