Reem

Dot Wordsworth asks if Joey Essex knows what 'reem' means.

Five pounds right here says he doesn't.

(Soldiers know what 'to ream' (sic) means. They even have a tool for it. Ahem.)

Base humour(?)

[source redacted]

Exit, fucked by a bear

and other sweary animal-kingdom revelations, from Rufus Lodge, in Slate.

Why there is no contemporary war poetry - nailed!

Poetry at its best says something about the human condition, often in relation to death, and the poets of WWI were serious writers operating at the very limit of human experience, sending back first-hand literary reports. It's difficult to imagine an equivalent situation ever occurring again, at least in the West. Most of the poets I know would think twice before setting a mouse-trap, let alone enlisting for active service,* and I don't have the subscription figures in front of me but I'd guess that readership of Poetry Review amongst Her Majesty's Armed Forces is pretty low.

- Simon Armitage, The Not Dead (introduction)

--
* As if to prove this point, Armitage refers (in 'Warriors') to 'the bun-line' - which has never been a military term, whatever any number of military personnel may try to tell you. (He/it/they mean 'bund-line', from an Indo-European word meaning earthworks, or dyke.)

Also, extraordinarily (in 'Albion'), 'sleighing [sic] the dragon'...

Keystroke twins - 17 / Squaddie banter VI

Army
crow*

--
* this one, I confess, may have slightly more resonance(s) for those who are actually in the Army... All readers, though, may delight in the peculiarly military quality of the word's etymology and/or definition, as provided by UrbanDictionary.com!

Squaddie banter V

Broadening the mind is for gays.

- Henry Campbell-Ricketts, gentleman trooper

Squaddie banter IV

You've gotta approach these things with an err of caution.

- anon.

Ulysses, reviewed (or, Squaddie banter III)

I heard Germaine Greer say it was the greatest book ever written and vowed then never to find out.

- Charles 'Chucky' Stephenson, illiterate

Squaddie banter UPDATE

The best thing about the Urban Dictionary's entry (so to speak) for 'squaddy mattress' is that the examples are so clearly verbatim.

(Discuss.)

Squaddie banter (or, Wednesday nights in Weymouth)

- Still, it beats 'being a prefect' as a highlight on your CV.
- I wasn't made a prefect.
- Oh dear. Did one biff up in one's Latin grammar?
- Nah, we never done Latin.
- ...