I bet you didn’t know that

Starting in 1941, an increasing number of  British  Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their  escape. Now  obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-run could go for food and shelter.

Paper maps had some real drawbacks --  they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.

Someone in MI-5 got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny  wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever. At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology  of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board  game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games  and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners  of war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were regional system)..

When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece. As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:

1. A playing token, containing a small  magnetic compass
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and  French currency, hidden within the piles of  Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by  means
of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated  one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly
sets... Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy Indefinitely, since the British  Government might want to use this highly successful ruse  in still another, future war. The story wasn't  declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen  from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honoured in a public ceremony.

It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' Free card!

Just a thought

Madrid. Beer, fags and riots.

Continuing  on from my last post about myself and Mrs FE’s trip to Madrid, I thought I’d just touch on a couple of topics close to my heart.

Everywhere as always in countries with a warmer clime, there are open air pavement bars. Usually in the limited space they can occupy, the tables are placed as close together as possible for obvious reasons. Now Mrs FE and myself spent a fair amount of times in these bars in order to heed the Chief Medical Officer’s advice to ensure our fluid intake was commensurate with the climate. To our surprise we found that in many of the bars, the price of a small beer could be as low as 1 Euro. (Before you call me a woos for imbibing small beers, the logic is that if you order a large beer it ends up warm before you’re finished. Better two small cold ones rather than one warm one).

Smoking was never a problem even in close proximity of the other tables. In Spain they don’t seem to have been brainwashed by the anti-smoking brigade that you find in the UK. They just accept that some people smoke and some people don’t. It used to be like that in the UK before 2007. One problem I did find was where to buy cigarettes? Outlets were almost non existent, however if you are a local you’d know where it was, so no problem. In fact when I did find one, it was refreshingly like the old tobacconist of yore in the UK.

The demonstrations. We finally worked out why they were targeted in our street. Silly really. The Spanish Parliament building was across the road about 50 metres away!

And finally. The hotel bar. Mrs FE suggested we have a night cap or two in the bar when we got back from our meanderings late on the first night. I should have smelt a rat when we were given our own personal waitress to service our needs. Without looking at the price list I ordered a large whisky for me and a large G & T for Mrs FE. I will admit that they were super large. (My throat nearly burned out with the first swig, forcing me to disappear out for a remedial cigarette). The mistake of course was that we didn’t quit and gone to our room. Oh no we repeated the order.

Eventually after Mrs FE has finished her final drink, she decided to call it a night and head for the room, leaving yours truly to pay the bill.

Cheap at half the price? You must be F*****g joking! 82 sodding Euros.

I do think that we were lucky to leave when we did, as the situation that is not being reported in the UK MSM, is getting quite dangerous.

Would I go back? Assuredly yes.

THE ORIGINAL SIN

Bloody idiot.

Sun, beer, culture, and disorder.

Mrs FE and myself touched down safely in Madrid early on Monday morning. having looked at all the options of getting to our hotel (Westin Palace), we decided to catch a ride on the Metro. On emerging from the final stop with blinking eyes from the bright sunlight we were met with a strange but worrying sight. There were Police and Police vans everywhere you looked. (In the UK you are lucky to see one let alone hundreds). After a few seconds we realised why. There were thousands of Spaniards coming down the road behind us. At first I thought that somehow my Spanish readers had got word of my trip and were coming to meet me. However one look at the signs they were carrying made me think that a lynching of this blogger might be their real aim. The placards all had one word on them. NO.

Anyhow Mrs FE and myself, decided we’d best scuttle off (Best describes the action of a person with a small wheelie case) in the direction of our hotel. Worryingly it soon became apparent that where we went, the mob seemed to follow. As we approached the road in which our hotel was situated we noticed that the police presence was increasing by leaps and bounds and we redoubled our efforts to obtain sanctuary in our monastery Hotel.

This was not to be. With a baying mob on our heels we arrived at the hotel’s road to be confronted with metal barriers and three lines of police in riot gear blocking the thoroughfare. Ooh err. Unfortunately my Spanish is only good for Hallo (Hola), Two beers please (Dos cervesa pour favor), and thankyou (Gracias), so needless to say the police didn’t want to lets us through. (Did they think we were some activist fifth column? You tell me?).

Of course Mrs FE, being fairly organised, managed to produce from her Portmanteau handbag, a map of the area, and we found a back route which would take us to the entrance of the hotel. Luck was now on our side as the back was only lightly defended by the police and we managed to blag our way through the barricades and finally checked into the hotel.

After we checked in we nipped outside to see what was going on. The demonstrators were doing their best to pull down the barriers but were dissuaded from doing so by the occasional baton strike from the odd annoyed member of the Policia.

