Email from Bashar al-Assad

This may seem very odd but this morning I received  an email from Bashar al-Assad.

I just thought I should make this public in case anyone from the UN is reading.

In it President Assad said he had been thinking a lot about recent events and had realized that killing lots of people had been, and I use his heart felt words,

…a terrible error of judgement.

He went on to say that his father, Hafez al-Assad, dead these 12 years, was nevertheless going to step down and take full responsibility.

In addition he was going to appoint several new non-executive directors from Rentokill, G4S and others with plenty of rendition..sorry ‘peace keeping’ experience to conduct a root and branch review and draw up a voluntary code of conduct.

I can also add that there is already a strong rumour going round that Barclays’ Bob Diamond is advising the regime on the recruitment process and Goldman Sachs is providing financial backing for the plan in the form of morality swaps based on the Libor.

 

44 thoughts on “Email from Bashar al-Assad”

  1. That’s alright then, Blair has just proposed his loyal and expensive services as president, with Noonan as finance minister and a recycled Osbourne as misery… oops minister, for gambling or was it foreign relations?

  2. Not sure how to read this. Irony does not transcribe very well. However, if it is meant to claim that the problem is primarily Assad’s then I beg to differ.

    Regime change by the West was on the cards for Syria at least 10 years ago. This is just another west sponsored coup, “for democracy, the children , women who wear veils, weapons of mass destruction” and assorted lies. IOW we will bomb the hell out of them to protect them and make them free.

    Gen Wesley Clarke knew about this ruse long ago :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8

    1. Actually,Gary I agree. I was being flippant more about our diamond geezers than anyone else. As it happens I agree with you that Assad is only a part of the problem. and, as you say, this is about regime change primarily for the benefit of the west and its allies. The proof of taht will be when we see how lovely teh replacement regime turns out to be,

      Not to say Bashar is a peach. He’s not.

      1. We won’t get to hear about the replacement regime in Syria. Libyia is a disaster at the moment, but very little in MSM about it.

          1. Yes, but you both must admit that Iraq and Libya are now very mysterious and exciting places to live. Mystery and excitement are what freedom is all about.

      2. Not a peach, no. But giving refuge to 2 million displaced Iraqis and Palestinians suggests that they’re somewhat better in the humanitarian field than we are.

      3. Hi David! Yes, I did indeed have those experiences – five minutes with Google and my real name will confirm quite a few of them – but whether I gained knowledge or wisdom as a result is distinctly debatable. I should add that I am pretty decrepit, and most of what I did was a long time ago. The claim to ‘creating chaos’, for instance, referred to an escapade 40 years back, on behalf of a Middle Eastern potentate, in a state which no longer exists as it then did. So, no secrets there. In fact, no secrets anywhere. An old codger like me, banging on about the past, is like someone in the sixties telling tales of his pre-war exploits on the NW Frontier in the 1930s. In short, largely irrelevant to the present. However, if you wish, ask away – I have nothing much to hide. At this precise moment, I am having trouble with my email account which will take a bit of time to rectify, so you may have to wait for that. Alternatively, give me a rough idea of what it is you’re after now, and a) I can say at once whether I have anything useful to tell you, and b) we can decide whether it would best be discussed in private.

        All that apart, I’d just like to say that I started reading your blog very recently, having just found out about The Debt Generation, on a BBC News comment thread. I bought the Kindle version, and couldn’t put it down – kept me up literally ’til dawn. Brilliant stuff. Thank you so very, very much. I have harboured a deep hatred of the financial world – especially the currency and commodity speculators – for many years, but I hadn’t realised the full depths of their depravity until I read your highly lucid explanations. My natural instinct is to reach for a Kalashnikov and a crate of gelignite – strategic sabotage was once my thing – but I feel there’s something a bit undignified about becoming a grey-haired social terrorist. And anyway, sadly, it wouldn’t work – there’s far too many of the bastards.

        1. Hello again,

          Sorry not to reply earlier but this weekend has been on-stop with the kids. Judo, classical music concerts and woodwork.

          Back now.

          Thanks for your reply. I think we should carry this on via email, snail mail or phone. I am quite happy to wait till your email is up and working.

          Some of my best friends are old codgers and I greatly enjoy asking them questions and listening to what they have to say.

