Tony Blews

Last Tuesday (August 4th, 2009), The Sun printed a story about Claire Haver, and how she was reunited with her family after running off with some bloke she met on Bebo.

The story also had a sidebar entitled “Helping kids to be fine online”, which gave 10 handy tips on keeping the kiddywinks safe on t’internet. Point 8 was particularly interesting:

“8. The internet can be accessed from many devices – including mobiles – so make sure kids’ phones are registered as such with the provider and filters are in place.”

Fair words, but illustrated with a poorly chosen picture (versions from the printed copy, and The Sun website):

Ah, the good old Nokia 3310, that well known internet capable phone from 2000. But not only is it possibly the most internet-useless phone of the century, it is also the most dangerous.

I don’t mean that the Nokia 3310 in general is a dangerous phone, just that one in particular. It was, after all, the one used by terrorists, as shown in The Sun’s story of December 17th, 2008.

Clearly The Sun either don’t know anything about phones, or have a really rubbish picture researcher. Or this particular phone is cursed.

Ban this sick filth.

According to yesterdays papers, the SAS are taking delivery of four Eurocopter Daupin, which will be camoflaged in civilian markings, for surprise attacks on terrorists.

“Nobody will bat an eyelid when one of them in civvy colours turns up over a built-up area. It looks the same as a corporate ride.” one of the SAS told The Sun, even though the only known UK owner of one is the dwarfish footballist Michael Owen.

These helicopters, which come with state-of-the-art communications equipment and a quiet rotor system will provide an ideal platform for anti-terrorism.

Nice. Anti-terrorism is good.   But…

Buying helicopters from the French isn’t so good, as anyone who ever owned a French car will tell you.

Still, at least they’ll tell you how to fly them and give you the keys, unlike the bloody Americans and the Chinook.

They probably fly for about 200 miles before slowly dissembling themselves into component parts, probably somewhere over Cheshire.

However, Eurocopter is the successor of Aérospatiale, the company who made the SA-341G Gazelle.

Now you may not recall the Gazelle. Here is a picture of one:

Hmm, that looks familiar…doesn’t it have the same tail section as…

Yup, its Blue Thunder.

In reality, the Blue Thunder helicopter was a cosmetic make-over of the Gazelle. It was intended to make it look scarier, unlike the current plan…

Looking back on the Blue Thunder film (not the TV series, never look back at that), Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response, THOR, was the “proposed use of military helicopters to quell disorder” during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Now I’m not drawing any parallels here, but by the time the 22 Regiment acually get their hands on these things the Olympics will be nigh on hand. But they probably won’t work properly, and will need to go back to the main dealer after a week. Being French.

I’m just thinking… and I think that is still legal.