Army woes
You know how some people always seem to attract the nutters? Well I always attract the armchair warriors who are convinced they have had a long and distinguished career in the army. I read a lot, and I have read many first hand accounts of military service, from first world war biographies to more contemporary accounts like the Andy McNab books, so I can usually spot a bullshitter because I have read the book they have based their fantasy on.

Here are some oddballs wot I 'ave met:

Bill was my fencing instructor. I got to know Bill quite well over the 18 months I attended his club and all he ever talked about was his time in the army and all the fighting he had been involved in. The only problem was that as far as I could tell, he had been a British Telecom engineer all his adult life and his anecdotes seemed very similar to those in "Bravo Two-Zero".

Lucy was an attractive 25-year-old blonde who worked at the same company as my brother. I got chatting to her at a party and the “nutter” alarm bells started ringing immediately when she told me that she was an accountant (like me) when I knew that she was in IT sales. I let it slide because she was attractive. She then went on to tell me that she was in the territorial army...(shit, here we go)...and was the first female soldier to complete the Royal Marines basic training and was about to start training with the SAS. The funny thing was, that week I had read a newspaper article about 3 female soldiers who had just completed the Royal Marines basic training and one was going off to do some training with the SAS. The article had a nice big close up of the 3 female soldiers; needless to say Lucy wasn't one of them.

Justin was on the same stag do as myself and we got on straight away. Things were going swimmingly until the curry house when he told me that he used to be a Captain in the territorial army. My heart sank. For the rest of the evening all I heard were anecdotes about "Rupert’s" and the IRA gunman he "Slotted" in Northern Ireland (just like Andy McNab in "Immediate Action") and the horrors he had seen in Yugoslavia that didn’t seem to horrify him that much and were straight out of a book called "My war gone by, I miss it so". He even told me a very familiar anecdote about the time he was stationed in Germany and he drunk drove a lorry carrying a tank across the commanding officers front lawn, running over the CO's dog in the process. I know that I have read that or seen it in a film, I just can’t think where. I avoided him like the plague at the wedding, but I overheard him telling anyone who would listen about his role in operation desert storm (despite the fact he would have been 15 at the time). Twat.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 12:48, Reply)