>>72189
Airlines are responsible for the cost of returning passengers that are refused entry, and most places just won't take him.

>>72189

He's wanted at the Hague for crimes against musical theatre.

former Hamas chief is behind one of the groups organising the pro-Palestine Armistice Day protests, The Telegraph can disclose.

Nanook Kathem Sawalha led the proscribed daft militant wog group in the West Bank in the late 1980s and is alleged to have “masterminded” its military strategy with involvement as recently as 2019, before moving to Britain where he lives in a London council house. He is a founder of the eskimo Association of Britain (MAB), one of six groups behind the under-fire march in London on November 11, and Israeli authorities claim his son, Obada Sawalha, is now its vice-president.

The revelation comes as The Telegraph has discovered that half of the groups organising the march - who are still defying calls from the Metropolitan Police to call it off - have links to Hamas.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/06/former-hamas-chief-behind-pro-palestine-armistice-day-march/

There's no way it isn't going to kick off this weekend.

>>72192
>AS RECENTLY AS 2019, BEFORE MOVING TO BRITAIN WHERE HE LIVES IN A LONDON COUNCIL HOUSE

How did he pull that one off? I'd assumed there were multiple year waits to get social housing.

>>72192
While a four way brawl between The eskimocs, The Baddiel-Robinson alliance, Just Stop Oil and the police would be extremely entertaining, the coronation was a such a disappointment that I refuse to get my hopes up

>>72194
Would you find it plausible if someone told you tower hamlets council have been infiltrated by hamas?

>>72195
I can see Just Stop Oil mysteriously working to stop any significant numbers arriving in London. And you'll get a lot of stories come out from those that do arrive that are mysteriously feel-good rather than entertaining.

I've bought a poppy but will stay home on Sunday like I do every year. The option that presumably makes everyone a little bit angry.

>>72199
Did you get the captain Tom gold plated poppy?

https://www.poppyshop.org.uk/products/captain-sir-tom-gold-plated-pin

>>66920
I always wear my poppy out of respect for all the teenagers who were sent to their deaths by incompetent generals. I don't understand why this is such a constantly controversial topic on this board.

>>72203

They weren't sent to their deaths by incompetent generals. They were sent to their deaths by largely competent generals engaged in a cold, rational and arguably cynical calculus about attritional warfare. We're told that those generals were too stupid to realise what they were doing, but they knew full well, they just viewed men as another resource to be expended in the pursuit of their strategic aims.

Until 1994, the black bit in the middle of the poppy read "Haig Fund", as in Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl of Haig, as in "Butcher" Haig. The bloke in charge of selling the poppies sent two million Tommies to their deaths in Passchendaele and the Somme, but he was also the bloke who broke the Hindenburg line and ultimately brought about the German defeat.

I'm not particularly anti-poppy or pro-poppy, but I am greatly troubled by the modern practice of "remembrance" as a sanitised and ahistorical kind of ritual that has precious little to do with war or death. The poppy can mean many things to many people, but all too often it is as much of an empty symbol as a red nose or a yellow wristband. I reluctantly wear a poppy out of respect for the living - for those who wear one to remember someone they have lost and would see my failure to wear one as a snub. Out of respect for the dead, I study history.

>>72205

It can still be reasonably argued that the generals were stubborn and slow to adapt their tactics, especially as new technology was brought to the battlefield which could have been used much more effectively. but, really, that's just far too easy to say in hindsight, and all too difficult to achieve in the heat of the war effort.

I think it is definitely true to say that the military leadership remained too determined to repeatedly attempt mass offensives, when it should have been readily apparent by at least 1916 that the stalemate of trench warfare could only achieve breakthroughs at the expense of horrific losses. The Germans took far fewer casualties overall in the war, which can be easily seen as a result of the fact they spent much of the war on the defensive- although it's fair to say that in itself that was only out of necessity, because they had already been on the back foot and struggling for manpower, food and materials since quite early on in the war. Their generals would have just as happily thrown more men into the grinder if they had been able to.

at the end of the day, if you put yourself in the position of those commanders and really imagine how the logistics and day to day bureaucracy of actually fighting the war worked, it's a bit more understandable how things happened. These blokes weren't riding around issuing orders from horseback like the Napoleonic and earlier eras of warfare, battles were bigger and bloodier than ever, and by necessity the generals were far away from the action, all they had to go by were the daily reports coming in about casualty numbers and fragments of intelligence about where the next attack was expected. On a good day you can imagine it was all they could do to organise enough fresh reserves to plug the gaps, and with communications and logistics as the main strategic bottleneck, it's unsurprising how the best plans they could formulate usually just involved a massive artillery barage and a mass charge at sunrise.

