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It was known Olham, but I seem to recall Mountbatten saw the destoyers were intended as aggressive 'attack' ships, and since they would initiate the action, they could pick and choose the time of attack to coincide with favourable lighting conditions when their colour suited them. From the air, the pink was quite discernable, but from the air, so was the more typical grey. Found this which looks interesting.... http://grahamshawcross.com/2012/05/31/abbott-thayer-countershading-and-camouflage-theory/

Wasn't just the Long Range Desert Patrols / SAS, there were pink coloured Sptfires used for photo reconnaisance, and the Royal Navy got in on the act too. Lord Louis Mountbatten had his 5th Destroyer Flotilla painted pink as an experimental naval camouflage. I think this was also linked to experiments with dazzle camouflage too, but 'Mountbatten Pink' was the formal name adopted for the colour. There were certain times of day and weather conditions which made the ships almost invisible, but the drawback was there were also other times of the day when the pink was much more visible. http://en.wikipedia....ountbatten_pink I've also been waist deep digging a trench somehwere in Wales when four Pink Panthers drove past us at a fair old lick. I thought I was seeing things. Talk about armed to the teeth - but it was in Wales right enough. Edit - and yes, I like my DR1's with big round holes in the wings too, but the bounders won't fly straight and level while I put them there.

Culture is an amazing for it's origins and suprises. Long before Scotland was actually Scotland, there were indigenous tribes here call Picts. Their culture was stong and survived several centuries, but largely unwritten and long ago forgotten. For a long time people believed they were wiped out, but these days it's believed the culture was integrated with others, Gaels, Angles, Scandinavians etc. The Pictish era is very imprecise, but was well advandced and strong at the time of Roman Invasion to the South, but already by by 9th and 10th Century, they were culturally hard to discern as an identifyable separate culture. It is commonly believed the Gaels and Picts largely merged to become a seamless new culture, further enriched by the disparate tribes and influence of Europeans who had no appetite for life under the Romans. Most of what is known about the Picts, even the fact they're called Picts, has been written from outside by observers, with very little knowledge coming from within. It is almost impossible to identify any part of modern Scottish culture which is definitely Pictish in origin, but the Picts did leave some spectacular mysteries which have defied explanation down the ages. There are big standing stones, one standing 6m high, filled with Z-rods and enigmatic symbols which clearly meant something to the Picts, but nobody really knows what. http://www.pictishst...nes/3dscans.htm The picts also had some mysterious capacity to build forts where the walls were vitrified, and the stone turned to glass, by some long forgotten process. The practice was common in Pictland, although not unique, however the spread beyond Pictish lands might have been Pictish influence. It's frustrating to know the Picts are such a unique Scottish phenomenon, older than Scotland herself, and yet we know so little about them. Hope springs eternal that some new archaeological treasure trove will be discovered to shed more light on their living culture, because it seems it was a very vibrant culture with a stubborn and robust character. It's legacy must still be present in our culture, but certainly isn't well defined as a clear cultural influence.

We were in a pub near Gloucester a few years ago, I can't rememer the name, but they had an ale called Pigs Ear. It wasn't cider, but a locally brewed ale, and a very nice pint which was easy to drink. But after three pints, we couldn't play pool anymore. And we were all big lads who could hold our drink. Partly from giggling too much, but the principal difficulty was getting the cue to strike the cue ball. I'm not exaggerating in any way. Pigs ear it was called. We didn't ask why. They had a stronger ale too, but a stronger ale was quite unnecessary for our mortal souls. Edir Here you go - http://www.uleybrewery.com/ales_pigs_ear.htm Wolf in sheeps clothing? They're not kidding.

That is stunning Skatezilla. I'm lost for words. My only grumble, (which I'm fully aware isn't appropriate criticism for a thoroughly excellent development) is I'm not a real pilot, and I like my combat simulation. What I want is that level of realism and depth in a combat sim situation, ideally WW1 or WW2 with manual sights and targetting.

