Question as to value of ...

i thought he was off to adelaide

not that there is anything wrong with that

 

I had the "pleasure" of riding with the owner of this bike once. Was on the
"safety" ride for the "Motorcycle touring in the Illawarra booklet." (You
can see yours very unphotogenicallies mug in said same booklet.)

From her riding style, which involved copious quantites of monos and
stoppies, and lots of revving the shit out of the bike, I would guess that
the bike would have been pretty much thrashed over it's life.

Oh, and from her post on another newsgroup, she listed the number one thing
she learnt about the whole thing, as "Always wear full leathers." I would
have thought a much more reasonable thing would have been "Don't try to pop
monos at 140 in a 90 zone." Or, to paraphrase, "Don't ride like a complete
idiot."

(Sorry, not much tolerance for a lot of the "safe" riding shown on the
"safety ride" (on which, ironically, someone stacked).

 

Ears... burning! Ooooowwww! >:-|


BTH

 

...been caught wanking?

Hammo

 

Well, wtf did you expect? Calling it a "Safety Ride" was just asking
for trouble.

If they'd called it the "Doomsday Apocalypse Ride", subtitle "Into the
Valley of Death Rode the 600's", everything would've been ok.

 

X-No-archive: yes
Intact Kneeslider wrote in message ...

~
BRAVE 600s!
(Ahh you're a literary genius IK! "....Bongos to the left of them, Coronas
to the right...")
Clem

 

I only have the dimmest of memories of how the poem actually goes... pity,
'cause the only reason I remember it at all is that it's a such a good
encapsulation of everything I consider to be faken stupid about the
military. ("Here, go get your legs shot off and those of us left behind will
sing songs of praise to your sacrifice. Good deal, 'ey?")

 

X-No-archive: yes
Intact Kneeslider wrote in message ...

I knew absolutely nothing about the Charge of the Light Brigade but I
watched a show about it a few nights ago on either ABC or SBS and yes; it
was a major stuff-up from start to finish.
Surprisingly, over 300 brigadiers survived so it wasn't quite the "wipe out"
that history recorded.
Amazingly; it didn't stop armies from charging artillery either......
Clem

 

Well, 600 men needing to cover ~1200m under fire from about three dozen
muzzle-load smoothbore field-cannon, which were hardly the last word in
either accuracy or rate of fire. Chances are the Poms had to weather a total
of no more than a couple of hundred individual cannon shots.

Balaclava, and the Crimean War as a whole, were pretty much a tie. The Poms
took it as hard as they did because they couldn't handle the notion that
their declaring the Russians an inferior people to the all-conquering
super-enlightened Britons wasn't enough to secure an overwhelming and
painless victory.

Remind you of anything more recent?

Stop them? The only real stuff up at Balaclava was that, on that particular
occasion, they went galloping headlong at entrenched cannon
by_accident._There are plenty of instances where they did it on_purpose_.

Hell, 60 years later, at the Somme, "Righto, chaps, when the whistle blows,
up the ladder and march over the craters and the razor wire at the dug-in
Boche machine guns. No running or taking cover, though. We don't want the
enemy thinking we're afraid and undisciplined."

 

Says it all, doesn't it...?

 

For your collective erudition.... the poem in question, by Lord Fred.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

 

Didn't need to be explicitly stated. Noone thought much of the Russians back
then (and what's changed?), and when coupled with the arrogance the Poms
always accuse everyone else of, the result was an attitude which saw the
Crimean War get launched as a hobby war, something that would see the boys
home in time for tea&scones and reaffirm the British supremacy.

And that's the whole point. It was supposed to have been a pushover. It
wasn't supposed to last 3 years and it wasn't supposed to have the British
public reading in the papers about botched cavalry charges, cesspit military
hospitals and scurvy in the trenches, and had the Russian high command, as
usual, not consisted of a cadre of posturing, alcoholic buffoons, the
British and the French could've found themselves in some real trouble. As it
was, they withdrew from the Crimea with their elite professional formations
merely fatigued. Had the Russians had the commanders who could've made real
use of their home-ground and numerical advatages, Britain and France
would've been lucky to have got out of the war with any armies to speak of
at all.

It's always a dismal war for the Russians, yet it's uncanny how they usually
end up having the last laugh. If you need a demonstration of how aggression
doesn't pay, go fight the Russians. Unless you're Russians yourselves, in
which case, just march your armies for the Trans-Caucasus and still learn
nothing...

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:59:54 +1100

yup, which is why the man wrote it. He was praising the men and damning
the army, more or less.

"This poem (written at Farringford, and published in The Examiner,
Dec. 9, 1854) was written after reading the first report of the Times
correspondent, where only 607 sabres are mentioned as having taken part
in this charge (Oct. 25, 1854). Drayton's Agincourt was not in my mind; my
poem is dactylic[1], and founded on the phrase, "Some one had blundered."

Zebee

[1] not my footnote

 

Dammit! Are you sure there isn't a line in there about BRAVE six hundred?
This isn't my day!

 

That was Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the middle with you"

 

It's hardly Dylan, but it'll do.

 

Hmmm (looks left then right); you may be correct......
Clem

 

And now I've got that song stuck in my head, and it's trying
to turn into a a song about the Light Brigade, and I'm
scared in case I fall in a trench, and I'm wondering just
what is that stench?...

-----sharks

 

"
Stealers?

Theo

 

Yep.

Doug Cox.
Work to ride, Ride to work...