CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "It costs a bomb... how millions were lost going over the top... all in a good cause" by John Reed.

Rereading this so it can go: the tale of inept weapons development, though it was written before some of the 90s classics like building Apache helicopters in this country at 3 times the price of buying the feckers from the Septics.

Done: Off to Oxfam with it so someone else can read of the Sopwith Cuckoo, the Blackburn Botha, the Avro Aldershot, the Saro Lerwick, the Boulton Paul Defiant, the Westland Whirlwind, the Vickers Wellesley, the Fairey Battle, the Vickers Warwick, the Supermarine Swift, the Seaslug and oh so many others.

Though it doesn't descend to quite the level of loathing of British Aerospace that a previous tome achieved:

Next: Lions donkeys & dinosaurs by Lewis Page: the impressive story of the MOD & their endless wasting of money.

Buying Apache helicopters: instead of buying them at $11M each, build a production line in this countery & spend 4 times as much for each instead. You really couldn't make it up. Aparently it would have been a £1B cheaper to buy them off the septics & give the 750 Brits in the factory a £1M each in redundancy.

Bit like the fatuous Chinook debacle.

And the glories of the SA80. The M16 debacle had nothing on this turkey.

Done. He's really unimpressed with BAE & who can blame him? Equally unimpressed with the MOD.

And quite why the armed forces are so top heavy is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma.

Next: "Attention All Shipping: a journey around the weather forecast" by Charlie Connelly. "Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in WWII" by Peter Williams & David Wallace (1989) inspired by the TVS documentary.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Michael Caine: A class act" by Christopher Bray since reading about the corrupt Mary wasn't generating much in the way of innerest.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Fire & Steam" by Christian Wolmar Nah.

"Wartime Britain 1939 - 1945" by Juliet Gardiner. Another door stop: 782 pages. Purchased 04/08/2007 so nicely matured.

[Zigenare]

Owned by the Italians. Great success.

Next: "Michael Caine: A class act" by Christopher Bray since reading about the corrupt Mary wasn't generating much in the way of innerest.

Given the number of trained engineers employed and the current expansion down in Yeovil, yep.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Owned by the Italians. Great success.

Next: "Michael Caine: A class act" by Christopher Bray since reading about the corrupt Mary wasn't generating much in the way of innerest.

[Zigenare]

Yes it's been a fantastic success at keeping manufacturing going.

We still build arguably the best jet engines in the world and our helicopter manufacturing industry still exists so yep, at least a small win.

[DoctorStrangelove]

You need to consider that we need to maintain a manufacturing base and the relevant skills that go with it. Given your age I would've thought Rolls Royce getting bailed out by the Tory government in 1971 would leap to mind.

Yes it's been a fantastic success at keeping manufacturing going.

[Zigenare]

Done. Off to Oxfam with it. It did illuminate stuff that other books haven't mentioned.

Next: "It costs a bomb... how millions were lost going over the top... all in a good cause" by John Reed.

Rereading this so it can go: the tale of inept weapons development, though it was written before some of the 90s classics like building Apache helicopters in this country at 3 times the price of buying the feckers from the Septics.

You need to consider that we need to maintain a manufacturing base and the relevant skills that go with it. Given your age I would've thought Rolls Royce getting bailed out by the Tory government in 1971 would leap to mind.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: Double Cross by Ben MacIntyre. (There's "The Double Cross System" by J. C. Masterman waiting in another pile).

Done. Off to Oxfam with it. It did illuminate stuff that other books haven't mentioned.

Next: "It costs a bomb... how millions were lost going over the top... all in a good cause" by John Reed.

Rereading this so it can go: the tale of inept weapons development, though it was written before some of the 90s classics like building Apache helicopters in this country at 3 times the price of buying the feckers from the Septics.

[Gibbon]

Naples 44 by Norman Lewis, best thing I've read in ages.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: The Calculus Wars by Jason Bardi. Bought 14th of May 2011.

Done. Off to Oxfam with it. I'm sure they'll be grateful. .

Inneresting enough. Even more inneresting that I can't remember much of that stuff after half a century.

Next: "The FBI nobody knows" by Fred J. Cook. More revelations about Mary & the way he ran the FBI from the 1920s to 1972.

It's better to have Hoover inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in