If the second world War started in 1939 and you probably had to be 16 to fight in it then that means you'd have to be about 100 to have taken part. Are all these old people you see on remembrance day just hoping people can't do maths and that they probably did fuck all because they were born too late?

>>72214

The youngest veterans would be at least 96 years old. There are a few left, but most of them will be being pushed around in wheelchairs by now.

Check their medals or ribbons - everyone who served for at least 28 days during the Second World War is eligible for one of these, so if they don't have one, they're probably a blagger.

>>72214
They were probably 16 in 1945, and therefore only 94 years old now.

>>72214
You're really not seeing many WW2 veterens on Remembrance Sunday anymore. Or rather, you're seeing a good percentage of them. That's why 6th June 2014 was such a big event, because it was the last decade significant numbers of service personel would be making the trip to Normandy. I will forever feel like a cunt for not getting my shit together and spending the last ten years recording as many interviews as possible with these people. I can only hope someone less stupid and mentally ill than myself was more on the ball.

Also, what do you call that? When something's a decade apart from the same thing a decade ago? Decidal? Obviously not but I don't know. See, I'm thick as pig shit.

>>72217
I assume the word would be "decennial", but that's not a word I have ever heard anywhere ever in my life.

I keep thinking one of the spookiest things about those "2003 was 20 years ago!!!!" observations is that when all the World War 1 veterans died, everyone immediately shifted their focus to the World War 2 ones, and now those are as old as the World War 1 ones used to be, just a few years later. How did that happen?

>>72215

How much shopping can you buy with such coins these days?

>>72219
You can put it in the trolley to unlock it.

>>72218
>"decennial"

It's come up a bit recently due to the revelation that people filled in the last Census with a whole load of new terms to describe themselves wot no-one has heard of, and since Big Brother's IT systems are still running on punchcards, and it would cost £1billion in consultancy fees alone to get something adequate which wouldn't even go north of Nottingham, we may as well just give up.

>>72219

You could get a tenner for one on eBay, which should just about cover a loaf of bread and a pint of milk.

It's just dawned on me, I don't think I saw a single poppy seller this year.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325836702709

Happy bidding.

>“Approaching three and a half acres the semi-moated gardens provide a wonderful sense of space
and seclusion,” say the owners. “This is a real haven for wildlife, from koi in the moat and pond,
to kingfishers hovering over the water and birds singing in the trees. Our children have loved
growing up with so much land to roam, the large grassy areas having played host to trampolines,
climbing frames and games of every sport you can imagine over the years. It is a playground for
young and old alike: a particularly special memory of our time here is of my father walking 100
laps of the garden to raise a record-breaking sum of almost £40million for NHS charities during
the pandemic!”

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/147224183#/

>>72359
I'm going to say it: That's a lot for the asking price even at £2.25m. Are they looking to flog it ASAP?

>>72359
Imagine having all that and still deciding to do a cheeky bit of fraud? Fraud that also tarnishes not just your late father's legacy but possibly the entire charity sector in the prosess. I'm honestly more sympathetic to a skaghead who rips off an OAP for their pension, it's not right, but they've got nothing and they need smack right now. She has seven bedrooms and a moat. A FUCKING MOAT!

I actually stood up for that stupid prick Hannah Moore when people first accused her of self-promotion. I figured what choice do you have? If you're going to raise money for charity, you can't do it without telling anyone. Well, what a mook I was, eh?

Anyway, here's a really funny (in that grim way that isn't actually funny) thing that was never going to happen, that I found on the eBay listing >>72291 posted.

All kicking off in Beeston.

Local wrap spotted back in early-September.

>>72551
Those are very bottom-bit-of-a-bell-pepper looking poppies. VERY DISRESPECTFUL.

>>72553
What they like to do is get all the local kiddies to bring in empty plastic bottles so they can cut the bottoms off and paint them red.

They've been doing it for years for some reason. Fuck recycling.

>>72554

That's not even recycling, it's just jingoistic littering.

Can I just say I think it was very innapropriate of Pokemon Go to make yesterday, Memorial Sunday, the Mankey community event. During such time the only Pokemon available to be caught were Mankey, a particularly ignoble species of Pokemon, in my opinion.

>>72556
I think that might have been their ham-fisted way of saying "what are you even doing playing Pokémon Go?" More like Poppymon Go To The Memorial Service, innit.

