Pete Monks

www.maptap.gg October 18 🇬🇧99 🇭🇹100 🇦🇺100 🇯🇵93 🇵🇭99 Final score: 975

www.maptap.gg October 15 🇪🇬100 🇹🇳97 🇺🇸100 🇭🇹99 🇦🇶100 Final score: 994

www.maptap.gg October 14 🇦🇹98 🇮🇸100 🇨🇳100 🇮🇳98 🇧🇷99 Final score: 989

www.maptap.gg October 12 🇺🇸100 🇮🇹97 🇮🇶99 🇸🇮99 🇬🇶96 Final score: 980

Here are the nine books I'll never forget - but to be honest, I probably could have done a couple of these for different categories. Which books would you choose? myninebooks.com/g/750796a079eb

tentpolegame.com Here’s another weekend time waster, together with my first two efforts.

Between stories like this and the reflexive “I stand with BRS” attitude, there’s a lot of really nasty underlying problems with how we think about military service and veterans in Australia at the moment. apple.news/Alk0Ge8JwT5G...

We all know Hegseth was really a terminal O4, but between his ‘cult of the operator’, petty resentments, bigotry and casual viciousness, he really has the opinions and intellect of the worst terminal E4 you have ever met.

Absolutely epic third AFL Grand Final victory in a row by the Brisbane Lions. With four minutes to go I thought Fremantle were going to win it, the last four minutes were incredible.

I finished Anna Funder’s “Wifedom” this week. I was very impressed by “Stasiland” and I found her account of George Orwell’s marriage to Eileen O'Shaughnessy equally compelling and (mostly) convincing. It seems Orwell had a complex private life (derogatory). #histbookchat, #photofriday #booksky.

www.maptap.gg September 25 🇵🇦100 🇦🇺100 🇨🇳100 🇨🇷91 🇦🇷100 Final score: 973

www.maptap.gg September 22 🇬🇧100 🇨🇴100 🇺🇸96 🇻🇳96 🇦🇫100 Final score: 980

www.maptap.gg September 21 🇬🇧100 🇰🇵94 🇬🇭100 🇲🇹100 🇨🇱100 Final score: 994

www.maptap.gg September 17 🇩🇪99 🇳🇱95 🇺🇸98 🇦🇺100 🇦🇿100 Final score: 990

9/11 commemorations again make me wonder why so much of US military leadership has implacable hatred for the IRGC and Quds Force, but Pakistan and ISI supporting the Taliban and sheltering OBL in Abbottabad (I mean, come on now) gets ignored or at best a shrug of the shoulders.

I was re-reading The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski this week . I defy anyone to read this classic account of the court politics and detachment from reality of the twilight years of Haile Selassie’s regime in Ethiopia, and not think of current events. #histbookchat #photofriday #booksky

Just an idle thought, but the next time this happens the Home Secretary could always ask the MoD for a bit of help. There’s a battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles based about 15 minutes drive from Dover - who I expect would be fairly useful in Aid to the Civil Power tasks.

I’m sure all the people concerned about Mamdani attending 9/11 commemorations while being Muslim will have something to say about this selflessly dignified reflection any minute now.

www.maptap.gg September 6 🇮🇹97 🇰🇷100 🇺🇸100 🇦🇷100 🇸🇿98 Final score: 991 I’ve been to the one in Italy, I should have got 100% on it… 🙄

Sicario: Day of the Soldato is mostly fantasy SF operator trash, but… the scene of driving through the desert as the visibility closed in and the Mexican Police initiated the ambush took me RIGHT back to days in Afghanistan where I wondered “is this where our partners kick off the green on blue?”

The Hegseth “vet bro / ‘Department of War!’ / toxic masculinity” faction of MAGA is really banging the “Canadians are woke and soy and we can totally take them” drum, isn’t it? (Never mind that the CAF member pictured is actually hard as nails, though)

anyhumanever.com/life/6237665... New timewaster unlocked.

“The Pike: Gabriele D’Annunzio” by Lucy Hughes-Hallett is this weeks contribution for #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky. This is an excellent book - an equally informative and engaging account of a talented (but vile) figure in Italian history, who was more consequential than I had realised.

Without saying your age, what is your favorite movie that came out when you were 20?

Did I miss the big open letter signed by a hundred academics opposing this?

in a world of JK Rowlings be a Dolly Parton

Haven’t heard much from the “academic freedom for ‘race realists’” crowd on this one yet. I’m sure there will be another petition getting around shortly.

Going straight into my overflowing and jam-packed file of “completely unsurprising and predictable developments”.

I mean, you can see it on the DoD side with Infantry Dort. It's pervasive intellectual collapse where the people involved are pretending that the Dunning Kruger graph is a half-pipe and that they are Tony Hawk.

I'm sorry but it's clearly newsworthy that the President's decisions are being unduly influenced by a mentally unstable obsessive no one voted for who has attached themselves to him in an effort to live out weird fantasies they've had for decades. Something has to be done about Stephen Miller.

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, I’ve just finished “The Gunners: A history of New Zealand Artillery”. It’s a fairly typical British Commonwealth ‘regimental history’-style book, but is well-researched and covers from the 19th-century New Zealand wars to about 10 years ago.

Called this well over 18 months ago. Thinking the absolute worst of anyone involved in the Trump administration and imagining the most venal thing they could do in any given situation hasn’t let me down yet.

This is the best

How have I not seen this amazing thread before?

It’s Vietnam Veterans Day and the anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in 1966, a big day for a couple of units I served wth over the years: 1. 1 Regt RAA, where I served twice (including as BC of 105 Bty) 2. 6 RAR, who I deployed to Timor Leste with 3. Long Tan Coy, RMC, where I was a cadet

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, Brian E Walter’s “The Thin Khaki Line” is a broad narrative overview of the British Commonwealth armies at war in WW2, focused on what formations did. There’s little detail on how these armies evolved or the impact of key personalities, though

Sailor may also have been a big man, tears in his eyes, begging “sir, please keep the steam catapults”

Israelis make up a threat to get Trump frightened and angry at the Iranians? Say it isn’t so.

Two widely acclaimed absolute all-time bangers, and two niche artisanal tweets.

www.maptap.gg August 9 🇺🇸100 🇬🇷100 🇸🇬100 🇹🇭100 🇧🇼100 Final score: 1000 The first four were really easy, to be honest, and I got lucky with the last one

www.maptap.gg August 6 🇺🇸100 🇯🇵100 🇬🇧100 🇮🇶100 🇲🇾100 Final score: 1000 I’m tempted to declare my immediate MapTap retirement now.

www.maptap.gg August 4 🇫🇷100 🇸🇪100 🇵🇱94 🇺🇸100 🇺🇬100 Final score: 988

One of the little pleasures of BlueSky is that I am still rediscovering people I used to follow and interact with back at the old place. It feels a bit like survivors of some cataclysmic disaster reuniting by chance with a “hey, great to see you made it out too!”

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, I’m about halfway through Jeremy Armstrong’s “Early Roman Warfare”, which so far has covered very early Roman history (which I’m not very familiar with at all). It manages to be informative while still open about the unreliability of sources.

www.maptap.gg July 30 🇺🇸100 🇺🇸100 🇦🇹98 🇮🇶98 🇨🇳100 Final score: 990

My Afghanistan war book THE HARDEST PLACE is approaching its four-year anniversary. Since I’ve mostly migrated from Twitter to Bluesky, over the next few months I’m going to recreate here a long thread of photos that many readers have enjoyed scrolling through as an accompaniment to the book.

www.maptap.gg July 24 100🎯 100🎯 99🎯 97🔥 93🏆 Final score: 968