One of our submariners is missing

Well it's been a long time since I put pen to paper (in the virtual sense). apparently since I last did so, I've been awarded a new title...Chairman or something. Well I don't know - I tried (like Caesar in Shakespeare's play) to 'put it by thrice', but the buggers insisted, so now you will all have to address me as Madam Chairman (apparently this is better than being called a Chair - in case someone attempts to sit on you)

Meanwhile after an unusually long truce, the old sods in the Catering Corps have launched a new assault planned for 13 hundred hours today. I am told I will be invaded by several dozen Submariners bearing Champagne rather than Arms. I have put my legions of books on standby and warned them that if attacked by champagne corks they are immediately to retaliate. Fortunately I  have positioned Sun Tzu's Art of War (de luxe French edition) in a key strategic position and if he fails me, not only do I have several volumes featuring heroes of the Battle of Midway, but Nelson is guarding the Left Flank. The buggers are not going to catch me napping.


Oh - and by the way - I've given birth again...to a new online catalogue. Watch this space.......

In which our brave Librarian takes on the Pirates...and a few casual diners

Avast there ye landlubbers for 'tis international Talk like a Pirate Day evidently. Now I personally, am not sure if my brave lads fought two World Wars and several other skirmishes involving an array of enemies ranging from imagined aliens to the far deadlier mosquito, just to dress up as cheap corsairs, but that's the modern way apparently, so let us take a moment to make sure we can identify one of these scoundrels should we come across 'em

Course 'tis unlikely that a real pirate will be presenting a sitting (standing) target like this one, who appears to be performing some sort of sea shanty in front of a captive audience of his victims who he is either torturing to death by singing the wrong lyrics, or entertaining, to distract them from the fact that there is a large plank at the rear of the auditorium which they will be forced to walk, into a crocodile pit once the concert is over.

As for my brave boys, they are still befuddled from attending a lecture on Naval & Military portraits at the National Gallery. Most behaved beautifully, but I had to restrain a couple of the younger recruits from painting moustaches on some of the exhibits apparently on the grounds that someone's grandparents had been victim of a particularly cruel flogging when acting as a Fag at some minor public school or other.

Other than that, it's been rather quiet in the Library...apart from migrating a rather old and creaky catalogue to a nice shiny online version and devising a digitization strategy that is, but, all in a day's work as they say.

And today, as the Library yet again disguises itself as a Dining Room, I am resorting to a few rounds of my favourite sport: firing old rubber stamps and (formerly sticky) labels at passersby in order to distract them from their food and entice them into reading some of my most memorable Military Histories. If that doesn't work I could try Plan B: wandering around with an air of Amazement at the sight of all these wonderful volumes, or Plan C: pretending I have fleas and scratching at the next table. 

If all else fails, it's back to the Pirates.

In which Hitler invades the library

Have managed to re-negotiate the terms of  my most recent truce though frankly the concessions I've wrung from my apparent rulers, namely The Catering Corps, are fairly insubstantial. Namely, that I will be warned in advance of future invasions, whether they be by enemies within or those without. Talking of which: while scrabbling about in the lowest depths of my luxury office suite (AKA the broom cupboard which is now NOT to turned into a disabled loo as the CO has been warned that making policy on the hoof is now the sole prerogative of the Department for Education), I came across a 1936 copy of an obscure monograph entitled My Struggle - author one A. Hitler. I somehow doubt he was ever a member of the regiment and shall be asking questions about who sneaked him, but more importantly: making sure he's in a secure place so that whoever decides to take him out, doesn't run off and flog him to the highest bidder.

Other than that, the truce appears to be holding and I haven't had to negotiate a path through hungry diners, Freemasons or vicars (or even canons) for several weeks now, as a result of which the regimental register is looking very dapper: nearly 3000 of an estimated 4000 old soldiers can now be found at the click of a mouse via the OPAC (which I believe some people call an Online Public Access Catalogue).

t-shirt available from philosphyfootball.com

Meanwhile in the Indies, I have been undertaking a similar exercise with the firm's art works, much to the chagrin of Colonel Gordon Gin-soaked (of the eponymous Highland Regiment). Sadly the Colonel found that while in was engaged in inventorising duties, I had no time to sip G&Ts with him and his chums who were having a conference about Camus's contribution to sport in the lead-up to the Olympics: "All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football."

Not to be outdone, in terms of attention seeking, Britain's wealthy artist (allegedly) popped in to insist on discussing which of his etchings was my favourite, but in order to facilitate this, he kindly donated me a signed copy of his latest catalogue (not unlike IKEA's actually) and warned me not to leave it in the library as it was hot property and their were book thieves about. Lucky he reminded me of this or Hitler may have escaped...again

Barbarians at the gate

This week sees me utterly flabbergasted. After a year in which the promised supplies of ammo repeatedly failed to make it through to my camp and excuses varying from a wounded CO, bankrupt suppliers and broken down armoured vehicles, I arrived at HQ to find that said equipment had been secretly delivered overnight. 


The operation had been so furtive that no-one within the camp (apart from a Kosovan reservist who had the task of unloading the provisions) was aware that they had arrived. Needless to say joy was unconfined - the regimental cup truly overflowed and two battalions of homeless soldiers, who were temporarily living in a cage on wheels in the Luxury Office Suite (aka Broom-Cupboard-soon-to-be-Disabled Loo), are now rehoused happily on shelves. Several even had time to make it to roll-call (the OPAC  - my online register of personnel - now has some 2,300 names in it - a mere 1,700 to go). No more illegal cage-fights for me!


Meanwhile in the East Indies, more disturbances have occurred. This time the saboteurs (who had previously attempted to execute a few volumes of memoirs by Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson) locked me out of my computer. The buggers. 

Needless to say I took my cue from my favourite role model Richard Sharpe, and was 'up and at 'em' in the twinkling of a sabre..... I held down the 'off' button. That'll teach the b*stards. This time however, they left clues as to who they were: I found a bag with their logo which revealed them to be a marauding hoard of Barbarians  - as I had suspected - a primitive race of uncultured non-Greeks as we all know. However, later enquiries revealed to me the truth -  that said Barbarians are in fact a famous team of sportsmen who had visited the camp with the sole purpose of delivering some satirical magazines. Oh well, another line of enquiry closes - I shall have to re-interview anyone who has seen George Galloway in the past two weeks.......

Happily old Colonel Gin-Soaked of the eponymous regiment of Highlanders re-appeared this week. I was frankly worried about his state of health. 




Fortunately, his absence in the past fortnight was not due to any recurrence of his Gout problem or to his having fallen off the library ladders while attempting to reach his treasured copies of Dickens novels. Apparently it had been in protest at his not being able to retrieve a copy of Wisden's from 1949, which had been separated from its fellows and placed in a locked cabinet in the Conference Room. Investigations continue.....