Anyway we got bored with this and decided to head of into various areas to see what the city was like.

One thing we never found out that day was why had that street been targeted?

Do you want to know why? Do you want to know what happened on day two?

You tell me, and I’ll tell you the cost of cigarettes and how much, two gin and tonics and two large whiskeys cost me in the hotel bar.

Just a test.

From my phone.

The Sun The Sun

Your Blog host and Mrs FE are off to the sun at O’crack sparrowfart  tomorrow morning, so posting will be light to non existent for a few days. (I’m sure the readers of this blog will find that they can live a useful existence with out  resorting to reading my usual drivel).

The reason we’re off to Madrid is that it’s been organised by my Son in Law and my Daughter, in thanks for the organisation of their wedding last week.

We’re being treated to a three day break in Madrid and can be expected to immerse ourselves in the culture of that grand old city. However due to the high temperatures at this time of year, we will have to keep hydrated at all times.

I have now downloaded to my phone an App that not only steers me to all the culture you would expect, but more importantly, gives me every bar that exists in the city.

We intend, in the bar breaks, to absorb as much culture as is possible in the time. I’m hoping to see a cultural riot if at all possible, if not it’s going to have to be the Prado museum or some such.

Anyhoo. Don’t expect a blog post till Thursday. Keep yourselves amused in the rain.

Words

A friend just sent me this:

 Europe in a "few" words

Pythagoras' theorem - 24 words.
Lord's Prayer - 66 words.
Archimedes' Principle - 67 words.
10 Commandments - 179 words.
Gettysburg address - 286 words.
US Declaration of Independence - 1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments – 7,818 words.
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage – 26,911 words

Now that’s what I call a real Beach babe

And I quote:

Standing confidently on the beach, with a rifle casually slung over her shoulder, you would think twice about knocking over this woman’s sandcastle. 

The bikini-clad subject is thought to be a soldier and a member of the highly-trained Israeli Defence Forces.

Since the surprising photo, snapped in Tel Aviv, was posted on the internet it has gone viral with many users reacted with shock at seeing such a hostile weapon on a sunny beach.

She’s there to protect the sun loungers from marauding germans.

Olympic security

Much is being made in the MSM today about the complete balls up made by the private contactor’s lack of ability to recruit enough security personnel.

However that is not the purpose of this post. I’d just like to inform my reader about what I think is a more interesting security problem.

Every so often we are regaled with stories about locals not wishing to have missiles situated on their roofs. It’s these systems which in my mind could cause the most problems.

These sophisticated anti air weapons such as

 Rapier

Rapier is a British surface-to-air missile developed for the British Army and Royal Air Force. Entering service in 1971, it eventually replaced all other anti-aircraft weapons in Army service; guns for low-altitude targets, and the English Electric Thunderbird^[1], used against longer-range and higher-altitude targets. As the expected air threat moved from medium-altitude strategic missions to low-altitude strikes, the fast reaction time and high manoeuvrability of the Rapier made it more formidable than either of these weapons, replacing most of them by 1977. It remains the UK's primary air-defence weapon after almost 35 years of service, and its deployment is expected to continue until 2020

 

and StarStreak

The Starstreak HVM (High Velocity Missile) is designed to counter threats from very high performance, low-flying aircraft and fast 'pop up' strikes by helicopter attacks.

The missile, which travels at more than three times the speed of sound, uses a system of three dart-like projectiles, allowing multiple hits on the target. HVM can be fired from the shoulder, from a lightweight multiple launcher or from the Stormer armoured vehicle.

Typhoon

Eurofighter Typhoon is the worlds most advanced new generation multi-role/swing-role combat aircraft available on the market.

Wonderful bits of kit I’m sure, but what are they going to be used against and when? Now it’s pretty certain that the terrorists won’t have access to military aircraft, so this is the more likely scenario.

A jumbo jet travelling from Dubai to Gatwick is just crossing the south coast of England. Air traffic control notices that it is heading off course and heading for London. Air traffic control tries to contact the jumbo but no reply is received. So what happens now?

Well. If the chain of command is quickly traversed they could scramble a Typhoon or two from Northolt. However what do they do as the jumbo starts flying over the densely packed outer suburbs of London? By this time word will have been passed to the Rapier and Starstreak batteries that there is a jumbo jet acting suspiciously and to lock on and await further orders. But time is running out fast for a meaningful decision.

And there we are at the crux of the Dilemma. The decision to launch or not.

If you were the man at the top of the pyramid, would you be able to making the decision to shoot down a jumbo jet with a full load of passengers, over one of the most densely populated areas of the country?

Could you, the man with the finger on the trigger, pull that trigger knowing you would be likely to kill hundreds, if not thousands?

That’s why I consider them as window dressing to make the PTB look as if they are being tough.