It really was 40 years ago...

Those lucky Abos, eh?

 

You are fucking having a giraffe surely, you got a link for that?

 

Mum and Dad and Denny saw the passing-out parade at Puckapunyal.
It was a long march from cadets.
The sixth battalion was the next to tour, and it was me who drew the card.
We did Canungra, Shoalwater before we left.

And Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the quay.
This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean.
And there's me in my slouch hat with my SLR and greens.
God help me, I was only nineteen.

From Vung Tau, riding Chinooks, to the dust at Nui Dat,
I'd been in and out of choppers now for months.
But we made our tents a home, VB and pinups on the lockers
And an Asian orange sunset through the scrub.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?
And night-time's just a jungle dark and a barking M16?
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only nineteen.

A four week operation when each step could mean your last one on two legs;
It was a war within yourself.
But you wouldn't let your mates down 'til they had you dusted off.
So you closed your eyes and thought about something else.

Then someone yelled out "Contact!" and the bloke behind me swore.
We hooked in there for hours, then it got almighty raw.
Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon,
God help me, he was going home in June.

I can still see Frankie, drinking tinnies in the Grand Hotel
On a thirty-six hour rec leave in Vung Tau.
And I can still hear Frankie, lying screaming in the jungle
'Til the morphine came and killed the bloody row.

And the Anzac legends didn't mention mud and blood and tears,
And the stories that my father told me never seemed quite real.
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn't even feel.
God help me, I was only nineteen.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only nineteen.

^^^
Fissing mootnote?

Saw a comment today from someone who heard it on the radio. He
thought, "When I tell that to my kids, they'll ask 'What's a radio?'"
Instead they said, "Don't be daft Dad, no-one goes to the moon!"

...and on the recently-raised question about bringing astronauts
back home again -- I'd willingly go to Mars with no guarantee of a return
trip providing a) there is a commitment to try to find a return method;
and b) they endeavour to send a habitat capable of sustaining me for the
term of my natural. (I'd better wait until Mum dies, tho'...)

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Well that's great, we'll rack up the national debt because even the
bus driver is impressed.

 

****. That.

I spent too many years working on aircraft research to be impressed by
something that just didn't work. I'll be very proud of my home country
if we find a cure for breast cancer or similar but otherwise it's 3/10
- must try harder.

 

I'm quite in favour of space, generally, as my firm makes a billion +
a year from it.

This thread mostly reads like sci-fi nerds arguing about the things
they've read in third-rate fiction.

 

Ah, good old Stelling Minnis. I wonder if the delectable Sarah Ling
still lives there.

 

A big part was that the oil price rises of the 1970s made it even more
uneconomical, wasn't it?

 

Sorry if this is asked further down, but in what way 'didn't work'?
Genuinely curious.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

I know a few Sarahs but don't recognise the surname.

Did you ever meet the two *delectable* identical twins young ladies who
the young lads said hunted a fellow as a pack?

 

How about weasels? Or something stoatally different?

Phil

 

<runs up, panting>
I was gonna do that one. You just didn't wait ferret long enough.

 

Your employer gives 1367 W/m^2:

https://iti.esa.int/iti/resource/Space_Specifications_Checklist.doc

 

Well - I didn't want anyone to pine (marten) away.

Phil

 

As a spectacle, and a way for the super-rich to save a few hours here
and there, it was a success. As a realistic mode of air transport and as
a business it was an abject failure.

 

ogden wrote:
[of Concorde]

Without all of the billions spent there's no *way* that Phil Collins[1]
could have done both the UK and US Live Aid gigs.

[1] Surely the best drummer on the world, ever.

 

He was good but don't you think Genesis was better with Bill Bruford on percussion?

 

This is true!

Keith Moon?

 

No.

Chester Thompson now - he's a good replacement..

Phil

 

I got the distinct impression he (CT) was taking the piss.