Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[thetank]

I'd make a piss poor MP

[bolt pp]

I'd make a piss poor MP

lol i can imagine you on bb1 sunday morning

andrew marr: "what is your take on the allegations that soldiers are behaving inappropriately towards the civilians of Afghanistan"

MPTank: "to be honest it's not great but we find letting them rape the shit out of the women takes their minds off not having the right sized boots"

[maccol]

A few years ago I happened to visit Mentmore in Buckinghamshire very near the bridge where the robbery took place. I can't remember why I ended up there! There they had one of theTPO carriages exhibited with Robbery memorabilia. Stunningly restored and fascinating to anoraks! The same carriage is now preserved at Birmingham Railway Museum.


Anyway tikay...why do you have a lot of respect for "old style" villains? Characters of course, but still villains nonetheless

I'll answer that properly later, I'm working tonight, but great question, & Red & boilt have it about right.

Basically, it was knives not guns, & between themselves, they did not mess with "straights".

They would "stripe" or "cross" another villain as soon as look at them. To "cross" or "stripe" was to criss-cross their arse wirth a blade. Never fatal, but the victim could not sit down for weeks. And they'd grass any villain who acted wrongly - that is to say, messed with the straights. (public).

There was no drug problem then, & the villains tended to be jewel thieves, or racecourse gangs, with bookie-related crime prevelant. There'd be more villains on Epsom Downs on Derby Week than enough.

Read the astonishing books by Frankie Fraser, or Freddie Foreman. Real villains, amazing books.

The krays? The Krays did torture & maim & all that sort oif stuff - ask George Cornell, who they butchered in the Blind Beggar Pub, in Whitechapel Road - but it was amongst "their own types", not the public. The public were of no interest to them.

The Richardson's gang was another "Super-Gang", who controlled South-West London - the Richardson Brothers were bad bad bad, mind.

Don't start me off on 40's, 50's, & 60's crime, I've hundreds of books on it, & I'm in my element absorbing myself into their world. Via books, that is.

Jack Spot got slashed big time - wow, they slashed him good & proper. They coulda killed him as soon as look at him, but that was not on the agenda. Honour, see?

The inference here is that murder ,GBH and probably a host of other crimes are sometimes "acceptable" dependant on how we view the victim  and his place in society.
This is a slippery slope to go down for many reasons including the chipping away of our basic moral fabric.
Also these gangs made much of their fortunes operating protection rackets targeting "straights" running straight businesses ; and corrupted large areas of the police force and justice system in this country.
I am sure you are much better read in this area than I am TK, but it seems to me that much of the "we all loved our mothers and castrated rapists" stuff is rose-tinted bollox which attempts to gloss over an inhumane world ruled by greed,power trips,petty jealousy and cruelty.
Society as a whole should never accept the "romance" of this area of life.

[boldie]

Is there a place in the UK for providing moral support for our troops through letters/parcels? Do we not do it because we are ashamed or are we too British to become all rarara like the Americans?

personally I don't do it because I don't really care. why should I send a care parcel to someone who's doing a job that they chose to do? there are many, many, many more worthy causes for me to spend my time/money on

They chose to do the job and stay in it to protect others who chose to do an office job. In the same way that Police officers do what they do. There is nothing wrong with showing a bit of appreciation to those that do put their lives on the line every day.
Whilst I strongly oppose the war in Iraq I do have a tremendous amount of respect for those that go there and get their asses shot at simply because the government tells them to...And I seem to have more respect for them than the politicians who can't even supply them with decent kit do. (Then again, that is of course also because of lilly-livered liberals who don't want the DoD to get a decent enough budget to actually kit everyone out properly).

the war in Iraq worries me greatly from a national defense perspective. Who in their right mind will now sign up for a £16k a year job knowing they could be sent to fight what is, IMO, an illegal war fought under false pretences. I fully support the war in Afghanistan, that country needs to be sorted out, and sorted out properly. (I do think they aren't nearly heavy handed enough in their pursuit of terrorists in the hills of Pakistan and Afghanistan though and I think that that's holding the effort in getting Afghanistan back on track back).
But a war like the one in Iraq does a tremendous amount of damage to the way the Army (and Navy and Airforce) are perceived by the general public. Becoming a soldier is something that people should get a certain amount of pride and respect from, if that drains away people will not sign up to be a soldier anymore which leaves us in trouble when the next real must-fight war comes around.

Rant over.

[nirvana]

Genuinely interested in an expansion of your view.

I probably haven't read enough background info but what is it about Afghanistan that makes it supportable ? I struggle to see how it is justifiable or distinguishable from the Iraqi situation.

[boldie]

Genuinely interested in an expansion of your view.

