Oooops
Yesterday, the nineteenth day of November in the year of our lord two-thousand and nine a young man, let’s call him Tukhachevskii, returned home from his local library, where he had been using the internet for free, with some evident (i.e., smug) satisfaction (due to the recession the internet was one of a long list of luxuries he could no longer afford). Having read a UK doctrinal publication and found it (in his “learned” eyes) wanting with regards to its definition of national power he had opened a new thread to canvass the opinions of his betters on the SWC. Such is the arrogance of the improperly employed, or in his case, just plain unemployed (what is they say about the Devil ... idle hands ... work?).
Later that evening, and still basking in the glow of self-importance that the internet affords to such people, he poured himself a large Southern Comfort (straight) and settled in for a long night of reading before bed. Yet he would find no comfort that night, Southern or otherwise. As he opened his recently downloaded file containing UK doctrinal publications he selected file 2....UK JDP 01 (2nd Ed.) UK Defence Doctrine. As he read through the eloquently written publication he came to a section defining national power. Informational power, it stated, was not an adjunct of but rather integral to Diplomatic, Military and Economic power. “Here, here”, he thought to himself smugly. And then it hit him.
He paused.
Downed his Whisky in one go and, as it took (rapid) effect, realised his monumental (‘world historical’ is what Hegel would have called it) mistake as the shivers reverberated down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck (and also perhaps elsewhere) stood firmly to attention.
“Bugger”, he said to himself.
You see, he had made the mistake of not correctly ordering his pdf files at the point of download so that instead of reading file 2 (Defence Doctrine) first he had instead read file 1 (as you do) which was ]UK JDP 01 (2nd Ed.) Campaigning. If that wasn’t bad enough he had posted a thread to his peers while only half cocked which he now realised, much to his shame, would be a real cock up especially diplomatically given his gratuitous and very dishonourable mention of the French (how could he forget the Entente Cordiale, tsk tsk). Luckily for him he had no reputation to tarnish ... although, perhaps unfortunately, he may now have firmly acquired one.
There were now only two CoA to take;
1) A firm and rapid retrograde operation entailing his complete and utter disbarment from ever posting (or “threading”) on the SWC again until such a time as he was able to write posts worthy of the time of the SWC membership or,
2) fall on his sword (which was a plastic pirates sword he had acquired in dubious circumstances for an even more dubious fancy-dress party) and admit his mistake.
He chose the latter, and more honourable in his eyes, CoA. He also decided that finishing the bottle of Southern Comfort would form part of his penance. Half way down the bottle and in the midst of some kind of evident delirium he was reminded of something Stendhal had written in Scarlet and Black ... “To excuse oneself is to accuse oneself”.
Mea culpa.
Fade to black.
Fin ...... (?)
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