Remembrance at the bus station. Lest we forget when the bus is coming.

i think we should amend the phrasing of "lest we forget"

we're perilously close to a single transposition sending completely the wrong message

>The family of the NHS charities fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore personally benefited from the charity set up in his name through a series of lucrative deals worth more than £1m, the charities watchdog has ruled in a highly critical report.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-family-personally-benefited-from-charity-they-founded-report-finds

Beeston town hall looking 🔥🔥

The news is currently reporting on the 80th anniversary of VE Day. It all just feels so weird. It would probably be worse if everyone was just too cool and edgy to acknowledge it at all, but seeing everyone pretend it's 1945 like that was some kind of great time is very jarring. I remember one of these from my childhood, presumably 1995, and the world was full of old people with stories about actual VE Day and it felt relevant and legitimate. Now, they wheel out a handful of decrepit skeletons in wheelchairs to stare blankly at women younger than me as they pretend to be Vera Lynn and sing her awful, awful music. There's bunting everywhere, but I no longer associate bunting with celebrations because you never see bunting at any other time. It all feels fake somehow.

>>72701

So far my take away is that if kier strmer wants to turn labour around, he needs to bring back air raids. Remember air raids? Oh we were all so happy back in the air raids. used to have an air raid every night back in my day. that's why kids nowadays are so soft, never had a good air raid, have they.

>>72701
It's a cliche but at some point it stopped being about remembering that war is shit and that peace is sacrosanct, and turned into a weird kind of military boosterism and death cult. BAE Systems proudly sponsors Warniversary, a celebration of our fallen heroes. Sign up yourself and you could die a hero too!

I think it's because WW2 is our post-empire origin myth (thanks Clem) and, having destroyed basically everything else built 1945-75, we're left with a cult of The War and a cult of The NHS, plus a massive identity crisis.

>>72701
The historical memory of the Second World War in this country is absolutely shot. No pun intended. It basically goes like this:
>The French failed us so we had to do the Dunkirk evacuation
>Then we, The British, and The British alone did the battle of Britain with no help from anyone else at all
>There was some fighting in the polar for some reason (practice?)
>We do D-Day and liberate Europe, while the Americans make up the numbers and The French promise to never forgive us for it
>Big Street Party
>Churchill is for some reason considered the greatest wartime leader of anywhere ever and becomes a national saint, despite actually being quite mediocre during the whole affair and regularly being cajoled out of buffoonish ideas by his advisors

A clever-cloggs might mention Burma and "the Russians", but the reality is no one knows a fucking thing about any of it. People are aware they're meant to be sad about the lads that died, but few seem to know how and why and where they were dying. That's why it's all bloody cakes and Vera Lynn. And I want to make it clear I'm not trying to be an arrogant WW2 nerd here, trying to make out that having perfect recall of the Allied order of battle for Operation Market Garden permits me to feel things others can't. What I'm saying is that The War, despite still not having passed out of living memory, is already of bizarre national myth of gentlemanly japes, curious cake recipes and the odd bit of shooting.

This is from some Guardian reporting on today's larks:
>Bernard Morgan, a 101-year-old RAF D-day veteran who worked as a codebreaker... said: “It’s so important that we make the most of these opportunities to remember what happened, not just to celebrate the achievement but also to ensure that such horrors never happen again.”
>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/05/uk-ve-day-80th-anniversary-crowds-military-pomp-war-veterans

And Morgan's right. However, the reality is the myths about WW2 were probably being formed before it was even over, thanks to men like Churchill and Montgomery. Compound that with several decades of Cold War bleaching away any serious regard for the USSR's role in the war, and we end up with a very strange view of what actually happened.

>>72704

>I want to make it clear I'm not trying to be an arrogant WW2 nerd here, trying to make out that having perfect recall of the Allied order of battle for Operation Market Garden permits me to feel things others can't

Okay but how much more of an impact do you think british troops could have made to the war effort if we had procured a self-loading rifle like the M1 or Gewehr 43 instead of sticking to the 50 year old lee-enfield as a standard issue service rifle?

I might not be Jonathan Ferguson Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England, but i am from leeds and I did play cod back in the day, and I can tell you, pegasus bridge would never have been taken if I didn't have a fucking bren.

>>72705

This is /IQ/, so I'll bite: not much. Crew-served weapons do most of the killing in pretty much all theatres, with small arms primarily being a close-range defensive weapon and a means by which to deliver suppressive fire and facilitate manoeuvre. First-person narratives in film and video games tend to exaggerate the importance of small arms and diminish the importance of crew-served weapons.

The effective rate of fire of a self-loading rifle using a full power cartridge wasn't actually much higher than a decent bolt-action rifle due to the massive amount of recoil. Most infantry are fairly ineffective marksmen, most effective small arms fire happens well within 100 yards, so the Sten was actually a better tool in most circumstances than something like an M1 Garand or an SVT-40.

