My life is one long oblique strategy

Soundtrack - Message from the Border - Orlando Gough

I have a beat up old book, which I rescued from the skip when they cleared out our school library. It is called RAF parade, a compilation of short jokes, longer anecdotes and many cartoons of the RAF during the war. Apparently it is one of about 10 wartime humour books compiled by S Evelyn Thomas all with Giles covers. There is one piece in it about going round an airfield trying to find out what puts the 'It' in 'Spit (as in Spitfire). The language describing the icy wastes of the outer edges of an airfield in winter is worthy of high literature; in my mind, I can see the flapping tarpaulin hastily thrown over the parked aircraft to keep out the ice and hear the distant clatter and buzz of the hangars.

How nostalgic does that make you feel for rations? I had another of those moments of never having had to spell a word before. I could not spell 'rations'. Am I aphasic? At least I remembered how to spell that.