The Deep State

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Comments

  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    edited August 2024
    Enoch wrote: »
    I've been fantasising that all these years those involved in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue have been using the game of Mornington Crescent to pass on knowledge to those cognoscenti who have deciphered the code about how to get into this secret world.

    They started off using broadcasts of the 'Today' programme as evidence that Britain still exists, and then some bright spark realised they could layer all sorts of additional messages onto other programmes.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    Aren't there legendary raves under London? Or is that just a subterranean Paris thing?
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    Aren't there legendary raves under London? Or is that just a subterranean Paris thing?

    Not really. Most of the underground raves in London happened in abandoned warehouses or fields.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    Edinburgh of course works its underground for every tourist bawbee - but there's no mystery about the various cellars and a bit of street (and no ghosts either tbh). Liberton Cove otoh is genuinely mysterious.

    Well, no ghosts that are publicly known about, anyway. I rather expect they’re there anyway.
  • So Mornington Crescent didn’t start with the Ship? I’ve never played it but all these years I’ve just thought of it exclusively as a game thread on the Ship… I didn’t know it went beyond that or originated elsewhere at all. 😮
  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    So Mornington Crescent didn’t start with the Ship? I’ve never played it but all these years I’ve just thought of it exclusively as a game thread on the Ship… I didn’t know it went beyond that or originated elsewhere at all. 😮

    It is the the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty per cent of its danger.

    To quote Surtees.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited August 2024
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    So Mornington Crescent didn’t start with the Ship? I’ve never played it but all these years I’ve just thought of it exclusively as a game thread on the Ship… I didn’t know it went beyond that or originated elsewhere at all. 😮

    Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)

    Edit: I don't know how to fix this link
  • if you go to the disambiguation link, the (game) version is available there. I'm not sure that the brackets work outside the wonderful world of Wikipedia.
  • And, of course, it's greatest trophy is the legendary Armitage Shanks Bowl
    (I'll let someone else explain that to poor ChastMastr, who will be even more bemused)
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2024
    But is that final statement itself a lie, designed to put us off the scent?

    No. Everyone deceives. It's an axis of intelligence. Everyone's got something to hide. In every interaction. Good job too.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    But is that final statement itself a lie, designed to put us off the scent?

    No. Everyone deceives. It's an axis of intelligence. Everyone's got something to hide. In every interaction. Good job too.

    Can we not accuse "everyone" of being a liar in "every interaction," please? :rage: :rage: :rage: Thank you.
  • And, of course, its greatest trophy is the legendary Armitage Shanks Bowl
    (I'll let someone else explain that to poor ChastMastr, who will be even more bemused)

    Was this not found and venerated by its acolyte, Kimberly Clark?
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Purgatory is supposed to be a space for serious debate. I'm struggling to find a reason not to close this thread.

    la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2024
    I find it hard to believe, that apart from command and control centres we're distracted from, that there aren't actual deep military store sites including helicopters and other multi-role aircraft, armour, artillery. The odd Rolls Royce small nuclear reactor. All vacuum packed and ready to emerge once the fallout has tailed off. Assuming a nuclear war. With enough fuel and food for the first century. For 10,000. Britain would be one of the worst affected places on Earth of course. As in annihilated. The 10,000 would have to colonise the isles of Scotland and beyond. Survive by fishing mainly. That's without nuclear winter. So not much materiel necessary really. Nuclear power and freeze dried food and medicines. Other collapses are available. Theoretically. Covid on steroids. Including virtual. A limited nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Watched the superb Comer in the not bad The End We Start From last night.
    Far too optimistic.

    But my fallacy of incredulity doesn't cut it really does it. How far does a state go to prepare for once a millennium or ten catastrophes? What proportion of its GNP?

    I suppose one must project to enemies that we'll still be here. For limited values of 'we'. So round again one iterates.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    If nuclear war does occur, those who are the first to be vaporised will be the lucky ones.

    IYSWIM.