          Never underestimate a codger – old or otherwise!

          Let’s talk when you are ready.

        2. Hi Nick,

          This is Robb Hart, I was thinking of you, and I think that through this posting I found may have been from you. I am now living in California, just google me and there are loads of ways of reaching me. All the best, Robb.

    2. Pardon? A “west sponsored coup”?? All that the West, and virtually everyone else, has done for the past year or more is sit idly by while thousands of civilians have been slaughtered with artillery, small arms and assorted items of cutlery. In these circumstances, childish giggles about regime-change conspiracies are out of place. We should all be thoroughly ashamed that the international community has sat back and watched it happen every day, for months, on its TV screens, and has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

      1. Actually, from what I’ve read and seen in some news reports the West has been quietly supplying arms and even personnel to try and create more chaos to get things to a state that they can openly intervene. Don’t forget that the insurgents are really no better than the Assad regime.

        1. Well, ‘me’, you make some interesting assertions. From what you’ve read, eh? I take it your sources are impeccable; ones that you trust implicitly? In my relatively limited experience of fighting in or filming in the front line of nine full-blown guerrilla wars (plus a few semi-covert ops in a misspent youth) one thing that always surprised me was how grossly inaccurate was the stuff I read before I arrived on the scene and saw for myself. Then again, your acquaintance with these situations may differ from mine.

          In one respect you are almost certainly correct: the insurgents are very likely receiving aid of some sort from someone. I say this not because of anything I have ‘read’, but simply because I personally have only come across one serious guerrilla army that survived for any length of time by capturing, and buying, its weapons and ammunition from its government opponents. That said, in this case I doubt the assistance amounts to much right now, if only because to supply an insurgent army in full swing requires columns of vehicles, mules, camels, porters, etc., depending on the terrain, and these tend to be a tad obvious. Also, whether the current shipments emanate from ‘the West’ depends to some extent on what one considers ‘the West’ to be. Do any Middle Eastern states come within your definition, by any chance?

          As for covert personnel, the likeliest candidates are the SAS (in which case we wouldn’t know about it), or the CIA, in which case we would have seen the air drops of ice cream. If any are there at all, which I doubt, then it will be to gather information. “Creating chaos” is a whole different ballgame. Trust me; I’ve been given that job, and it’s hellish complicated and takes forever. Nor is such an assignment even remotely necessary: the Syrians themselves, poor sods, are doing a superb job in this regard, without any help from anyone.

          Finally, I am intrigued by your claim that the insurgents are no better than the Assad regime. Your evidence for this characterisation is what exactly? If it is that they beat up and then execute some of their prisoners, that I’m afraid is common behaviour, since time immemorial, among partisan, insurgent or guerrilla forces (call them what you will). It is a function partly of logistics, and partly of the passions aroused in such conflicts. The mistake is to display these incidents on the Internet, where they upset gentler souls in the comfort of their living rooms. On the ground, it often seems less heinous. Sad, but true. However, tasteless though it is, it pales into insignificance compared with the barbarity of lobbing heavy artillery shells into residential areas. I know that a few clouds of black smoke on one’s TV screen don’t look like much, but believe me when I tell you that to be under a heavy bombardment is one of the most terrifying experiences known to man. If it also involves watching your loved ones being blown to bloody shreds … then the anger and hatred becomes extreme. Unaccountably, perhaps because they’ve never experienced it themselves, this elementary fact of warfare seems to have escaped the notice of the US Army and Air Force, as it also has of the Israelis, with dire results. Were I an inhabitant of Homs, I would want to eviscerate Bashar al-Assad. Does that make me as bad as him? You seem to think it does; I think it doesn’t, and I am prepared to wait awhile before condemning the insurgents because, like you, I know almost nothing of the present reality in that nightmare of a place.

          1. If you hvae had the experience and knowledge you say you have had I would be interested to email. I have some questions you may or may not be able/willing to answer. Things I was told and for which I would like confirmation or refutation.

            You can email me, if you care to at the email in my profile. If you have an interest we can continue in whatever way feels best to you.

