Single to Inverkeithing

On my way back from the unfortunately named 'Big Bang' weekend at Garelochhead. A small training establishment set in some of the most beautiful Scotish countryside I have yet to see. It is also uphill from Faslane and in and amongst the vast rolling hillside and blue lakes and rivers one has a commanding view of Her Majesties nuclear arsenal.

A hippy camp sits just down the road and during the school holidays or during postal strikes their numbers swell and hordes of commies descend on the camp. Chaining themselves to fences and making human road blocks by locking hands in tubing. It seems a lot of effort just to make sure the MOD police, a spirited bunch of scotsmen, can indulge in their favourite pasttime - bashing pretty rich girls from England over the head and forecably removing their pot smoking, never had a job, swampy boyfriends while they kick and scream and shout humorous things like 'capitalist pigs' and 'warmongers'.

It is heartening to know that I have friends who have been arrested outside this naval base only very recently doing just that. Heartening even more to know that I still harbour an interest in spending a week or two in the camp, purely out of interest. Tho don't get me wrong I'm not anti-nuke. Why on earth would anyone be against the sole technology that keeps the world at peace? Nutters.

Anyway. I'm liking this RNR lark more and more. No other organisation that I can think of is so progressive. By this I mean that if regarded as a sector of civil society it outclasses every competitor. It has the social aspect of a fantastic drinking club, it does charity work equilivent to a good (non-arkansas) church and it has self-improvement credentials better than any evening class or weight watchers programme could ever provide. And it pays too.

Its brilliant. If I was to dream up an institution that provided maximum benefit to both its members and the wider community, the reserves would be it. Many remarkable people consistently doing many remarkable things.

Having said that it is worrying at times to think they may have to one day actually fight a war or respond to an emergency, because judging from my experience the team is far from working, at least on shore. Errors in admin and organisation have plagued the weekend, as it normally does. Thankfully in my limited experience these bureacratic confusions are only evident in shore operations. The ships themselves are incredible. No where else will you find 100 plus men and women working so in tune with a specialist piece of machinery. We can sell Saudi Arabia all the fighter jets and frigates she asks for, but her services will never rival those of an established military, purely because of a lower stock in human capital. Sailors drink hard, talk crudely and have little or no sense of decorum when out together in town. But they are only letting off steam stored up by weeks and months of focussed concentration and awareness. Highly professional people are what win wars and they cannot be so easily bought or sold.

I passed the fitness test except for the multi task gym test which I failed almost immediately for being 'out of time with the beebs'. The PTI doing it all had a reputation for being a bastard. And a much deserved one too. But I'm glad I passed everything else, especially because I haven't really been able to practice recently. I overcame the military swim test with some ease and defeated one of my phobias in the process, (which was being a crap swimmer and caving underpressure). So of that I'm glad.

And when the rumbling bureacracy of the MOD gets itself sorted and I finally get paid for all this, I'll be glader still.

Man, I'm tired.