    I have no doubt that there's a lot of military stuff we don't know about...
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    Martin54 wrote: »
    I find it hard to believe, that apart from command and control centres we're distracted from, that there aren't actual deep military store sites including helicopters and other multi-role aircraft, armour, artillery. The odd Rolls Royce small nuclear reactor. All vacuum packed and ready to emerge once the fallout has tailed off. Assuming a nuclear war. With enough fuel and food for the first century. For 10,000. Britain would be one of the worst affected places on Earth of course. As in annihilated. The 10,000 would have to colonise the isles of Scotland and beyond. Survive by fishing mainly. That's without nuclear winter. So not much materiel necessary really. Nuclear power and freeze dried food and medicines. Other collapses are available. Theoretically. Covid on steroids. Including virtual. A limited nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Watched the superb Comer in the not bad The End We Start From last night.
    Far too optimistic.

    But my fallacy of incredulity doesn't cut it really does it. How far does a state go to prepare for once a millennium or ten catastrophes? What proportion of its GNP?

    I suppose one must project to enemies that we'll still be here. For limited values of 'we'. So round again one iterates.

    You’ve just lived through a COVID pandemic that we were utterly unprepared for… why on Earth would you find it hard to believe that we in the UK aren’t sitting on large reserves of military stuff??

    We’re just not. We were until about 1992 then it was largely sold off. We couldn’t cover a fire strike now because the Green Goddesses are mostly gone.

    Storing things costs money, it’s mostly gone. The warehouses at Donnington full of Lee Enfield No8 rifles are no more.


  • I believe that, for many years, the London Flood Control centre was in the old Kingsway tram tunnel ... one of the first places which would get flooded if the Thames should overflow!
  • Not quite - this is an extract from the quite long Wiki article on the tram subway:

    Until the opening of the Thames Barrier in 1984, a portable building near the north of the tunnel was used as a flood control headquarters for the Greater London Council.

    I daresay the portable building was on the level, rather than on the northern ramp, so yes, it might well have been in danger of flooding...

    (The article also refers to a Goon Show episode, in which Minnie and Henry, as conductress and driver, hide in the subway for over 2 years, to ensure that they work The Last Tram...)

    @betjemaniac - point taken about the dispersal of former strategic stores, but we'll never know if everything has been got rid of...will we?
    :naughty:

    I daresay you're right about general unpreparedness, though.


  • It seems to me that, as a country, we have a very Woosterish approach to preparing for the future. It's stupid, but it's cheap. Sums up post-Brexit life in the Septic Isle, from my experience.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Martin54 wrote: »
    I find it hard to believe, that apart from command and control centres we're distracted from, that there aren't actual deep military store sites including helicopters and other multi-role aircraft, armour, artillery. The odd Rolls Royce small nuclear reactor. All vacuum packed and ready to emerge once the fallout has tailed off. Assuming a nuclear war. With enough fuel and food for the first century. For 10,000. Britain would be one of the worst affected places on Earth of course. As in annihilated. The 10,000 would have to colonise the isles of Scotland and beyond. Survive by fishing mainly. That's without nuclear winter. So not much materiel necessary really. Nuclear power and freeze dried food and medicines. Other collapses are available. Theoretically. Covid on steroids. Including virtual. A limited nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Watched the superb Comer in the not bad The End We Start From last night.
    Far too optimistic.

    But my fallacy of incredulity doesn't cut it really does it. How far does a state go to prepare for once a millennium or ten catastrophes? What proportion of its GNP?

    I suppose one must project to enemies that we'll still be here. For limited values of 'we'. So round again one iterates.

    You’ve just lived through a COVID pandemic that we were utterly unprepared for… why on Earth would you find it hard to believe that we in the UK aren’t sitting on large reserves of military stuff??

    We’re just not. We were until about 1992 then it was largely sold off. We couldn’t cover a fire strike now because the Green Goddesses are mostly gone.

    Storing things costs money, it’s mostly gone. The warehouses at Donnington full of Lee Enfield No8 rifles are no more.