          2. The Gulf Co-operation Council are the main financial players in Syria as they were in Libya and are run by a proxy of Gulf ‘petro states’ that have been pushing to bring Libya and Syria into the orbit of the West and the BIS backed up by the UK, US and EU – they’ve already destroyed Kofi Annan’s plans for a cease-fire and look like they are creating the conditions for western forces to eventually ‘step in’ and ‘resolve’ the situation.

            http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31710

  3. Assad a relatively small monster like Saddam, compared to the forces of freedom which have devoured Iraq & other places. Syrian casualty figures splashed across the media as the gospel truth whereas nobody knows the true Iraqi civilian deaths figures since the invasion & why there are an estimated 1 million orphans in one of the new versions of the ” Land of the free “.

    Austerity enforced by bullying members of that supposed happy but in reality dysfunctional EZ family seems to me, to have casualties too, as those in other less close to home parts of the world who have been unfortunate to be locked in the tender embrace of the International Misery Fund, but of course no guns were used except of course by those who blew their own brains out.

    Bob Diamond & kittens – maybe he is doing his bit to make up for all the kittens that have been abandoned by hard pressed families everywhere, due to the actions of people like him, probably not. If he has a heart, it’s a pity he hasn’t got the imagination to realise that there are kittens & other lost beings everywhere, not just ones that happen to turn up in front of his very blinkered eyes.

    On a much lighter note – how Ayn Rand & Ron Hubbard screwed up the world :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5YWTFW5WMw&feature=player_detailpage

    1. Please don’t refer to Saddam Hussein as a “relatively small monster”. That is an insult to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, for whose deaths he was personally responsible.

      Some of those people were my friends, because 38 years ago, in 1974/75, long before it became a fashionable past-time, I fought against him, and his evil, as an unpaid volunteer, alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga guerrillas, in the mountains of northern Iraq. For what it’s worth, our army of 50,000 men was blackmailed into unconditional surrender by Kissinger and the CIA, after which Saddam’s depredations began in earnest. Did any bleeding-heart liberal say a thing about that, or about anything of what followed in the subsequent decades? Not even the tiniest squeak! Doesn’t that just make one so very, very proud?

      1. ”Did any bleeding-heart liberal say a thing about that, or about anything of what followed in the subsequent decades?”

        Did anyone know? Wasn’t Saddam considered an ally of sorts against the Iranian Mullahs? Didn’t our nations sell him arms right up to the first Gulf War? Didn’t they leave the Kurds and Shia twisting in the wind after encouraging them to rise up towards the end of the Gulf War? Please SASmule – remember the media filter through which we are fed information – particularly in that pre-internet age.

        Could you say more about the CIA / Kissinger blackmail, please?

        1. You are right, Phil, in all that you say. The West did everything you mention, and a lot worse. Our record in Iraq was, and still is, utterly deplorable. Did anyone know? Well, yes, they did. The information was out there. My best mate, a man called Gwynne Roberts, spent much of his journalistic career, from his twenties into his sixties, often at very considerable personal risk, trying to publicise what Saddam Hussein was doing. That said, my remark about bleeding-heart liberals was unfair – I was just cross.

          As for Kissinger and the 1974/75 Kurdish uprising, it’s a very complicated story, but I will try to be succinct. For entirely Machiavellian reasons of his own, Kissinger encouraged the Kurds to rise up, which they did in early 1974. At the time, I was fighting in another army and another war, but I saw a short article in the Economist about the uprising. As a teenager, I had read a book about an earlier uprising by the Kurds, under their charismatic leader, Mullah Mustapha Barzani, and their story had fascinated me. So, I resigned my command, returned to the UK, bought a Renault 4, and drove out to Kurdistan, where I offered my services, for free. I was asked if I could blow up three major, strategic installations, and I said I’d give it a go – they were very difficult targets, almost suicidal in fact, but it was all in a good cause. The euphoria and hope of those days was immense – after 40 years of struggle, it finally seemed like the Kurds were about to realise their dreams. Little did any of us suspect that we were all – 50,000 men – Kissinger’s expendable pawns.

          The spring of 1975, after the thaw, was to be the start of the big offensive. Everything was in place – amongst other things, we had Iranian heavy artillery support, and brand new British Rapier anti-aircraft missiles, manned by British crews! My part was to blow a long, multi-spanned river bridge, thus cutting off an entire Iraqi division and putting it at our mercy. Then suddenly, one night all the Iranian artillery pulled out. Nobody knew what was happening; we just watched, dumbstruck, as they drove back over the mountain passes into Iran. We found out at dawn, when 300 Iraqi tanks attacked, on two fronts.

