The Russians prompted a wry smile from me over the weekend. I thought that their EU ambassador, Vladimir Chizhov’s, suggestion on the Andrew Marr show that the Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire, only eight miles away from the contamination area, may have been the source of the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals, was most entertaining. The nerve of the bloke, damn cheeky if you ask me.

If you are a conspiracy theorist though, you’ll be having a ball pondering all the angles on that one.

Personally, I had noted the close proximity of the Porton Down facility to Salisbury at the time the news broke…
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But whoever targeted Sergie and Yulia sent a clumsy assassin to do the job. Maybe the hit-person was still qualifying, an apprentice of some sort perhaps. The spread of chemical traces around Wiltshire suggests to me that whoever was handling the nerve agent wasn’t familiar enough with it.

All in all, the thing doesn’t have the feel of a British assassination to me. MI5/MI6/our military wouldn’t be so sloppy, and certainly not on our own doorstep.

Which is a perspective that couldn’t be applied to the rugby.

Unfortunately, the Six Nations England squad continued its nervy, error strewn tournament form and lost to the Irish at Twickenham, the spiritual home of English Rugby. We took a proverbial dump on our own turf in this instance for sure.

But the game didn’t get me down, I only watched it sporadically and the result was as much a forgone conclusion as Putin’s re-election.
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16/03/18 In two minds on three matters
13/03/18 Military Grade Blogging

I find myself conflicted about a few things today. The first is the Six Nations rugby competition. England, so rubbish against Scotland and France, is due to go against Ireland this weekend. On one hand, I want the English to beat the Irish and stop the side winning a Grand Slam (just like to Irish did to us in the last tournament). England’s wounded pride could be restored, in part at least, with a commanding performance at Twickenham.
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But on the other hand, I think the Irish, the best side during this tournament deserve the Grand Slam and shouldn’t be denied by a sloppy England.

Not being 100% supportive of England is unusual for me and definitely a source of internal conflict.

I can’t decide if I am actually going to watch the game. Normally I’d be glued to the TV screen … but if I don’t really care what the result is, wouldn’t my time be better spent doing something else?

Maybe I could do something else as well as watch the rugby, something useful like the ironing perhaps?

Next up Porton Down.

Was the Skripal, Novichok poisoning just a lucky bounce for Porton Down? Announced yesterday, another £48 million investment is being made in the UK’s premier chemical/biological weapons research facility.
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Once again, I am conflicted because part of me believes that there are 48 million better ways to spend UK tax payers’ money than this.  

I find myself wondering, was the investment already earmarked before the Salisbury events? Surely it must have been on the radar earlier than yesterday? Is the previously planned investment now being justified with a hastily devised PR campaign/stance arising from an incident that, by pure coincidence, occurred at the right time? Is it a chance perhaps for May to score some brownie points with the British public by overtly promoting something she had probably been planning to do on the quiet anyway?

But then again, maybe the Government’s proposal was just a rapidly developed plan to adjust to a new UK threat level. Maybe investing in Porton Down is the right thing to do? If the UK is going to subjected to chemical attacks, our establishment should be tooled up to deal with them. But letting our scientists work on nerve agents surely encourages the Russians and others to get their laboratories back up to full speed as well…

Finally, snow.

Apparently, we are expecting more snow this weekend - part of me is going “yay”, the other part is going “boo”.  Snow is fun but a pain is the arse as well.

What to do? Which way to jump? What to think?

Buggered if I know.

At least if it snows, that might sort out my indecision about watching the rugby. Bye for now.

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Finally, we know what caused all the fear and chaos in Salisbury and the hospitalisation of the Skripals. A Russian military grade chemical weapon known as a Novichok nerve agent was deployed in our country. Damn scary stuff.

And the nerve of the agents that carried out the poisoning on our soil! It is just about tantamount to an act of war, if the rhetoric being purveyed by our political leadership is to be believed. That’s even more worrying.

There are two scenarios; either a state sponsored assassination attempt, or even worse, the Russians have lost control of their chemical weapons stock pile.

If the Russians wanted the Skripals disposed of, surely there were more traditional methods at their disposal that would have had less scope to create an international incident. They are denying involvement of course but that feels less believable than Kim Jong-un wanting nuclear peace talks with Trump.

An unbelievable brings me to Money Supermarket (MS). Last night during a Marcella advertisement break, the latest MS TV ad was aired. It’s militarily grade too and features animated, vintage Action Men dancing to Ce Ce Peniston’s “Finally it’s happening to me”. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

​Follow the YouTube link below and see for yourself.

Despite the gloom of impending conflict, the advert made me laugh out loud. You probably have to be male and of my generation (forty or fifty something) to fully appreciate it, but I thought the execution was brilliant. The creatives (possibly Russian) had some nerve to present Action Man in such a camp, Village People fashion (that’s never the way I saw my eagle-eyed hero), but heck it was/is funny.
  
I watched with joy, rarely have I paid so much attention to a TV ad. The helicopters, tank, Jeep and motorcycle with side car were part of my Action Man collection, I owned many of the different outfits on display (just love the astronaut). Back in the day, there was a cowboy and a red Indian Action Man costume, I am amazed they weren’t featured.

One observation, there was never a moustachioed figure, it was a full beard or nothing! In the seventies, the footballer figure had side burns but that was the only other facial hair ever presented.  But that factual inaccuracy is forgivable, creative licence in this instance is a good thing.

Military grade targeting evidenced from Money Super Market...I am so "target market”.

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Blimey it’s been cold the last couple of days. The snow and freezing temperatures have however prompted a few moments of amusement and observation.

I got home from work this evening to find that I have a snow drift inside my garage, it is so windy that the snow is just getting blown in under and around the door frame … FFS!

I got in my car this morning to find that the snow in the foot well from yesterday evening was still there … it hadn’t melted overnight. I have never seen that happen before.

When I started up the car, the damn thing wouldn’t stop beeping at me. It turned out that the parking sensors were all iced over, which was rather better than an accident being imminent. I had to get out of the car, find the sensors in the front bumper (or fender for my US buddies) and clear the ice away with my finger-tips.  I was of course dressed for work; the suit was not particularly effective at keeping -6.5 degrees centigrade at bay.

But I made it to work, some 45 minutes away from home, without incident …

… which couldn’t be said for Eddie Jones’ work related journey the other day. Or in fact my trip home this evening for that matter (a near miss got the adrenaline pumping)!

Following on from England’s woeful performance against Scotland in the Six Nations rugby tournament, coverage has emerged of Jones being abused by Scottish fans.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/43235314

I’ll be honest, watching England’s lacklustre performance on Saturday afternoon had me shouting abuse at the telly. The fumbled plays, the penalties, the fouls, the lack of creativity left me feeling as cold as I did on the drive this morning. After the tense game between Ireland and Wales, the England/Scotland game was even more disappointing. Even if England go on to win the Six Nations overall, this game ruined this year’s tournament for me.

Despite my feelings of frustration with England, I was however pleased for the Scots, the team was the better side on the day and earned its win.

Even in my despair at England, I wouldn’t have abused Eddie Jones though, he wasn’t even on the pitch. He wasn’t making the unforced errors, loosing turnover ball, getting yellow carded or generally cocking-it-up.

I was pleased to hear that despite his celebrity status, he was willing to share a train with the general public; he’ll be giving public transport the cold shoulder from now on though, which is a shame.

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