    So, no freeze dried, vacuum packed ark? No greased Armalites and a million rounds? Not obsolete stuff you could still drop a man at a mile with? So after the bang we go with a whimper? In to the night. Surely the state intends to survive anything?
  • The state (or the leaders thereof) may well intend, or hope, to survive, but the rest of us probably don't matter much...as I said earlier, those who get vaporised first will be the lucky ones.

    IIRC, it was Ken Livingstone, then Leader of the GLC, who said he'd rather be killed in the first blast than have to spend the aftermath in a nuclear bunker with Mrs Thatcher. I think he was being a bit sanguine, expecting there to be room made for him, but he always had a good sense of irony.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    I find it hard to believe, that apart from command and control centres we're distracted from, that there aren't actual deep military store sites including helicopters and other multi-role aircraft, armour, artillery. The odd Rolls Royce small nuclear reactor. All vacuum packed and ready to emerge once the fallout has tailed off. Assuming a nuclear war. With enough fuel and food for the first century. For 10,000. Britain would be one of the worst affected places on Earth of course. As in annihilated. The 10,000 would have to colonise the isles of Scotland and beyond. Survive by fishing mainly. That's without nuclear winter. So not much materiel necessary really. Nuclear power and freeze dried food and medicines. Other collapses are available. Theoretically. Covid on steroids. Including virtual. A limited nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Watched the superb Comer in the not bad The End We Start From last night.
    Far too optimistic.

    But my fallacy of incredulity doesn't cut it really does it. How far does a state go to prepare for once a millennium or ten catastrophes? What proportion of its GNP?

    I suppose one must project to enemies that we'll still be here. For limited values of 'we'. So round again one iterates.

    You’ve just lived through a COVID pandemic that we were utterly unprepared for… why on Earth would you find it hard to believe that we in the UK aren’t sitting on large reserves of military stuff??

    We’re just not. We were until about 1992 then it was largely sold off. We couldn’t cover a fire strike now because the Green Goddesses are mostly gone.

    Storing things costs money, it’s mostly gone. The warehouses at Donnington full of Lee Enfield No8 rifles are no more.

    So, no freeze dried, vacuum packed ark? No greased Armalites and a million rounds? Not obsolete stuff you could still drop a man at a mile with? So after the bang we go with a whimper? In to the night. Surely the state intends to survive anything?

    I hinted earlier in the thread, but go away and read up on BURLINGTON. There’s loads on the web. It was a colossal waste of time and money indulged in because successive governments felt they needed to be seen to be doing something. Even when it was clear that a) the USSR knew exactly where it was and b) it wouldn’t survive a hit.

    1992 was the moment when the government decided they could save the money and just stop pretending.

    The whole point of trident (rightly or wrongly) is that an aggressor has to know that they can utterly destroy the UK and will still have to face things coming the other way afterwards.

    It’s not about surviving.
  • And PYTHON. Read up on BURLINGTON and PYTHON.

    You’ll find the former by searching for Central Government War Headquarters.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    And PYTHON. Read up on BURLINGTON and PYTHON.

    You’ll find the former by searching for Central Government War Headquarters.

    Yep, read all that. Obsolete for 70 years. Great distraction. Like Dieppe was for the 4 rotor Enigma pinch.
  • There's the labyrinth of tunnels under Box Hill, used for WW2 arms storage ... and, so people have said, Britain's strategic reserve of old steam locomotives (for when the oil runs out).

    Some of them were open to the public in the mid 1980s- I visited & didn't see any locomotives.
  • I very much doubt if there ever was a strategic reserve of steam locomotives...although, if such a reserve did exist, they would probably have been of more recent provenance - those built in the 1940s/50s were of simple and robust design.

    Finland, however, did store a number of locomotives following the end of regular steam traction in 1975. Most were scrapped in the 1980s/90s, but a few have been preserved. Some are wood-burners (birch trees are plentiful in Finland!).
  • There are more steam locomotives held on preserved lines around the country than could ever have been stored under Box Hill, and many of them are even being kept in working order.

    Though the strategic value of a reserve of steam locos has basically become zero since we stopped mining coal in the UK.
  • If there is a strategic reserve of steam locomotives under Box Hill, how is it cnnected to the main network?
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    Eirenist wrote: »
    If there is a strategic reserve of steam locomotives under Box Hill, how is it cnnected to the main network?