That's funny Creaghorn, there's a non alcoholic apple juice called Shloer. I say apple juice, but they do lots of drinks now, but I only recall apple from years ago. On the subject of apple juice, when I was younger, we had a rugby tour to the USA, and in Vermont, we were being taken to a barbeque by our host's girlfriend, and she asked us if we wanted to take some cider to the party. Being a bit sick of all the beer by this stage, myself an two other lads agreed this would be a good idea. She asked us how much we wanted, and not wanting to be greedy, we all decided on a gallon each - 8 pints wasn't over doing it for a party. She looked a bit surprised, but back in those days, we were young and daft and could drink booze by the bucketful. Anyway, we turned up at the party with our cider, and cracked the lids off our jugs. - No fizz. Oh, oh. That means either it's flat, or it's the real makeyougoblind loopy juice Scrumpy you get in dark shady pups in middle England. We had a quick taste and discovered it wasn't cider at all, but apple juice. We told our host, and she said yes, cider. We said no, apple juice. It emerged in the USA that cider is apple juice, whereas in the UK, Cider is fermented into an alcholic beverage often of considerable strength. What can you say? Nothing like 8 pints of apple juice to get the party swinging. I have to chuckle however. I wonder how many poor Americans wander into a pub in Wiltshire or wherever, have a couple of pints of cider then discover there something terribly funny about their legs not working anymore.

My wife leaves the house nearly every night and goes on a tour around all the local pubs and clubs, calling in to every one, and often doesn't get home until the early hours. But she always finds me eventually.

I agree with Dej, why just yesterday I was walking the Weimaraner past the delicatessen on the way to pick up the kids from kindergarten. I suddenly met a doppelganger trying to get a rottweiller into her volkwagen. When she turned around, I saw she was a pretty young fraulein from the hinterland. I said hi, and we agreed to meet up later in a beerkellar for some schnapps and a lager/Pilsner/Holstein/Becks/Heinekin/Furstenberg/Lowenbrau, or two. Her VW wouldn't start, and the look of angst on her face about her car being kaput told you she really should have saved up to buy the Audi or the Merc with diesel engine.

Olham, the Marathon word doesn't always live forever. In the UK, a 'marathon' was changed to a 'Snickers' bar in 1990 and what was pretty cool chewy bar of chocolate was universally ridiculed afterwards, - but the new name stuck. They're now called snickers, but I've never understood the marketing ploy... (Sorry, even further off topic than Elephant).

There's triple A, - Anti Aircraft Artillery, but I think that's later - WW2. Edit - According to Wiki, Ack Ack is WW1, taken from the phoenetic alphabet for AA.

I agree gents, but maybe not 100% all the time. Sometimes families aren't the happiest or most appreciative places to be, and it's nice when those kind of medals find their way into regimental museums and get the respect they deserve from people who appreciate them. I like the VC's attitude, that the actual medal is just a mortal trinket beside the recognition of a man's bravery which stands forevermore. I agree 100% that no veteran or family should ever be compelled to sell a medal they treasure for the sake of hardship. If I was a rich enough man to do it, I like to think I might buy that medal, and hand it straight back to it's rightful owner. Even better, I would rather know sooner than that, and be able to help that serviceman out before he faced the humiliation of being forced to consider selling his medals. It's just that part about me becoming a rich man which is proving troublesome....

Having one of those shady recollections now, but I'm sure the VC was intended to be a medal for valour /conspicuous bravery which levelled all rank and class. You had to be a very man to earn it, and your rank or background was of no importance whatsoever. The 'purity' of the award was re-inforced by the base metal the VC medals are made from, there is no intrinsic value in the metal itself, it is simply brass from a Russian cannon from the Crimean war, and the value is entirely what it stands for. They are not given lightly. It's also the first medal in the row when it's pinned on the chest, and the first letters which appear after your name if or when you have other letters after your name. VC comes first, OBE's, MBE's, QC, whatever else comes later. And at the medal ceremony when awarded by the Queen, out of respect, the VC's are always awarded first, and everybody else being honoured, knights, barons, whatever, have to wait their turn. I think I'm correct in saying the VC has never been won by a woman. This isn't any kind of sexism against women, merely that the VC is awarded for conspicuous bravery in combat, and traditionally women were never actually combatants.

