User:Ian Rose

Coordinator Emeritus at Wikiproject Military History

"You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." -- Jean Renoir, The Rules of the Game

"England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war." -- Winston Churchill on the Munich Agreement

"Thank God I'm still an atheist." -- Luis Bunuel

"My dear Rikki," Karellen retorted, "it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!" -- Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End

"The Englishman sighed softly, as if slightly puzzled by the ability of Man to complicate unnecessarily his own existence here on earth." -- Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here -- this is the War Room!" -- President Merkin Muffley, Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove

A day in the Desert Air Force, North Africa (to commemorate Remembrance Day 2018)
Life in these squadrons is queer, unreal and unnatural. The guard comes and makes a noise outside the ambulance (where four of us sleep) at 0600 (six o'clock). Turn over. Crawl out at 0615, pull on a sidcot and boots. Tramp to personal aeroplane, start up, taxi out into formation, and off for an hour or two's dicing with the Teuton.
On the deck again, over to operations room for comparison of notes with the rest of the team. Have breakfast, bully beef and tea. Back to operations to find out the general position, "12 aircraft on 15 minutes available". Wait around operations room. Word comes via telephone—"6 aircraft to 5 minutes readiness, 6 to 2 minutes standby". I am in the "standby" team. Into the aircraft and taxi to end of runway, listen to radio for instructions, sit there in cockpit for one-and-a-half hours, then message comes through "12 aircraft back to 15 minutes available". Disperse aircraft. Retire to operations room, a patrol is ordered for 1400. Have lunch, bully and tea. Off again on patrol and back at 1600. After the usual confab, retire to mess tent. More food at 1730, bully and tea!
Message received, squadron is released until 0830 (8:30 in the morning). Faint cheer from pilots, sergeant pilots and officers in the same tent (most unprecedented this but active service must make a lot of difference). The boys retire to bivouacs, tents—and the ambulance. Bombs are dropping somewhere around (we don't care). Climb into the bed-roll, after taking off sidcot and boots. Sleep.
I'll see you soon I hope.
—Flight Lieutenant Ian Rose, No. 450 Squadron RAAF, letter home dated 11 December 1941

Wikipedia projects/roles

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates -- Coordinator
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history -- Coordinator Emeritus and co-editor of The Bugle newsletter

Please feel free to ask me for information or assistance about these.

Personal

About me

From bayside Russell Lea in Sydney, Australia; CIO for a major Australian IT firm (who hasn't forgotten how to program, let me hastily add); co-host of the Monday morning breakfast show on a Sydney community radio station; an abiding interest in film, music, history and travel; son of RAAF pilot Ian and model Betty; married to the beautiful Diana; owned by three cats and one lovable labrador, Cindy-Lea.

Where I've stayed

Year/s: Australia Croatia France
Month/s: England Germany (including West Germany before the Wall came down) Spain United States
Week/s: Austria Belgium Egypt Greece Israel Italy New Zealand Switzerland Turkey
Day/s: American Samoa Bosnia and Herzegovina Canada Czech Republic Denmark Hungary Japan Montenegro Netherlands Portugal Scotland Slovenia South Africa (pre-1994) Sweden
Hours: Mauritius Mexico Monaco Palestine Singapore Vatican City

Australia: Perth * Rottnest Island * Adelaide * Melbourne * Canberra * Hobart * Wollongong * Sydney * Gosford * Newcastle, New South Wales * Taree * Armidale * Grafton, New South Wales * Coffs Harbour * Ballina, New South Wales * Lennox Head, New South Wales * Gold Coast, Queensland * Brisbane * Ipswich, Queensland * Noosa Heads * Townsville * Cairns * Nhulunbuy * Darwin, Northern Territory

Wikipedia history

Why I'm here

Why do I read - and contribute to - Wikipedia ? Like Everest, because it’s there, i.e. on the Web and free and solicitous of contributions. Also because of its strong focus on art and culture, particularly modern/popular art and culture. Where else do you find more on David Bowie than you do on Beethoven? Don’t get me wrong, I think Beethoven deserves all the coverage he gets but I can find a decent article on him in Britannica – unfortunately can’t say the same of Bowie in that august journal... My main projects are or have been (see sections below for status):

rectifying the (once) lamentable lack of articles on Gary Numan recordings
adding/expanding articles on David Bowie recordings and associated artists such as Iggy Pop
expanding articles on early Roxy Music recordings
adding/expanding articles on John Foxx and early Ultravox recordings
adding/expanding articles on Fad Gadget recordings
cleaning up and filling the occasional gap in other artists' representation
working with the Australian military history task force, primarily on RAAF articles
helping out at WikiProject The Rolling Stones
helping out on aviation accident articles

However, the beauty (or curse) of a project like this is that roads lead everywhere so you never know where I might pop up...