Reminds me of the West Indian rear gunner in WWII who sat in his turret during an emergency landing, apparently he was supposed to sit by the main spar. The a/c was a complete write off but luckily the rear turret broke free and apart from a few bruises he was OK. They then tried to discipline him for not carrying out SOP's................
Re the IMCr, it's sounding like a good idea. I haven't even started my PPL yet, hopefully it will be next month, but I was going to do the whole lot in one fell swoop, PPL, night rating and IMCr while I still have a training and examination head on. I know a guy who did the whole lot in less than a year without really breaking sweat or taking much over the minimum hours.