Do you need to give a stuff about football for the joke to work?

“Toon Army” is the collective name for the Newcastle fans. It sounds a little like “tsunami”. Rather lame joke, not the right time or place for it, and always bound to upset the hand-wringing types. Reckon Sky were right to give ol’ Rodders the chop, as ITV were for giving Big Ron the Big Heave-Ho.

“…and it landed on its wheels and drove away”

Alan Partridge fans will recognise this… 😉

Political correctness gone mad again. Yes it’s a huge human tragedy, but for god’s sake lets stop wallowing in navel-contemplating pity and GET ON WITH LIFE

Agree that the hand-wringing has gone on long enough, but the fact remains there are things you can and can’t say on television. Sky were right to kick him out – I think he was involved in a “racist” faux pas with Frank McLintock a few weeks ago too…

Click here

Noon the fifth day, Chief, a Lockheed Ventura saw us… he swung in low and he saw us. He’s a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin’ for my turn… I’ll never put on a lifejacket again.

So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th 1945… anyway, we delivered the bomb.

One of my favourite sequences from one of my favourite films. 🙂

I was once the victim of a murder attempt. The ingredients of said kerfuffle were – myself, a lot of booze, attractive female, her boyfriend, slipping tongue to said female, plank of wood, my head, lots of stitches, sack of compensation money.

Result = a little scar and a great story.

As if I could afford it = both financially and mentally!!!!!

Twelve months to save up…

The Speech!

Right, without the tears of Paltrow, or sadly the wit of Gervais, here’s my winners’ speech…

It’s a real shock and surprise to have won the competition – there were some cracking shots among the entries. Some of you will know that I only took up photography in May of last year, but I’m lucky to count some of Britain’s best young aviation photographers among my friends, and they’ve given me plenty of advice.

Photography adds a whole new dimension to this wonderful hobby of ours, and I’m certainly glad I started “snapping”. Some of the guys on this forum produce stunning results with kit costing in the thousands, but at the other end of the spectrum you can have fun and get half decent results for a fraction of the cost. My kit (Fuji S5000, 2 x 512MB 1 x 256 MB cards) cost in total around £300. A copy of Photoshop though is an absolute must, as pictures “out of the camera” with non-DSLRs do need a bit of post-production.

I’m sure I will join the DSLR people in the next year or so, but at the moment I think I’ll hang onto the S5000 for the coming airshow season, and hopefully have a crack at this competition again next year.

Finally a few thanks – to Dan Butcher and Mark McEwan over at UKAR for getting me into photography in the first place, to Yak11Fan for inviting me to the Hardwick Open Day to get the “winning” shot, and to RobAnt for organising the competition and stumping up the prize out of his own pocket! And also to everyone on both UKAR and this forum for their kind words when I’ve posted my pictures. I think we’d all agree that its great to read some nice comments!

Now hopefully, my “success” will mean Mrs Dano will be more understanding when I say I’m off to Jessops to spend a few grand…

The S5000 certainly has plenty of bang for the buck!