          Kissinger had done a deal with the Iraqis – it was called the Algiers Agreement – in which the Kurds were to be sacrificed, for Kissinger’s twisted ends. He assured the Iraqis that the Kurdish army would collapse instantly without US, British and Iranian support. He was wrong. The Peshmerga fought like hell, and the tanks got nowhere – narrow mountain roads. Piss easy really. After a week, the Iraqis complained that the US half of the bargain was not being upheld, so Kissinger, via the CIA, issued an ultimatum to Mullah Mustapha. All resistance was to cease at midday the following day, and all the Peshmerga were to throw down their arms and march into exile in Iran. I was told this personally, by Mustapha Barzani himself. The poor old boy was nearly in tears. If the Kurds failed to comply – and this was the blackmail – all 100,000+ Kurdish women and children who were in refugee camps in Iran would be handed over by the Iranians to one, Saddam Hussein, to do with them as he pleased.

          Saddam was vice-president at the time, but he was regarded as the enemy, so much so that, offhand, I can’t remember the actual president’s name. He also already had an appalling reputation for brutality – one of his tricks was to tie a prisoner by his wrists to the back of one truck and by his ankles to another, and then drive the two vehicles apart. Slowly. I have trouble thinking about it.

          In this vile modern age, it may be difficult to grasp the full scale of the shock of Kissinger’s threat – women and children, to us soldiers at least, were absolutely inviolate. The thought of their fate at the hands of that disgusting human being, Saddam Hussein, ensured instant and total compliance, and the following day, 50,000 men literally threw their weapons into heaps by the roadside. Some of us – I was one – buried our AKs for possible future use. But it was all over. Even now, the sight of Kissinger’s face in a photograph sends my blood pressure up. The fact that he lives in respected luxury makes me want to vomit.

          I drove home, bought a clockwork camera and a book on how to make documentaries, and spent much of the next 16 years reporting various guerrilla wars, from the front line. I stopped, exhausted, in 1991.

          1. SASmule

            I apologise if I appeared to be implying that Saddam was not a totally foul excuse for a human being. I just meant that compared to people like, as you mention Kissinger who has had a long successful career of ridding the planet of what he termed ” Useless Feeders “, that in comparison to the so called Western good guys, he was relatively small fry.

            Probably a stupid assertion on my part, they are all scum, I just get really pissed off about things like how Pol Pot rightly gets put on the list of genocidal scumbags but the people who gave the orders to bomb the hell out of Cambodia which created the conditions in which that monster would thrive, are on the whole treated like royalty & reap the rewards.

            Saddam, Gadaffi, Noreiga, Ho Chi Minh & countless others have been handy bogeymen for the Western killers in high places, but as you rightly point out, to the victims whatever their number, it matters little who is directing the fire.

          2. Thank you for this very interesting reply, SAS. I hope you have some fruitful discussions with Golem.

  4. Marcus Agius joined Barclays in 2007, AFTER most of the Liebor fixing (in the FSA case) was done.

    He’s obviously taking one for the team. I wonder what he has been promised down the track…..?

    I also couldn’t help notice that his £750k job comes with a 6 month notice period.

    Finally, a part of Diamonds pay over the last few years will be in part due to all this. If the police do get a conviction for fraud, are there no laws that can be used – Proceeds of crime for example to claw some of this back?

  5. backwardsevolution

    “Information has been leaked about the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is being negotiated in secret by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Six hundred corporate “advisors” are in on the know, but not Congress or the media. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate trade subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the TPP, has not been permitted to see the text or to know the content.

    The TPP has been called a “one-percenter” power tool. The agreement essentially abolishes the accountability of foreign corporations to governments of countries with which they trade. Indeed, the agreement makes governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations. The agreement gives corporations the right to make governments pay them for the cost of complying with the regulations of government. One wonders how long environmental, labor, and financial regulation can survive when the costs of compliance are imposed on the taxpayers of countries and not on the economic activity that results in spillover effects such as pollution..”

