"Teribus the most obnoxious poster on this Site" - courtesy of one who styles himself, or herself, "The watcher" - Oooooooooooooo!!!!! Now isn't that just totally ludicrous or what!! Must admit though it did give me possibly the best laugh I've had all year.

The whole thing is dead simple, if you are going to come out with the usual completely outrageous leftist, anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Blair, anti-this, anti-whatever, clap-trap and expect it to be just taken at face value - think again. Provide some form of substantiation for it. You all believe it, you all so vociferously defend it. But for some strange reason, there's never anything to back it all up, when challenged, that stands up to the slightest, most superficial examination. And once that point is reached the personal attacks and insults start flying.

I just can't wait to hear what Akenaton's definition of REAL FREEDOM is. When it comes it might just knock "The watchers" effort (quoted above) off the top spot for laughs of the year. I won't be holding my breath on it. But I do hope that it doesn't involve him daubing his face white and blue in good old Mel Gibson tradition.

Tell me Al, as a teacher, in this "sink" that you describe, and that I, supposedly, am incapable of understanding, did you ever inspire so much a single pupil?

By the bye, the lure of the pit was money, same way as in my area the lure of the mills was money, attractive prospect to a young lad who couldn't be bothered at school, leave at 15 and go and "work and play" with the men. I knew hundreds, but then I was lucky, throughout my time in school/college/university, I was lucky enough to encounter at least one teacher, a remarkable Rector and a Tutor and Lecturer that were all truly inspirational.

Funny that you mentioned Waterloo, because one of those inspirational men had a theory not so much about Waterloo exactly but about Napoleon's so-called 100 days and the Waterloo campaign. he said historically it was like a "Goldfish Bowl". Such a concentrated period of time that had had so much written about it by people who were knowledgable, had been there, and had participated, from all different sides and perspectives. He reckoned that you could teach almost anything from it.

On the game side of things the really odd thing about Waterloo is that Wellington very rarely wins, if ever. In exactly the same way that in gaming the Second World War once Russia is attacked Hitler never wins. I have never gamed Waterloo, we did the Second World War and various seperate campaigns relating to it as staff exercises in training, it was the "Cold War" and maybe they thought we might get something out of it. People training for the last war fought, no not really, it was pretty much accepted that on land, Guderian's tactics in defence would still have held good, particularly taking into account how West Germany had been developed and built up, although Sir John Hackett could explain that much better than I.