I hoped The Yorkshire Ranter

would post about the report into the crash of Nimrod XV230 over Afghanistan, he has and it is good, if damning stuff.

Now, I haven’t served in the armed forces (the Royal Naval Reserve rejected me on the grounds of short sight - I suspect now they’d fit the boat with a lamp-post for my guide dog to piss on and provide an admiral’s leg for him to hump) so I don’t know for certain whether or not we should properly equip our forces and maintain their equipment properly (38 year old seals in fuel lines, what the fuck is THAT ALL ABOUT?). But I suspect we should.

Reading TYR, it seems that as a skipper in charge of a 56 foot yacht I was under a more rigorous safety oversight and maintenance regime than aircraft we send over hostile territory.