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31709

  6. I think the important thing is freedom. If mister al-Assad feels free, that is all good. Same goes for the bankers arming both sides. As long as they stay free, all will be free, and we can all be happy and free. People criticize so much when in fact, all they need to do is work for the big man and shut up. Papa knows best.

  7. backwardsevolution

    “Don’t you love when Fox News parades some neo-con with the last name of Cheney or Wolfowitz on its propaganda network and they declare Iraq a huge success? I guess 30% unemployment, power outages for 20 hours per day when the temperatures are 120, bombs blowing up every day killing hundreds, and a paralyzed government constitutes success in the eyes of a neo-con. The truth is that Iraq is a failed state. George W’s invasion has proven to be disastrous for the United States – 4,500 men killed, 40,000 wounded, $1 trillion pissed own the toilet, oil moving from $23 per barrel in 2002 to $87 per barrel today, and more terrorists in Iraq today than ever existed under Hussein.

    Could you imagine the panic and fear in our paradise of democracy if 234 people in the U.S. had been killed by terrorist bombs in one month? We piss our pants every time the CIA & FBI create a fake terrorist plot that they foil after luring some dimwitted dupe into their plot. What does the American public due when told about the 234 deaths of innocent Iraqis? They yawn and think – “just a bunch of ragheaded Muslims. What time is America’s Got Talent on?”

    Iraq is imploding and it is our fault. The sanctions Obama and Congress have put on Iranian oil exports are reducing their income. When volume drops, you need prices to rise. How do you think Iran will achieve that needed price increase? They will threaten the Strait of Hormuz and they will send their people into Iraq and blow up a few oil installations. Book it Shaziz.”

    http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=36756

    1. Just as a matter of interest, what does the American public due [sic] when told about the 90,000 annual deaths of innocent US citizens, killed by their fellow drivers, murdered by their neighbours (including the 2,000 children murdered by members of their own families), or at their own hand, by suicide?

      Do they yawn and think – “just a bunch of obese rednecks. What time is America’s Got Talent on?”

      I suppose everything is a question of perspective – and the ability to count.

  8. BBC’s Greg Palast on the ‘success’ of the Euro.

    http://www.opendemocracy.net/greg-palast/euro-is-big-success-no-kidding?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

    “The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government’s control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession.

    “It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians,” he said. “[And] without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business.”

    He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace.”

  9. @SASmule

    Who, in your opinion, gave the green light to unleash the “syrian Liberation” army from their camps in Turkey into Syria?

    Who vetted these people’s backgrounds and histories?

    Who armed them?

    Who is tracking their movements and monitoring their “progress”?

    1. Hi guido (or should it be guidoamm or guidoromero?),

      I see you are an acolyte of Anthony Watts and Lord Monkton. That’s quite worrying. I imagine you’ve never been to the Arctic? North of Watford? Do you indeed have any experience of the natural environment, or is your world composed of concrete, lit by municipal neon?

      You certainly have no experience of war in general, or of guerrilla warfare in particular. Your question “Who vetted these people’s backgrounds and histories?” rather gives this away. (In which computerised, box-ticking bureaucracy did you have the misfortune to grow up?) Let me illustrate to you how resistance fighters tend to be recruited. (I write from experience, in the Middle East, not from YouTube drivel.)

      “I am the son of Abu Hamid. I wish to join the struggle.”
      “Welcome, brother. I knew your father. He was a good man. His death was a tragedy.”
      “The shell that killed him also killed my mother, and my sister and her son.”
      “Peace be upon them all. Allah is merciful. Do you know how to use a Kalashnikov?”
      “No, I am a tailor, like my father, and his father before him.”
      “No matter. It is a simple thing.” (True, but actually AK-47s are junk, designed 67 years ago for Soviet-style mass infantry assaults in which casualties were of no concern. You, of course, know this, and can also tell us whether it is faster to flick the safety catch of a loaded AK to ‘fire’ or to put a round into the breech by yanking the cocking-handle. Hint: the answer is not on your source of information, the Internet. It comes from having used one in action.)
      Continued: “I will learn, by God. I am happy to be a martyr.” (They do actually come out with this sort of shit, and some of them even believe it.)
      “Praise be to God. You are assigned to the unit of Muhammad Salim. Go in peace.”
      “Thank you. God is great.” (The poor kid was probably killed on his second or third attack, or maybe just blown to bits before he fired a shot, because he knew damn all about how to fight – unlike you, of course, guidoromero.)

