Dear Gordon (sorry but I'm not at all sure who you are, but anyway ...) I'm quite happy for you to (try to) insult me to your hearts' content, but could you maybe be a bit more imaginative ? Try pillicock for example. It wont have any more effect but would at least demonstrate some grip of English lit, etc. - At the very least I'd like to get some (however minor) amusement out of it, or maybe even an anecdote, or (joy of joys) something to be able to dine out on ! (please don't assume any airs & graces from the latter - I'm Scots, "working class", and therefore thoroughly oppressed and deserving !). On the positive side, you may have found a soulmate down-under ! - Good on yer cobbler (or whatever it is) - obviously the more mates you have, the better things are. Anyway, going back to the "original problem" here (ie the school of thought that really does believe that Dougie Haig ate babies for breakfast, etc) - I have been reminded of a conversation which I had many years ago in the carpark at Vimy Ridge - and a brilliant piece of advice which came out of it. I was guiding a battlefield tour group and one passenger in particular was terribly keen to keep letting us all know about his expansive (read virtually non-existant) knowledge of WW1. This was the last day of the tour and he was now onto Germany's near completion of developement of its Atomic Bomb programme in 1918, ......................... well not quite, but the "subject" was almost that outlandish, and whatever it was, he was arguing tooth & nail that he was spot-on and anybody who didnt agree (ie the rest of the world, except his wife) obviously knew Jack (aka nothing). .......................................... (skip to the end) .................................................... ... and later that night in the hotel bar the coach drivers were having a great time recounting all of this to the drivers and guides off the other two coaches staying there - especially the bit about Tom's blood pressure reaching the sort of mark only ever seen on the guages of oxy-acetylene cylinders, and ...................... And then Mike the driver came out with a gem ............. Never have an argument with anybody who doesnt have the intelligence to understand what the argument is about. (Say somebody who doesnt understand, or refuses to understand, the difference between a quotation and a selective quotation). I feel obliged to sympathise yet again with the long-suffering Claire, who is probably getting exasperated with all of this, .................................... and I promise to try to resist the temptation to argue further with the intellectially challenged. regards - Tom Tulloch-Marshall WW1 Military Research website - http://www.btinternet.com/~prosearch/index.html

Tom, I know you only meant it in fun, but the Australian Troops who probably fought with your (our) g'father at places like Gallipoli, Pozieres and Ypres, and father at places like Alamein and Trobruk were called Cobbers, not Cobblers. If I may say, sometimes when you go on a rant, you go a little "over the top". That is just my opinion and I can change it if you don't like it. Paul ----- Original Message ----- . From: "Tom Tulloch-Marshall" <prosearch@btinternet.com> To: <greatwar@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [GREATWAR] Dolland,Pilloch-Marshall & Co > Dear Gordon (sorry but I'm not at all sure who you are, but anyway ...) > I'm quite happy for you to (try to) insult me to your hearts' content, but > could you maybe be a bit more imaginative ? Try pillicock for example. It > wont have any more effect but would at least demonstrate some grip of > English lit, etc. - At the very least I'd like to get some (however minor) > amusement out of it, or maybe even an anecdote, or (joy of joys) something > to be able to dine out on ! (please don't assume any airs & graces from > the latter - I'm Scots, "working class", and therefore thoroughly > oppressed and deserving !). > > On the positive side, you may have found a soulmate down-under ! - Good on > yer cobbler (or whatever it is) - obviously the more mates you have, the > better things are. > > Anyway, going back to the "original problem" here (ie the school of > thought that really does believe that Dougie Haig ate babies for > breakfast, etc) - I have been reminded of a conversation which I had many > years ago in the carpark at Vimy Ridge - and a brilliant piece of advice > which came out of it. I was guiding a battlefield tour group and one > passenger in particular was terribly keen to keep letting us all know > about his expansive (read virtually non-existant) knowledge of WW1. This > was the last day of the tour and he was now onto Germany's near completion > of developement of its Atomic Bomb programme in 1918, > ......................... well not quite, but the "subject" was almost > that outlandish, and whatever it was, he was arguing tooth & nail that he > was spot-on and anybody who didnt agree (ie the rest of the world, except > his wife) obviously knew Jack (aka nothing). > > .......................................... (skip to the end) > .................................................... > > ... and later that night in the hotel bar the coach drivers were having a > great time recounting all of this to the drivers and guides off the other > two coaches staying there - especially the bit about Tom's blood pressure > reaching the sort of mark only ever seen on the guages of oxy-acetylene > cylinders, and ...................... > > And then Mike the driver came out with a gem ............. Never have an > argument with anybody who doesnt have the intelligence to understand what > the argument is about. (Say somebody who doesnt understand, or refuses to > understand, the difference between a quotation and a selective quotation). > > I feel obliged to sympathise yet again with the long-suffering Claire, who > is probably getting exasperated with all of this, > .................................... and I promise to try to resist the > temptation to argue further with the intellectially challenged. > regards > - > Tom Tulloch-Marshall > WW1 Military Research > website - http://www.btinternet.com/~prosearch/index.html > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GREATWAR-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Mr Pillicock_Marshall (as you prefer to be called) Just a play on words dear chap Toodle-pip Tom Tulloch-Marshall <prosearch@btinternet.com> wrote: Dear Gordon (sorry but I'm not at all sure who you are, but anyway ...) I'm quite happy for you to (try to) insult me to your hearts' content, but could you maybe be a bit more imaginative ? Try pillicock for example. It wont have any more effect but would at least demonstrate some grip of English lit, etc. - At the very least I'd like to get some (however minor) amusement out of it, or maybe even an anecdote, or (joy of joys) something to be able to dine out on ! (please don't assume any airs & graces from the latter - I'm Scots, "working class", and therefore thoroughly oppressed and deserving !). On the positive side, you may have found a soulmate down-under ! - Good on yer cobbler (or whatever it is) - obviously the more mates you have, the better things are. Anyway, going back to the "original problem" here (ie the school of thought that really does believe that Dougie Haig ate babies for breakfast, etc) - I have been reminded of a conversation which I had many years ago in the carpark at Vimy Ridge - and a brilliant piece of advice which came out of it. I was guiding a battlefield tour group and one passenger in particular was terribly keen to keep letting us all know about his expansive (read virtually non-existant) knowledge of WW1. This was the last day of the tour and he was now onto Germany's near completion of developement of its Atomic Bomb programme in 1918, ......................... well not quite, but the "subject" was almost that outlandish, and whatever it was, he was arguing tooth & nail that he was spot-on and anybody who didnt agree (ie the rest of the world, except his wife) obviously knew Jack (aka nothing). .......................................... (skip to the end) .................................................... ... and later that night in the hotel bar the coach drivers were having a great time recounting all of this to the drivers and guides off the other two coaches staying there - especially the bit about Tom's blood pressure reaching the sort of mark only ever seen on the guages of oxy-acetylene cylinders, and ...................... And then Mike the driver came out with a gem ............. Never have an argument with anybody who doesnt have the intelligence to understand what the argument is about. (Say somebody who doesnt understand, or refuses to understand, the difference between a quotation and a selective quotation). I feel obliged to sympathise yet again with the long-suffering Claire, who is probably getting exasperated with all of this, .................................... and I promise to try to resist the temptation to argue further with the intellectially challenged. regards - Tom Tulloch-Marshall WW1 Military Research website - http://www.btinternet.com/~prosearch/index.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GREATWAR-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message