As I perambulated about this morning on my bike, that is if perambulate is the word, I passed this man. Interestingly he is parked opposite the actual ambulance station where a young woman prepared her vehicle for the day. I preferred this one. It gives the impression of being a one time army vehicle, used in desert warfare, and has a sign for 'Camel Trophy' above the door. As that is a type of cigarette made from camels it appears a bit unhealthy to me. I could of course be mistaken, it has happened before, at least once. It is often parked there and as it has also the St Johns Ambulance badge on it (the St Johns Ambulance are volunteers who do first aid work at various events) I suspect it may be used at one of the vehicle get together's that abound around here during the summer. This lot have a base next door to us, on occasion they like to use their proper ambulance and show off the siren. One driver at least now understand Edinburgh words. Treatment from St Johns is excellent I suspect. They begin with young kids and many volunteers have been connected with them for years. They used to attend football matches but I think changes to the law has required professional ambulance staff in attendance at such games. However accidents at car rally's and carnival events will always have good quality treatment for first aid from these folk.
Look, almost home from my bike ride and the town is still akip! Of course Australia is still at lunch and the USA is still dumbing down the brain watching TV. Now Australia home of the sunshine, played Iraq in a World Cup qualifier today and through the medium of the laptop I was able to watch the players in windy, wet Sydney struggle through the game. The Aussies won against a very young Iraq and while the ageing Australians will once again find themselves at the World Cup finals in Brazil the Iraq side have every reason to look to the future. Their players were mostly under 21 and look to have good prospects. The Diggers on the other hand at mostly around the 30 mark and will be facing their last major event. The young talented Ryan McGowan who was sitting on the bench today learned all he knows at Tynecastle Park, home of the Heart of Midlothian. He is already more than a great prospect, as the aged players move on he will be one of those moving in!
Sadly financial trouble at Tynecastle has left a deep black cloud over Edinburgh. This time it does not emanate from all those second hand storms the Americans dump on us when they are finished with them, this one arises from bad counting of the cash and this is serious.
When Vladimir Romanov took over the club the Hearts were £20 million or so in debt. Since then, by hard work, investment in players and managers that has gone down to a mere £30 million or so, depending on who is cooking the books. The financial situation has caught up with the club at last. Yesterday it was announced the club will move into administration, begin next season minus 15 points, and possibly lose what decent prospects are left, the ground, and be in a right old pickle.
Naturally had I been a billionaire none of this would happen. I would rescue the club and sit in the stand drinking brandy and smoking cigars like they used to do. Well without the cigars actually. And without the brandy as it is not allowed during the game. However my £2:34 will not stretch that far and several hopefuls are lining up to control the club on the cheap. I am not sure I fancy any of them. The situation is in abeyance at the moment as administrators in Lithuania, from where Vlad ruled the club, and Scotland sit down to work something out. It is important to remember your history here and the Hearts song with the line, 'Though we sometimes go down we can aye go back up.' I am positive that will indeed be the case, whatever happens.
I note however the media support for Rangers when they fiddled £100 million in taxes has not been on offer for the Heart of Midlothian. I am surprised to find that that club gets support Edinburgh's top side does not receive, I wonder why?
And Vlad? Since the Lithuanian authorities asked him to explain some 23 million Litas that were 'embezzled' he has moved to Moscow and apparently suffered a heart attack. he has gone to ground, as has his bank, his cash and he is hiding behind his east European 'friends.' Hmmmm.
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8 comments:
Smoking camels was actually quite good for health in general. For one often had to walk a mile to get a pack. Whereas, smoking Tareytons could get rather ugly on account of all of the fighting involved. Of course, with women coming as far as they have, much has changed since.
Jerry, Women have come far....?
That's a great old ambulance vehicle. Years ago my ex and I had an old 1948 Land Rover; it had a reconditioned Holden motor in it. We ended up selling it to a local Deer Farm. My guess is it probably is still running around following the deer! We used it as our fishing vehicle when we went fishing at Teewah, across the river north of Noosa...and then we'd drive along the beach to do some surf fishing. It was a great old vehicle. We painted it bright red; removed the top making it like a high-rise sports car. It was the the ideal fishing vehicle.
It's great that the good old Diggers have qualified to play in the World Cup in Rio. I'm not a fan or follower of football aka soccer, but I like that the Aussies will be there.
Beautiful weather here today...clear blue sky...a bit of a chill in the air...winter has arrived...although our winters aren't very cold. It was probably around 3C earlier after sunrise and will get up to around 18 or 19...or even 20C if we jump around a bit! Ideal!
I am sure I used to have a dinky toy of an ambulance very much like that. Funny how you don't think of something for years....
Lee, Yes if I were rich I would like one of those, or something similar. A vehicle with character.
Jenny, Yes there was an army version of that I'm sure. Memory is stirred by such things. It does show how much is in the brain if we can find a way to retrieve it.
A bit late to the party.... The Land Rover is somebody's much-modified hybrid toy. The base vehicle would originally have been a Series IIA or series III leaf-sprung 109" wheelbase chassis-cab, fitted with an ambulance body by Marshalls of Cambridge, to the military specification of FV10867 (FV=Fighting Vehicle).
However, what we see here is on a later, 110" coil-sprung chassis, and so far as I know the military never used this type of ambulance body/chassis combination. (The air-force by then could lift-n-shift bigger vehicles, so the army went for a higher box-body on a 127 or130" chassis)
Further, it's a 3.9litre V8 with a Liquefied Petroleum gas conversion, (not used by the military, nor available from Land-Rover) with the LPG tank rather awkwardly placed where it would inhibit off-road/rough-road ability.
I've known several people with Marshall-bodied Land-Rover ambulances, including a couple who'd done most of a round-the-world overland trip. The back body as seen here, officially had space for four casualties inside, plus attendant.
However, they're a bit cramped, and have somewhat low headroom, based on the early requirement to fit in the RAF's transport aircraft of choice in the 1960s. The coming of aircraft such as the Lockheed 'Hercules' made higher vehicles feasible.
And no, the camel-trophy stencil is fakery too, the Camel Trophy did indeed use Land Rover vehicles in all but the first year, when it used Jeeps on a trans-amazon expedition, but none had military ambulance bodies.
I can think of quite a few Land-Rovers better suited to long distance touring.
Still, the bloke probably loves it.
http://youtu.be/5ynERTA0zHs
Jenny Woolf and Adullamite. You both have fraudulent memories... Dinky made a Bedford truck army ambulance, with, if I remember my toybox right, opening rear doors. No Land Rover.
Soub, The point, as you say is that he loves it!
A real army lorry of the Dinky kind I have a picture of. But I am convinced someone did an army land rover. I must check those collectors sites.
There are lots of military landrovers, corgi did some, but not the ambulances. I think a Japanese manufacturer, Tamiya, made a model kit..... but i may be mistaken.
No I'm not.... http://modelingmadness.com/review/misc/vehicles/previews/dixonrover.htm
These days there are some diecast models of army ambulances, vectis and cararama amongst others.
But none from "back then".
The lame way Corgi did it was simply to put a red-cross transfer on the side of their existing ordinary land-rover.
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