History shows that there would instantly be hundreds of claims for radiation exposure from people who once walked past where the airframes had been stored years earlier, etc – despite the airframes not actually being “hot” by the time they left military custody.

At the risk of sounding droll, and to use your uncle as a prime example, if you are still alive by this stage of the game you probably don’t have much of a claim. All the potential claimants must be in their seventies and eighties by now? :very_drunk:

When I made my curtly worded post earlier in this thread, I was more surprised at how the topic in question was not being addressed objectively. Rather, it would appear that it is still a hotbed issue for alertken (whose credentials as a forum poster I know not), and that any further discussion might result in OAPs lining up to win the ‘I was irradiated’ bingo in the next few days. Given that Operation Hurricane was carried out 62 years ago this all seems like ancient history worthy of a frank discussion without any toes getting trodden on. :confused:

If I cannot go for a walk along Dalgety Bay because a few wee nstrument panels were smashed up in the vacinity then it seems strange to hop to the other extreme and try and gloss over the issue that, perhaps, irradiated airframes were pitched into the surf off the coast of Australia.

I was never under the impression that ‘environmentalist’ was a term of contempt. I think there are those within the environmentalist sphere that are worthy of contempt, but to tar the whole movement is about as illogical as suggesting all engineers are worthy of contempt. Using the term ‘liberal’ as a pejorative only works if you can guarantee your target audience have the same world view as yourself. I think it is thrown around a lot more by Americans than the British, though I’m sure that will change (we’ve already imported Black Friday and Trick-or-treat after all). I trust the original poster intends the word to conjur up an image of the dreadlock’d idealogue aged somewhere from 18 – 25 who has ‘never done an honest day’s work’ ad nauseum.

As I said before, I wouldn’t class Greenpeace as real environmentalists as their crass PR tactics far outweigh their contribution to the dull and dirty end of environmentalism; setting emissions targets, programming habitat creation or restoration, informing policy making decisions etc. Environmentalism is actually fairly boring when you get into it, and everything takes a while to get ratified, passed, monitored etc. If you study it academically, as I did, you either end up pigeonholed into a small subject area or you go into another discipline and work from there, which is what I did. The Greenpeace chuggers in the street, and the slacktivists that tracked footprints over the Nazca lines, probably wouldn’t know a Ramsar site from a SSSI. However their insidious game is to go for the absolutes; oh, you don’t care about the environment? You hate this planet then? Interestingly, the last time I saw a Greenpeace chugger on Princes street I was reliably informed by my girlfriend that said individual had been a stripper in a fairly sleazy cabaret bar until recently and had no environmental, earth science or ecological credentials. Make of that what you will.

I didn’t want my faux Chinese food ruined with fecal coliforms, if that is what you mean?

My “angry moment” today came while in the Gents at my local Tesco store; having used the urinal, I was washing my hands, when a bloke came out of one of the sit-down stalls, stuck only his right hand (presumably it was the one with which he’d wiped himself) under the cold tap, shook off the excess water all over my shirt, then “dried” it, and walked out. What is so unmanly about washing germs off ones hands?

I can do better in that regard. About a decade ago I was at a Chinese buffet restaurant. Patrons were encouraged to use tongs to pick up various items of food, which ranged from Chinese cooking with a nod to authenticity right through to fried chicken, chips and ice-cream for the kids. A man, having previously loudly evacuated in the toilet stall, appeared briefly in the communal area of the gents toilet before heading straight back out into the main area of the restaurant. I’ve not been back since.

Not pathetic, very realistic appraisal .

In what sense? I read the comment as saying it is not worth trying to track down these aircraft because it would cause an inconvenience and besides, those were early days and nobody understood the risks. Firstly, for completionist sake is it not worth tracking down those aircraft, hot or otherwise? It is all ancient history. Secondly, where is the issue with upsetting people? Who would be upset? British interest in nuclear arms in the ’50s is an abject lesson in hubris if nothing else. The apologism starts in the second post in this thread; We were both holding back Stalin’s surrogates in Korea. He had already fired his A-Bomb and would soon fire his H-Bomb. That end of the story can be covered ad nauseum I take it?

Sheesh Natasha Bolter is a bit brown isn’t she? Richard Bird slipped up there.

Seems like the guy was awkwardly trying to make advances on her. Nothing criminal.

My buddy in the Forestry Commission spends his days ripping through Sitka Spruce plantations. I could put in a good word?

More realistically, the move towards commercial forestry lead to trees being planted very close together. These trees then compete for light, and as such grow very quickly. This is the reason Scotland is carpeted in stands of uniform-height Sitka Spruce. As a building material the stuff is junk, unless you are making pallets. The trees grow fast, so aren’t really structurally sound. Those around the perimeter of the stands fare a little better, but those in the middle have poor root systems and are effectively dead just below the canopy. Felled Sitka Spruce was sent to the papermills for a while, but I understand it is now pelleted and sold as a biofuel. I wouldn’t be making any aircraft out of this stuff!

Bile perhaps?