      As for your other questions: “Who unleashed them from their camps in Turkey?” Oh, please! Don’t you have any imagination? The vast majority never got anywhere near Turkey – their units are formed locally, under no outside control.

      Next, “Who armed them?” With what, exactly? I’ve read breathless descriptions of them having “rocket-propelled grenades” (I have a file entitled ‘Idiotic War Correspondents’), which means the RPG. This was designed slightly later than the AK-47, a mere 65 years ago, and it is also junk. One has to be phenomenally brave to use one, not least because it is wildly inaccurate, has a very short effective range, and does next to sod-all damage in the unlikely event that it hits anything. Yet again, boringly, I speak from experience.

      Finally, “Who is tracking their movements and monitoring their “progress”?” Short answer: Nobody. I am actually appalled by the lack of frontline reportage from within Syria. A few younger codgers than me, such as Jim Muir and Lyse Doucet, are doing their best from the safety of first-class hotels in Damascus or neighbouring countries, but where are the younger generation, with their blue helmets, flak-jackets, and 2-day ‘Hostile Environment’ courses? Why aren’t they in there, giving us proper first-hand accounts of the slaughter? Tell you what, guido, my man. EasyJet is dirt cheap to Turkey. So is any tiny, video-enabled device to take pictures, and you can shove an SD card with hours of footage up your arse to conceal it if you have to (I started with 2½-minute film spools and a clockwork camera – try fitting that into your rectum), so you could bring back award-winning pics in no time. The pay is atrocious, of course, it’s effing dangerous, and no-one will insure you, but how about putting your money where your mouth is? Just a thought.

      All the best, Nick Downie.

      1. Gleaning what I can from your answer as a professional with field and combat experience, I take it as legitimate that Free Syria Army members are:

        Not vetted
        Poorly armed
        Not supervised

        Clearly however, the slaughter and decapitation of civilians can be carried out even with weapons that have been designed 65 years ago…

        My point is that Western interests (whatever those may be) are sanctioning the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children, we are financing it and facilitating it…

        And yes, my name is Guido Romero. I am suitably impressed. You must indeed have access to some high level and classified sources of information.

        1. Hey boys why are you arguing? I don’t think either of you thinks it is a good thing for Syrians to be killed no matter who by,

          I suspect you would also both agree that no conflict like this one goes on without outside interests ‘lending a hand’ and doing so largely for their own interests. Be those interests religiously inspired or politically. And of course the two are more often than not deeply entwined.

          So please, rather than get testy with each other and play ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ which is rather boring for the rest of us, why not put the bad feeling to one side.

          You both appear to have things to add. I personally am glad to hear from both of you.

          Mr Downie, would you still be interested to talk? If so please drop me an email at [email protected]

  10. Anyone catch the UN declaration yesterday that both Syria and the Syria Liberation Army have committed crimes against humanity … but the SLA did so to a lesser degree… ?
    You can’t make this crap up.

  11. Hi David & Guido,
    I’m astonished by the speed of your responses! I wrote that late last night after a couple of glasses of plonk too many, thinking no one would notice. I would reply properly now, but have had a helluva day removing thorn bushes from the girlfriend’s new ¼-acre plot (she bought it last week from the chief for £115 – happily, she belongs to the right tribe). Am covered in scratches and blood, wearied by the realisation that I am getting too old to wield a pick. We’re planning on building a two-bedroom straw bale house, but whether we can achieve that on a budget of £2,000 remains to be seen. (My younger daughter has just bought a two-bedroom flat in Ealing for £250,000, so an element of competition is creeping in!) Anyway, David, the GF has a working email, so will write soonest – and Guido, I doubt we’ll ever see eye to eye, but hey … The question about how quickest to fire an AK was below the belt. It’s entirely counter-intuitive, and was taught to me by a member of Mullah Mustapha Barzani’s personal bodyguard.100 million AKs have been produced, and of their many owners that I’ve met, not one knew this potentially life-saving trick. Or as Michael Caine is apparently fond of saying – not many people know that.
    Yours aye, Nick.

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