I probably haven't read enough background info but what is it about Afghanistan that makes it supportable ? I struggle to see how it is justifiable or distinguishable from the Iraqi situation.

IMO, Afghanistan was a haven for terrorism that was clearly spreading to the west. (In the same way that the mountain regions of Pakistan are). The Taliban were actively encouraging terrorist training camps (or at least actively refused to deal with the issue)  and that meant that there was a direct threat to the west coming from that country. That needed to be dealt with after the attacks on september the 11th.

Iraq was invaded because Bush and Blair were embarrassed by Saddam Hussain. Everybody with half a brain, or just listening to the people that had experience working in Iraq (Mr Blitz and mainly Scott Ritter) already knew that there was no justification (WMDs etc.) for invading Iraq but that that was an invasion of opportunity.

[Karabiner]

Genuinely interested in an expansion of your view.

I probably haven't read enough background info but what is it about Afghanistan that makes it supportable ? I struggle to see how it is justifiable or distinguishable from the Iraqi situation.

IMO, Afghanistan was a haven for terrorism that was clearly spreading to the west. (In the same way that the mountain regions of Pakistan are). The Taliban were actively encouraging terrorist training camps (or at least actively refused to deal with the issue)  and that meant that there was a direct threat to the west coming from that country. That needed to be dealt with after the attacks on september the 11th.

Iraq was invaded because Bush and Blair were embarrassed by Saddam Hussain. Everybody with half a brain, or just listening to the people that had experience working in Iraq (Mr Blitz and mainly Scott Ritter) already knew that there was no justification (WMDs etc.) for invading Iraq but that that was an invasion of opportunity.

So you don't think that the fact that 90% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan has anything to do with it ?

[doubleup]

The average amount of time served for murder in this country is 14 years.

The mother of baby "P" will be eligible for parole after serving just three and a half years.

Biggs was part of a gang that stole some money and made the police look silly.

They stole £2 million, which worked out at £200,000 each, & all got either 25 or 30 years. I never understood the severity of the Sentences. It was said it was because Jack Mills, the Train Driver, got hit on the head, but it was never established who hit him, so it seemed a bit off to give all of them 25 or 30 years inside.

As you allude, it might well be because they made such fools of the Establishment, in particular "Butler of the Yard" (lol) & Jack Slipper.

Really stop it with this shit - they hit the guy with an iron bar he never recovered from his injury. 

The fact that various scumbags don't get the sentences they deserve nowadays doesn't stop these guys from being greedy violient men who deserved all they got.

[kinboshi]

The average amount of time served for murder in this country is 14 years.

The mother of baby "P" will be eligible for parole after serving just three and a half years.

Biggs was part of a gang that stole some money and made the police look silly.

They stole £2 million, which worked out at £200,000 each, & all got either 25 or 30 years. I never understood the severity of the Sentences. It was said it was because Jack Mills, the Train Driver, got hit on the head, but it was never established who hit him, so it seemed a bit off to give all of them 25 or 30 years inside.

As you allude, it might well be because they made such fools of the Establishment, in particular "Butler of the Yard" (lol) & Jack Slipper.

Really stop it with this shit - they hit the guy with an iron bar he never recovered from his injury. 

The fact that various scumbags don't get the sentences they deserve nowadays doesn't stop these guys from being greedy violient men who deserved all they got.

This.

The romantic revisionist view that it was all honourable and gentlemanly is on the same level as looking back at the Crusades as a noble cause of good v evil.

[bolt pp]

The average amount of time served for murder in this country is 14 years.

The mother of baby "P" will be eligible for parole after serving just three and a half years.

Biggs was part of a gang that stole some money and made the police look silly.

They stole £2 million, which worked out at £200,000 each, & all got either 25 or 30 years. I never understood the severity of the Sentences. It was said it was because Jack Mills, the Train Driver, got hit on the head, but it was never established who hit him, so it seemed a bit off to give all of them 25 or 30 years inside.

As you allude, it might well be because they made such fools of the Establishment, in particular "Butler of the Yard" (lol) & Jack Slipper.

Really stop it with this shit - they hit the guy with an iron bar he never recovered from his injury. 

The fact that various scumbags don't get the sentences they deserve nowadays doesn't stop these guys from being greedy violient men who deserved all they got.

This.

The romantic revisionist view that it was all honourable and gentlemanly is on the same level as looking back at the Crusades as a noble cause of good v evil.

of course it is, otherwise you'd just sit about like a miserable bastard all day moaning about everything.

Are you two really that naive that you think people who like the sort of ethos from back in the day arnt completely aware of the full extent of what happend? just lol.

[doubleup]

otherwise you'd just sit about like a miserable bastard all day moaning about everything.

So wtf is wrong with that?

[kinboshi]

The average amount of time served for murder in this country is 14 years.

