Rick Brindle

  Potentially. Rhodesia’s military was hampered by a serious lack of resource and manpower. They were the camouflaged epitome of make do and mend, and Fireforce was a direct manifestation of the need to use what they had to create an absolutely badass solution to the tactical realities facing them. After Portugal pulled out of Mozambique in 1974, and with the exception of the short border with South Africa, Rhodesia was literally surrounded on all sides by hostile countries, with insurgents crossing the border almost at will. Outside of any natural obstacles, there simply wasn’t the manpower or money to create an impenetrable barrier. The closest modern parallel would be Israel and maybe, but not quite the same, Ukraine. Insurgent attacks and ambushes could happen across a very wide area, and Fireforce was designed to meet that threat. It was essentially an airborne rapid response unit, tailored to be delivered with the air assets available to Rhodesia, and honed to an exact degree...

Okay, so I’m going to include all of the singers who recorded and released songs with Black Sabbath. Dave Donato, Dave Walker, Ron Keel, Ray Gillen and Rob Halford…well, they’re all excluded, if for no other reason than I never heard what they sounded like as Black Sabbath singers. The first thing I’d like to say before trying to put them into some kind of weird, and actually pretty meaningless scale, is that I’m a huge Black Sabbath fan, and I love all of their line-ups. In number five, it’s Ian Gillan. I loved the Born Again Album, but it was the only one Ian Gillan ever made with Sabbath, and I think that was always his plan, but not necessarily the band’s plan, or at least not Tony Iommi’s plan. Let’s face it, by this point, and probably even earlier, Tony was definitely the boss. Gillan still had the scream, but it was a lot more grainy than it was with Deep Purple ten years earlier. I’d have liked a few more albums from the Gillan era, but I guess you can’t have everything. The f...

  It's Not For Everyone , my very own story of what life was really like in the RAF Regiment, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now What do you do when your dream job turns into a nightmare? Rick Brindle was a third generation military child. His father and grandfather served their whole lives in the Army, and all he wanted to do was be a soldier. In 1989 he joined the RAF Regiment. But life in the Regiment was a world away from what he thought it would be, and it quickly became toxic. Facing a culture of bullying, beatings, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, the community he wanted to be a part of became more like a prison. Most people around him went along with the abuse. Some agreed with it, some joined in, while the chain of command routinely looked the other way. Set over thirty years ago, this is a story of surviving abuse that still resonates today. It’s Not For Everyone is essential reading for anyone considering a military career. Some...

  The apocalypse would be a big equaliser. I think that while they’re in their bunkers, and provided they did their jobs and kept them alive through whatever apocalypse happened, they’ll be fine. You’ve got to hope that the bunker builders didn’t rip them off and cut any corners. but that aside, the bunker itself will offer whatever degree of survivability to luxury it’s been built for. Once they step outside? Well, they’ve still got a bolt hole to base from, but life on the outside might be tricky. There’s only so much tinned food etc that can be stored underground, it’ll be a case of surviving, like everyone else. It’ll probably be a good thing to make friends. To begin with, it might not be a good idea to advertise the bunker either, because it’ll likely be valuable for others, maybe bad people, who might want to live there. So if it was me, I’d make friends with as many survivors as possible, then go socialist and share ownership with everyone. After all, sharing is caring, and...

They’ve been around for ever, the jokes that is. And it’s fair to say that they go both ways. Taking the piss and being in the military kind of goes hand in hand, and the general rule of thumb is that any unit other than your own is shite. The Army being the Army, they’ve got loads of regiments that will typically shower metaphorical shit at each other, so it’s not just one that attracts more negative attention than any other. And as for Royal, well, you know. And much like the booties… The RAF Regiment are a singular infantry type unit within a service that doesn’t have any other such unit within said service, so they tend to be a focus for more piss taking than normal. But then again, they could all be jealous. It's Not For Everyone   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   Sister Alex

  It depends what you call expensive, but pickup changes can definitely help. Pickups will change the tone of your guitar, but they won’t on their own turn you into the next Tony Iommi. That takes practice, practice, and even more practice. And a shedload of raw talent. I’ve got a Squier Affinity Strat, definitely a cheap guitar at two hundred quid. I quickly realised that the music I like to play, stoner rock and metal, isn’t really suited to single coil pickups, unless you’re a Hendrix or a Blackmore, which I’m not. There was no way I could change my guitar, as it was a present from the Mrs, so as well as changing the pickguard to a more scary black one, I changed (well, paid someone to do it for me) the pickups for a three piece strat set of hot rails, which cost me about the same as guitar did. So for just under five hundred quid (two hundred from the Mrs for the guitar, and two fifty from me for the pickups) I’ve got the sound and the tone that I want, thanks to the pickups an...

  In the UK it has been settled since 2010. The Equality Act protects lots of people in our society from discrimination, and it’s been a legal thing for sixteen years now. As you can imagine, it was brought in by a labour government. I mean, no way would the tories introduce something that actually protected ordinary people, unless there was something in it for them and their rich mates as well. Interestingly though, they didn’t repeal it, even after a 14 year car crash in power, including the living disaster that is brexit. The act mirrors and implements he four major EU Equal Treatment Directives. There’s also the Gender Recognition Act, 2004, also a labour achievement, which gave people the legal right to change their gender. And let’s be clear, trans people have been around, like, for ever, so it’s not exactly a new thing. What is relatively new is that weird thing called tolerance. Of course, it’s not there everywhere, and it’s fair to say that we’re on a journey, but hopefull...