    Spur off the line within the tunnel.


  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    I find it hard to believe, that apart from command and control centres we're distracted from, that there aren't actual deep military store sites including helicopters and other multi-role aircraft, armour, artillery. The odd Rolls Royce small nuclear reactor. All vacuum packed and ready to emerge once the fallout has tailed off. Assuming a nuclear war. With enough fuel and food for the first century. For 10,000. Britain would be one of the worst affected places on Earth of course. As in annihilated. The 10,000 would have to colonise the isles of Scotland and beyond. Survive by fishing mainly. That's without nuclear winter. So not much materiel necessary really. Nuclear power and freeze dried food and medicines. Other collapses are available. Theoretically. Covid on steroids. Including virtual. A limited nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Watched the superb Comer in the not bad The End We Start From last night.
    Far too optimistic.

    But my fallacy of incredulity doesn't cut it really does it. How far does a state go to prepare for once a millennium or ten catastrophes? What proportion of its GNP?

    I suppose one must project to enemies that we'll still be here. For limited values of 'we'. So round again one iterates.

    You’ve just lived through a COVID pandemic that we were utterly unprepared for… why on Earth would you find it hard to believe that we in the UK aren’t sitting on large reserves of military stuff??

    We’re just not. We were until about 1992 then it was largely sold off. We couldn’t cover a fire strike now because the Green Goddesses are mostly gone.

    Storing things costs money, it’s mostly gone. The warehouses at Donnington full of Lee Enfield No8 rifles are no more.

    So, no freeze dried, vacuum packed ark? No greased Armalites and a million rounds? Not obsolete stuff you could still drop a man at a mile with? So after the bang we go with a whimper? In to the night. Surely the state intends to survive anything?

    There's the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. That's got to count for something.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    Eirenist wrote: »
    If there is a strategic reserve of steam locomotives under Box Hill, how is it cnnected to the main network?

    Spur off the line within the tunnel.


    Actually, the spur was before the tunnel and led into a separate mouth beside the main one and the underground quarries. https://tinyurl.com/3cfm95ya
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    Ah, that explains a lot. I thought, and still think, Box Hill is somewhere in Surrey, near Dorking. Box Tunnel, though, the one in that photograph, is nowhere near it. It's between Corsham and Bath. It gets its name because at its west end is a village called Box. It's the Corsham area, not Surrey, that has the underground quarries, as does Coombe Down just south of Bath. I've been told it's to do with a slightly odd property of Bath stone. Similar tunnels at Bradford on Avon have been used for the commercial cultivation of mushroom on a large scale.

    There was an urban legend of mothballed steam engines, reputedly Granges, under a hill somewhere, waiting like King Arthur to be recalled in the nation's hour of need, but in the version I heard, they were supposed to be somewhere in Shropshire. It was even part of the legend that it must be true because there was no record of their having been scrapped.

    This, though, has long since been demonstrated to be a fantasy.

  • Indeed so.
  • Somewhere on a dark corner of the internet, years back, I read a take on the strategic steam reserve that I hadn’t come across before. This chap was swearing blind that he worked at Box or Rudloe Manor, that the steam reserve had definitely been there, but he had either witnessed or been involved with (can’t remember which now) cutting them all up in the early 80s.

    And he had put up a couple of photos!

    Probably fake/pinched from photos of Woodhams or Cashmores, but different to the standard tale.
  • There are a number of such stories in this: https://tinyurl.com/2umc59jy

    But I cannot vouch for their truth!
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2024
    What a shame! No post-apocalyptic steam trains merrily chugging across the frosted, radioactive desert!
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    What a shame! No post-apocalyptic steam trains merrily chugging across the frosted, radioactive desert!

    :lol:

    That's what They want you to think, but who knows?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited August 2024
    ETA: I've mentioned the intriguing question of how many steam engines might be available for national emergency use on the Railway thread in Heaven, to avoid derailing this thread...
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