In the UK, we whinge about the weather, but it's fun to whinge when it doesn't really matter. We get no serious extremes of weather, no excessive droughts, no excessive deluges, it's rare to get a cold winter which dips below -10 degrees, and everything tends to stay pretty green and 'alive' more or less. We're very rarely frozen solid to immobility, buried under feet of snow, but nor are we cursed by termites and rots which decay and eat everything relentlessly. We do get a decent summer now and again, so it breeds continual optimism, and miserable whinging when we get the more normal crappy summer we're having this year. Climate wise, Scotland is doing ok. There's a lot worse places to live than here. We might envy the sun a little bit, but the next notch on the thermostat would be an English climate, and you're already getting frequent hosepipe bans for water shortages, so we should be happy to leave the thermostat just exactly where it is. Sunshine is still mighty nice when it happens though. The sun did appear for a time yesterday, and just see how mellow you feel afterwards..... Love the picture Tranquillo!

Excellent!!!! The sun is coming out tomorrow!!! Look! See it? It's the little yellow thing, round about one o'clock.

I've just learned that Mozilla is stopping development of the Thunderbird Email server. I've just got used to using it!!! Any more information to be had with the more computer orientated people out there? Should I be hunting for an alternative to Thunderbird or is Hotmail/Outlook Express/MSN the place to be?

I was just browsing, and came across this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18120890 Most of it is quite rational, quite naturally intense given the subject matter, but still rational, and then I read that Herman Goerings great neice and her brother both had themselves sterilised so there wouldn't be any more Goerings. A great neice, who wasn't even born until 1956! Rare for me, but I'm left at a loss for words. Such immense guilt about something she had nothing to do with surely cannot right, but then, however wrong it is, would you want your children to grow up forever associated with such a legacy? Strong subject isn't it?

That Youtube link UKW posted is very scarey.One little suggestion planted, and the boys are coming to blows by break time. Want an honest confession? For very a short moment I caught myself thinking phew, - I've got blue eyes. Unbelievable isn't it? We think we're intelligent and independent minded people, but we all react to the same buttons being pressed.

Olham, I'd heard that about the brother but I'd forgotten. To know light we need to know dark. My abiding thought is Bettina Goering must have had a difficult path to follow, and I hope she finds some peace with herself.The Goerings sees to have been a curious and difficult family to be a member of.

I'm happy too, and I'm not near the edge Lou, I'm happy to listen to BH's point of view all day, even if I don't agree with it. I think it takes time to learn patience dealing with online forums. You get text and only text, and sentiment behind a statement isn't always clear. I happen to have given lots of thought towards sustainability, because it's a big issue in the building trade. Timber based industries are always the first to promote their green credentials because timber is a renewable resource. So it is, but of all possible building materials, it's the only one with complete dependency upon the destruction of a natural ecosystem. Build using stone, your property is that much more durable, and two perhaps even three generations of those trees don't have to come down. That's a big story, because it means there's less commercial imperative to plant pines, and you might just as well plant broadleafed hardwoods and thereby stop the demand for felling equatorial hardwood. That makes two forests you've just saved. Am I anti timber? Not at all. Objectively, I consider stone is best for practical reasons I can bore you all to tears with, but it doesn't stop me recognising timber has its merits too.

We're not going to persuade each other here... We started to domesticate wild animals because there arose a need to do it. We were only successful because the resource of wild cattle was there for us to adapt. It would have been rather short sighted and thoughtless to use that resource unsustainably and drive wild cattle to extinction and deny our selves such a reliable source of protein. (We still tried, and managed to wipe out Auroches). We just don't know which resources we might need in the future, and nor do we know the consequences of our actions. It's just sensible to be cautious and if we make a mistake at the very least we have the chance to correct it. There's something fundamentally missing in your argument BH. I understand your fatalism, that no matter what happens, you can be sitting the middle of it all and seek to make the best of adversity and find a way to survive and put the whole business down to 'natural' fatalism. I get that. But look at our track record. The fact we can run down and destroy a self replensihing and sustainable holistic ecosystem which has sustained a stable equilibrium for millions of years doesn't really sit very well as an example of how we are able to make the best of things. We can make mistakes and get things badly wrong, and there's no guarantee we'll be always get away with it. Resources are not inexhaustible. When it comes to sustainable planetary management, collectively, we humans have an awful lot to learn. As custodians of our own prison planet, if we don't look after it we are failing ourselves just as much as the other living creatures we share it with.

