Rick Brindle

  I’d go with Eddie Horniman from The Gentlemen. Here’s a posh guy who manages to live in a fucking huge house, smack bang in the middle of an even huger estate, who deals with a massive stonking family debt brought on by utterly incompetent brother. He’s savvy enough to navigate the world of weed production without any prior knowledge, and he manages to do all of that successfully, and without coming across as a complete tit. Right from the start, he’s the ultimate problem solver. When he was an Army Captain, he performed effortlessly well as a UN peacekeeper, making sure that potentially complex situations were resolved in a calm, logical way. Suddenly in charge of the family estate, he dives straight into the role and takes control. Then, once he realises that the place has been under-written by a potentially very dangerous weed growing gang, and his brother is in huge debts to an actually dangerous rival drug gang, Eddie navigates a way through every problem that comes his way,...

  It really depends what the weather’s doing. The average maximum temperature in Britain in July is 19.4 Celsius. So if it’s a sunny day and the temperature is hovering around the 20 mark, and it’s not raining, then I guess we wouldn’t be depressed at all. Thanks to human-caused climate change though, we can expect things to get a whole lot hotter from here on in, but I suppose everyone on the world now has to contend with that. Similarly, if July 4th falls on a Monday, I don’t suppose you’d see too many people in a particularly good mood. And if there are things going on in the world of sport at that time of year, to say nothing of the result, that might impact on the national mood. Charlie Scudsen, An American President   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone   Sister Alex   But other than that, the 4th July is just another day, not really much different to the 3rd or the 5th.

  Any bladed weapon will do you just fine. You won’t have to worry about ammunition, stoppage drills, noise pollution. You’ll likely need a fair bit of upper body strength, but hey, what else will you have to do ith your time apart from exercise? The only bit of upkeep you’ll need is a bit of sharpening and maybe a bit of oil. But if you want even more basic, there’s always the club/blunt instrument. Great for upper body strength, and even less upkeep than a sword. Either or, whatever works best for you. Sister Alex   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone   Charlie Scudsen, An American President

  Fecking loud! An RAF Regiment Gunner prims hand grenades, right next to the paraffin. But if you’re close enough to actually listen to the bang, you’re fecked because at that range it’ll fecking kill you. I remember being told on Basics that a hand grenade doesn’t have any friends, which translates as don’t be anywhere near the damn thing explodes, and that makes research into decibel levels problematic. And of course, in these days of health and safety (quite right, too), you’ll be best to wear ear defenders straight after chucking one, as well as taking cover damn quickly. However, I have been up close and personal with thunderflashes and drill practice grenades during FIBUA training, and they are fecking loud, so I guess the real thing would be even louder. It's Not For Everyone   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   Sister Alex   Charlie Scudsen, An American President

  Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard  is on a free givaeway from Amazon for a limited time. Cold Steel are back! Their new album has just been released. Their previously cancelled Spanish tour dates have been rearranged, with the female trio and Spain’s biggest metal band, Damas Infernales, supporting. Cold Steel’s biggest asset though, is Johnny Faslane, their brutally talented manager. But even Johnny can’t fully eliminate Cold Steel’s innate ability to spectacularly destroy their prospects, and even before their second concert ends, the tour is scrapped after an ill-advised trip back to the eighties, and the band are put into creative deep freeze by their record company. Only an unprecedented event and a lot of money can possibly turn their fortunes around. Like a five hundred year old treasure hoard that a long dead pirate once offered in return for his life, treasure that has never been found. Cold Steel find a vital clue that gives them a head start in the search fo...

  No specific band, but they did go on tour with Saxon. Saxon: how much more metal can one band be? And the answer is none, none more metal than this. This is Spinal Tap is an absolute genus work of art, poking fun at the entire genre, while at the same time completely endearing itself to fans of the very music form that it most certainly doesn’t take very seriously. When the film was released, loads of metal bands thought it was about them, and quite a few thought that it was actually a real documentary, it was that accurate and true to life. The Stonehenge scene is a piss-take of Black Sabbath’s Born Again tour, where the stone plinths were actually too big for the venues. The lost backstage scene apparently happened to Tom Petty. The Air Force base scene apparently happened to Uriah Heep. Dokken’s George Lynch said ‘That’s us.’ I’m a heavy metal fan and I absolutely love this film. I could literally watch it again and again, all night long, if you saw what I did there. Cold Stee...

  Personally, I really hope it does. Sure, there are close military and intelligence sharing ties (five eyes, yada yada yada), and yes, British pilots train on the F35 in America, but that’s only because we actually use the F35, and do you know what, we didn’t have to. We cold have made our own, arguably (Typhoon), or we could have bought elsewhere (the Rafale is sexy as hell, which is reason enough to have it on the strength). Plenty enough other countries also have their own relationships with the US, and I’d argue that Israel has a much better and more beneficial one with them than us, any day of the week. Quite why we’re so obsessed with calling it special as well, I find somewhat humiliating and demeaning. It really does pint us as a needy, clearly weaker partner, desperate for validation by being thrown crumbs of affection, and magnifying it into something to really cherish. And should the US administration ever find itself headed by a power-mad narcissist who doesn’t give a ...