"You want to do WHAT?" said the British Army – or as their oh-so-polite upper crust officers probably put it: "Sorry, ol’ chap, but we don’t seem to have an urgent need for magicians right at this very moment." But Jasper Maskelyne proved to be very useful. Tales of his service are a mixture of fact and legend. First link via.
posted by amyms on Mar 1, 2008 - 15 comments

From the frontline, Afghanistan. Vaughan Smith is spending time in the thick of it with his old regiment, the Grenadier Guards, on their tour of Helmand (he also looks in on other British Army units and the Afghan National Army they are mentoring). An old friend in Kabul is pessimistic about keeping the Taliban at bay permanently, but troops at a forward operating base are business-like or even cheerful despite regular contact with Taliban fighters.
posted by Abiezer on Sep 3, 2007 - 4 comments

Etaples, 1917 - The first and last mutiny of the British Army. The story was first told in "The Monocled Mutineer" by William Allison & John Farley which was later made into a BBC drama (script written by Alan Bleasdale) broadcast in 1986. This program has never been shown since on British terrestrial TV and even resulted in questions being asked in Parliament about the BBC's left-wing bias. The true facts will be classified until 2017, 100 years after the events. [mi]
posted by longbaugh on Jan 5, 2006 - 10 comments

How to kill terrorists without anyone knowing. An enquiry into collusion between the British army and both loyalist and republican paramilitaries in Northern Ireland has revealed that undercover agents may have been responsible for several assassinations, including lawyer Pat Finucane. By creating army units immune from the usual checks and balances, the government kept its hands clean. This is an account from someone who was involved.
posted by Summer on Apr 16, 2003 - 17 comments