Mercenary Prat's Joke Log!

On the whole, I am an incurable optimist with boundless faith in the human condition.
Rarely does a news story upset me!
Anger me? Yes.
Fire me with passion? Yes.
Make me laugh? Yes!

Today, thanks to an FoI request we've found out that the Ministry of Defence spent the equivalent of thousands of hours taking part in stunts for the tv show Top Gear.
I find that astonishing.

I'm not a fan of lads' tv, not a fan of Top Gear, not a fan of Clarkson et al. He reminds me too much of the minor public school bully braying in the quad with a gaggle of equally witless side-kicks, think Molesworth's St Custard's, or Grayson (School Bully) at Graybridge in Ripping Yarns' Tomkinson's Schooldays.
He revels in his oafishness, under the pretext of being "anti-PC" (read red-neck reactionary). He's had a go at the PM's disability, found murdering women working as prostitutes side-splittingly funny, and he is a bigot and xenophobe whether towards Koreans or Germans.

To find that the MoD is wasting, frittering, squandering 141 days of military and 48 days of civilian personnel's time, pandering to this self-satisfied buffoon is beyond belief.
The stunts included a helicopter gunship trying to get a missile lock on a sports car driven by Clarkson, trying to avoid sniper fire while testing another car, and racing a car against an RAF Typhoon, the list goes on ad nauseam.

The MoD's response, that showcasing their people and equipment on tv "raises public awareness about the work of the armed forces" and encourages "support for our troops", is nonsense.

In fact, worse than that, by actively encouraging "Top Gun" fantasies of the armed forces, it actually helps delude youngsters as to the realities of war, and the sacrifices being made in Afghanistan amongst other places.

The title? It's an anagram!