Not standing up when Commanders enter the room?

Surely the "Silent Service" is not the only one which follows the silent and non-disruptive practice of "sitting to attention" in such circumstances.

Jack

He's right though. War's have been lost due to the incorrect use of an apostrophe.

The wives' club

While GN can't remember back 20 years I can remember the memorable happy hours (well some of them) at Waddo 40 odd years ago. Trays of chips would do the rounds and disappear in short order with nary a fork in sight. :)

Manners - not difficult
 

I do remember being taught to stand up if a lady enters the Mess ante-room, about how to take snuff, crossing the cutlery, tilting the soup away from you, playing snooker after dinner with others more senior to you (and letting them win or smashing them depending on whether you got on or not with them), not to hide behind the newspaper or forget to bid good morning/evening before sitting at the table etc etc and it was all done in good jest, yet lessons for life.

Well I do agree that it's all worth saving but its not going to be easy.

Messes aren't officers' homes anymore. Its somewhere to have lunch, to have cheap beer or to stay during the week before rushing home at the weekend. A part of me says that this is a byproduct of Pay-As-You dine - messes have changed to become businesses, and to cater for the modern day - plated meals, sarnies. Even mixed Messes. Because the contractor had to squeeze the last penny out to stay afloat. I do remember a gang of us would go to the Mess after a long day, sit at the table, chat and have a pint. Then PAYD came in, quality went down, numbers went down and people didn't feel the need to spend an hour over dinner just to sample substandard food. The ethos of the Mess slowly eroded. But of course you can't put a price on ethos so who cared?

IMHO standards have slipped since my day as a very frightened UAS student in the mess. We had it imbued in us that it was an honour and a privilege to enter the place and we respected it and its occupants accordingly. At a recent reunion bash, there were women in the gents, a Flight Lieutenant who used the F word loudly three times in succession and another of the same rank , who trod on my foot twice, without so much as a `sorry old boy!` Our party retired to a corner where we suddenly realised we had all become very old and the world had changed for the worst.

I still can't understand everyone not standing when a senior officer enters the mess.

The rule for us was senior officers like OC, CO and of course the PMC.

Our dear General airs his ignorance:
He forgot to include 'initialisms.'
BLT is an initialism, as it cannot be spoken as a word, but RADAR, which can be, is an acronym.
Pedantic ? Moi? He started it!
:8

Women in the gents - well it's all legal these days. But it's probably just as well you didn't spot the condom machine that you can find in some Mess toilets. I can only assume the women were stood in front of it blocking it from view.

And as for the F word - I assume you mean football? If so, don't worry, the football season only has a couple more months to run

RE: The wife's club
 

PN. Granted, haha. I suppose we all have memories of grand revelry, some even in the officer's mess. Memories have a way of being selective, malleable, wishful, sometimes distorted and obscured, depending on the circumstances. Never enhanced by worries of finger food or sensibilities of the wife's club, though. As I recall, anyway.

Cheers!

Tssk Officers and Gentlemen using the F word, disgusting, you wouldn't get the Pope using it :E

Found a copy of Customs of the Service online for those who are interested.
Holy heck.
As a civilian I knew a little (Mr Vice is not a character in a porn movie) but don't ever pass the port to the right...?!!!
Something to do with one's sword hand perhaps...?

it's eating a sarnie or a roll whilst gripping the poor little thing with both fists that looks uncouth.

As for not standing as a senior enters room, I deprecate the modern practice of priests sidling into the church from the vestry, airily waving a hand "oh do sit down" and then launching into tedious Notices.
Given the purpose of the occasion is solemn, one is left wondering just when to don the solemn rig.
At least an entry by the front door, processing down the aisle, cannot be mistaken for other than "we're off!"

But he lost a war on his watch.....
 

Someone on the Daily Telegraph forum viciously makes the point he should have spent more time (when leading operations) winning these wars rather than whinnying about UK mess etiquette. ie £43 Billion down the drain to lose both Basra and Helmland. I don't agree with that but in the same light can see an argument.
But heck when you read and hear about how City Traders behave, how Lawyers behave I honestly don't think the Armed Forces have that much to worry about really.


Army commander bans sandwiches in attack on 'barbaric habits' - Telegraph


Perhaps more worrying for the good General...the creeping criticism of the militaries conduct in the post wars post mortems.

I believe it was P J O'Rourke who stated that any sandwich that didn't have to be eaten over a sink wasn't worth eating in the first place. I tend to concur, and add that two hands would be required to contain, at least partially, the filling.

And require no less than two pints to wash down?

So I take it a fork is de rigueur when having a good muffin.... :ouch:

It would be appear to be acceptable to be pompous about:

- the location of cutlery,
- the method of wielding them
- his perception of sandwiches being inappropriate

...yet using military abbreviations and avoiding overly simplistic English is pompous and therefore to be avoided? What does he prefer - "big" or "large". Would he rather see "bullets" or "ammunition"?

Manners are important, but that's where it ends.

The General needs a word with himself. GOC 3 Div may be stuck in the 1930s, but the rest of the world isn't.

Sorry, I used a couple of abbreviations!

I always thought the military was the worst for abbreviations.

I remember at Catterick back in the 60s a chap who had been an officer in a smart cavalry regiment who had left under a cloud, somehow or other got himself a commission in the RAF Regiment, which he naively thought would be similar to being in the 17th/21st Lancers.

He discovered that in the mess on a Saturday, afternoon tea and dinner were merged into "high tea" * at around 6pm. He was appalled, stating that he had never heard of such a meal, and invariably went out to dinner on a Saturday night.

Not sure what he would make of the regime these days.

* Not, as is often erroneously assumed, cakes and sticky buns, but a cooked meal of the "mixed grill " type, possibly even accompanied by, horror of horrors, baked beans!