PERSPECTIVE UKNORTH
People and their profiles: dukes, archbishops, actors, writers, monks, oddbods, the garish, the gregarious - here they are in single file, chosen by chance, by inclination, or by necessity ... and all reflecting, one hopes, the essential, but indefinable, spark that makes one human being interesting to many. Geoffrey Mather
The bollocks of RSM Lord
I never met that awesome man, RSM Lord, of the 3rd Parachute Battalion, and for that stroke of good fortune I have always been grateful. I heard about him, of course - marching across a stricken Europe as a prisoner of war, his boots still shiny, his body ramrod straight, his voice spewing out of a gravel pit, his followers stumbling about and being harangued for so doing..
A brigadier who had the steady nerve and rank required to call him Jackie Lord describes how this demonic figure became senior officer in his German camp and complained that Red Cross parcels were not being distributed.
The commandant said they would be distributed when the prisoners saluted German officers. So Lord agreed, and there were mutterings of discontent among his prison committee members for this apparent capitulation. Lord demonstrated what he meant. He went out, found an officer, saluted with his usual ramrod efficiency, and said "Bollocks." The officer took that to be a form of greeting so he replied, "Bollocks." Others took up this amiable practise.
Both sides were then satisfied and the parcels were distributed.
I mention this because RSM Lord, like others of us who have applied the word he used silently to such as him, would be a devotee of that part of the *Army Act dealing with "Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he..."
This takes in all the offences for which you can’t think of an appropriate charge. Like having the wrong expression on your face. Or defacing a blade of grass. And I think it should be brought into use by civilians at this time because it is the only thing I can think of that will save this country from going California-correct, which is a euphemism for totally bonkers.
This section could take in -
those people who think of claiming compensation for events which are plainly their own fault. {I include in this -those who blame smoking for their ills and therefore the cigarette manufacturers, since they have been warned daily against the habit for as long as I can remember.
those who find blemishes in pavements and then try to claim from the local authority. If I tripped over a pavement my mother would have told me to watch where I was going.}
those who lambast teachers for their reaction to children’s misdemeanours. Again, my mother would have lambasted me, not the teacher.
those who say they eat too much because they are tempted by advertising, therefore, the food purveyors should pay for the obesity.
those who judge these stupidities to be legal and order large amounts of compensation.
those who stop people in the street, saying, "Excuse me - have you had an accident recently?"
the overseas touts who try to sell time-share properties by harassing people in the streets and ruining their holidays.
the do-gooders who form committees to prevent harmless activities and customs of which they, personally, disapprove.
the heavies who, influenced by American habits, want women to do all the things men do to prove that all are the same in the eyes of the Other Lord (except when positive discrimination is applied to prove that there is no discrimination).
government advisers who think up several regulations a day to add to the thousands already in force, thus destroying industry’s chances of competing with anybody.
MPs who think that their function is to interfere in people’s lives in every way possible. (New law: the less they do, the more they should be paid, with a base rate of a pound a week.)
government ministers who think there is some merit in sending everyone they know to conferences abroad.
fat cats who get their million pound bonuses for failing in their work and sacking thousands in the process.
civil servants who have never been north of Birmingham.
columnists who have a deeply-held conviction on every subject on earth that you care to throw in their direction.
editors who no longer know the difference between fact and opinion.
and things that go bang in the night.
They should, in my view, be charged under a newly-created section of the Army Act (Civilian Division), and the penalties could be (for such is the beauty of the section I have described ) anything from a day’s pay to six months in a glasshouse run by cloned versions of RSM Lord.
Oh - and anybody who, when reading this, even thinks of the word Lord used to the German officer will peel my potatoes for the next month. Now get fell out.
* Army Discipline and Regulation Act, Section 40, 1879
Geoffrey Mather © 2004
17 January, 2009