The mother of baby "P" will be eligible for parole after serving just three and a half years.

Biggs was part of a gang that stole some money and made the police look silly.

They stole £2 million, which worked out at £200,000 each, & all got either 25 or 30 years. I never understood the severity of the Sentences. It was said it was because Jack Mills, the Train Driver, got hit on the head, but it was never established who hit him, so it seemed a bit off to give all of them 25 or 30 years inside.

As you allude, it might well be because they made such fools of the Establishment, in particular "Butler of the Yard" (lol) & Jack Slipper.

Really stop it with this shit - they hit the guy with an iron bar he never recovered from his injury. 

The fact that various scumbags don't get the sentences they deserve nowadays doesn't stop these guys from being greedy violient men who deserved all they got.

This.

The romantic revisionist view that it was all honourable and gentlemanly is on the same level as looking back at the Crusades as a noble cause of good v evil.

of course it is, otherwise you'd just sit about like a miserable bastard all day moaning about everything.

Are you two really that naive that you think people who like the sort of ethos from back in the day arnt completely aware of the full extent of what happend? just lol.

It's the justification and romanticising in an attempt to pass it all off as noble and gentlemanly. 

...and you're the one moaning about our moaning. 

[bolt pp]

The average amount of time served for murder in this country is 14 years.

The mother of baby "P" will be eligible for parole after serving just three and a half years.

Biggs was part of a gang that stole some money and made the police look silly.

They stole £2 million, which worked out at £200,000 each, & all got either 25 or 30 years. I never understood the severity of the Sentences. It was said it was because Jack Mills, the Train Driver, got hit on the head, but it was never established who hit him, so it seemed a bit off to give all of them 25 or 30 years inside.

As you allude, it might well be because they made such fools of the Establishment, in particular "Butler of the Yard" (lol) & Jack Slipper.

Really stop it with this shit - they hit the guy with an iron bar he never recovered from his injury. 

The fact that various scumbags don't get the sentences they deserve nowadays doesn't stop these guys from being greedy violient men who deserved all they got.

This.

The romantic revisionist view that it was all honourable and gentlemanly is on the same level as looking back at the Crusades as a noble cause of good v evil.

of course it is, otherwise you'd just sit about like a miserable bastard all day moaning about everything.

Are you two really that naive that you think people who like the sort of ethos from back in the day arnt completely aware of the full extent of what happend? just lol.

It's the justification and romanticising in an attempt to pass it all off as noble and gentlemanly. 

...and you're the one moaning about our moaning. 

yes buts it comparative to crime these days, people arnt just saying  60's gangtas are great and in comparison mother terresa looks like a right slag.

there wasnt drugs, rapes, muggings, and burglaries like there is now and this is where you guys are clouding the argument, women could walk the street safe, i'd take 60's society over over todays anytime.

If the penalty for that is beatings, killings and intimidation then i GUARENTEE that all 3 of those things happen far more in london today, the difference is that the gangsters of 50 years ago when far less violence existed wouldnt allow all the really naughty stuff to happen,  and that's the point, you have to understand that arguments being put forward already take into consideration the parameters of the criminal underworld and understand the inherent immorality of being a criminal.

[boldie]

Genuinely interested in an expansion of your view.

I probably haven't read enough background info but what is it about Afghanistan that makes it supportable ? I struggle to see how it is justifiable or distinguishable from the Iraqi situation.

IMO, Afghanistan was a haven for terrorism that was clearly spreading to the west. (In the same way that the mountain regions of Pakistan are). The Taliban were actively encouraging terrorist training camps (or at least actively refused to deal with the issue)  and that meant that there was a direct threat to the west coming from that country. That needed to be dealt with after the attacks on september the 11th.

Iraq was invaded because Bush and Blair were embarrassed by Saddam Hussain. Everybody with half a brain, or just listening to the people that had experience working in Iraq (Mr Blitz and mainly Scott Ritter) already knew that there was no justification (WMDs etc.) for invading Iraq but that that was an invasion of opportunity.

So you don't think that the fact that 90% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan has anything to do with it ?

Of course it does, and it's a nice secondary reason but that's not a reason not to support the war.

[dik9]

yes buts it comparative to crime these days, people arnt just saying  60's gangtas are great and in comparison mother terresa looks like a right slag.

there wasnt drugs, rapes, muggings, and burglaries like there is now and this is where you guys are clouding the argument, women could walk the street safe, i'd take 60's society over over todays anytime.

Uppers, Downers, Coke and Heroin all prevalent.

I am sure Ian Bradey, Myra Hindley, Charles Manson, and Ted Bundy will/would be pleased by your comments lol.

By this argument it would be safe for women to walk around Whitechapel in 1888 too.