It's all about sustainability, and making sure our kids have the same opportunities we do. I agree with BH, we're all part of a balanced eco system, but disagree when we meddle with it at our peril. We're smart enough to beat the odds and step outside the rules, but just because we can doesn't mean we should. Any natural predator which drives it's prey to the brink of extinction is committing suicide, but there's a natural equilibrium in place which works out all the details and stop that happening, but along comes humanity and we think we can do it better, but we're not bigger than nature, there's still a price to pay. We take out apex predators like sharks, the squid population explodes without predation, but numbers drive the squid to eat every living thing that moves (they're already attacking dolphins), causing general fish stocks to collapse, so there's nothing left to browse the plankton, which then forms in such great clouds it shuts off the corals from sunlight so the reefs die, and before long our oceans are completely sterile. All we need to do to avoid that happening is to restrict our impact on shark fishing to a sustainable level, and the devastation of our oceans is averted. Once we understand it takes such a disproportionately small amount of self restraint to stop this disasterous chain reaction happening, it becomes absolute madness when we don't exercise that restraint. It doesn't take a mad corporation or corrupt scientist to make me see that. It just takes one fisherman saying the fish are gone. That's the time to really start paying attention, and that time is now.

Not quite so Dej. It's a comfortable assumption to make that the world will get better if we just leave it alone, but that's not guaranteed. Or oceans are rampant with squid because humans have targetted the apex predators when killing sharks, and the change has still to ripple through the whole eco system until it reaches a stable equilibrium, but that state of equilibrium may or may not feature sharks. We may have assured their terminal decline already. It's not the detail of what we do that's important, but becoming self aware, and equally aware of the bigger picture. We are preoccupied (some of us) with stopping things from getting worse, so how far have we yet to go before we devote our energies to making things better? How can we increase fish stocks beyond former levels, plant more forests stuffed to bursting with wild animals, clean up pollution. Quite literally, make the world a better place. Instead of animals being on the endangered list, imagine the news being the population of snow leopards is the highest it's ever been in living memory, or an area the size of France is no longer required for human exploitation and has been set aside for natural habitat. It's all a question of priorities. For the higher state of awareness we humans have compared to wild animals, our attitude towards looking after the planet is infantile and dangerously reckless. Errr, and I'm sure there was a rumour that James McCudden and Mick Mannock were regularly arguing about this with their ground crews immediately before take off in WW1. Morning Mods.

But I'm not scared BH. It's like having a car you drive every day, rain or shine, and you keep going even if the oil leaks and there's smoke in the exhaust, it doesn't matter, just keep going, and never give it a breather. That's how we treat our planet. We plunder it every hour of every day and just expect it to keep on giving. The planet is the only one we've got, so what's wrong with giving it a service every now and then? Make sure everything is running properly and tweak it here and there to keep it running sweetly and isn't going to break down when we really need it. Why don't we give it a polish and get the chrome shining? It doesn't hurt, but lets everybody know we kinda like the old thing. My contribution will be no more meaningful than a single ant in a single generation of a single ant hill, but it gives me a tremendous sense of well being to at least try to look after the place. If we do mess up this planet, we are all in extremely deep sh___e.

Think about smoked fish ( or anything smoked) it was smoked to preserve it, and often reconstituted with water before eating. The posh folks used milk, and if you want something really tastey with two ingredients, smoked mackerel simmered for 5 minutes in milk. Mackerel is best, because it's well tastey but you're not pulling the bones out every mouthful. I've never eaten snake that I know of, but perhaps did in China. Ate quite a few meaty things which were superb, but let's just say they didn't taste like any meat I knew, - before or since.

Some people are quite relaxed about going outside and catching skin cancer because we've depleted the ozone layer. I'm not one of them. Some people shrug the shoulders because we've driven fish stocks beyond the point of collapse. I'm not one of them. Some people don't care if we run out of tigers because they've no habitat left to live in. I'm not one of them. Some people don't care if we run out of polar bears because the ice caps are gone. I'm not one of them. Some people don't care that millions of tons of CO2 which was once locked in living rain forest timber which is still being felled, is now present in the atmoshere and changing how it works. We put it there, not big volcanoes, not farting cows, not meteors or dying dinosaurs. Human greed put it there. Us. I'm not one of those people. I do care. I want the plunder to stop. Point is gentleman, I'm extraordinarily glad I'm not one of them. If I choose to live my life with respect for my planet, however futile and insignificant my contribution may or may not be, it's a thoroughly rewarding and positive disposition to maintain, because it's a thoroughly worthwhile objective to aim for, and being wrong doesn't have a downside. Do you really want society crashing down BH? I mean really? You haven't thought about it my friend.