The Germans spent a fortune on developing weapons like the Gewehr 43 and the StG 44 that were too complicated and expensive to manufacture in really useful quantities; they would have been much better off if they had spent the money on further simplifying the MP 40 and cranked out as many of them as humanly possible. They developed all sorts of prototypes of really cheap SMGs, but the Waffenamt were just too vain to adopt anything as ugly and utilitarian as the Sten or the M3.

A self loading rifle would have been nice to have, but by the time we actually knew there was going to be a war, it was really too late. The time, money and effort required to switch production just wasn't worth it, not to mention the risks involved in adopting a new and unproven weapons system. We knew the Lee-Enfield inside out and it did the job it needed to do.

Even if the Americans had gifted us a couple of fully equipped M1 Garand factories, it was really too expensive for us - it cost about four times more to make than the No. 4 Mk I*. The gas system and operating rod on the Garand don't look all that complicated by modern standards, but they were a complete ballache to manufacture using manual machine tools. There were loads of little twiddly bits that you could churn out in seconds on a modern CNC machine, but took hours on a capstan lathe or a knee mill.

>>72705
Not running out of manpower would have been the better play, but I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe a big fuck-off belt fed machine gun like what the Germans based their firepower around, rather than the Bren. Or two Brens per section? If that was even feasible, or desirable? I'm not sure any of this would have helped 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment when it attacked into a mustering German counter-attack at Maltot. I've read that the British brigade structure was a significant handicap to proper combined arms operations as well, but I am uncertain as to why.

>I did play cod back in the day, and I can tell you, pegasus bridge would never have been taken if I didn't have a fucking bren.
All I knew off the top of my head about Pegasus Bridge is that it was taken by glider troops on D-Day. As such I now quote from Wikipedia:
>Five of the Ox and Bucks's gliders landed as close as 47 yd (43 m) from their objectives... The attackers poured out of their battered gliders... and took the bridges within 10 minutes. They lost two men in the process, Lieutenant Den Brotheridge and Lance corporal Fred Greenhalgh.
>Greenhalgh drowned in a nearby pond when his glider landed. Lieutenant Brotheridge was mortally wounded crossing the bridge in the first minutes of the assault and became the first member of the invading Allied armies to die as a result of enemy fire on D-Day.
So either you had the wrong bridge or there are questions as to the historical authenticity of the Call of Duty franchise.

>Jonathan Ferguson Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum
I hate being recommended the videos of him looking at a plasma rifle from Halo. YouTube understands that I like videos about computer games and the second world war, but in the same why my auntie knows I like cycling so she buys me a t-shirt that says "cycling" on the front. I will never watch that bastard Ferguson talking about the Doom Eternal Unmaykr, I do not care.

>>72707

>but in the same why my auntie knows I like cycling so she buys me a t-shirt that says "cycling" on the front.

Similarly I think youtube understands that I would like to listen to someone explaining why video game guns wouldn't work in real life, but it doesn't understand that I absolutely do not want to listen to a cocky American present this information in a way that makes me feel like he believes that 90% of a videogames art budget should be on modelling gun parts.

>>72707

>So either you had the wrong bridge or there are questions as to the historical authenticity of the Call of Duty franchise.

Well, yes, to be fair taking the bridge was the easy bit, it was holding it the next day that got hairy.

Did wikipedia mention the soldier who single handedly took out no fewer than seven tigers with a pile of spare panzerfausts? he was transferred into the sas, and helped covertly destroy the anti-air emplacements to clear the way for operation chastity alongside jason statham.

>>72710

Ah fuck I'm not deleting it again. You know the one I meant.

>>72710

>he was transferred into the sas, and helped covertly destroy the anti-air emplacements to clear the way for operation chastity alongside jason statham.
Doesn't it switch characters?
Martin! Over here! Get in the car!

>>72712

You play a different bloke for the Yank, British and Russian campaigns, but within those bits you're the same bloke.

the russian bloke especially makes Simo Häyhä look like a noob, which is quite ironic if you think about it.

>>72713

I hate that fucking Russian mission where you have to take and hold that one building. It just throws so many enemies at you there's no way to deal with it except by behaving in ways that completely ruin any sense of immersion, the polar opposite to the boat landings and Red Square at the start.

>>72714

pretty widely regarded as the hardest bit of the game, I think. absolutely infuriating on higher difficulty.

What always fucked me up on that one is where you have to use those static anti-tank rifles to take out the panzers, but they're all on a different floor and you can never remember which one is facing the right way, or what floor it's on.