It’s a Dog’s Life
In loving memory
Mike Nicholson MBE
5th November 1943 – 1st October 2026
Mike passed away peacefully at home in the early hours of Thursday 1st October 2026, aged 82.
A Royal Artillery officer who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Mike was appointed MBE in the 1979 New Year Honours for organising the Green Goddess fire engines during the firemen’s strike in the late 1970s, when he was stationed at Larkhill, Wiltshire – an honour he always made light of.
Following retirement, and after successful meetings with like-minded ex-military personnel at The Liberal Club in London, Mike formed the company Forces Business Net. He produced a regular printed newsletter listing vacant positions for ex-military job seekers, and later a website of the same name. After finally winding that operation down, in recent years, The Steam Room became the place where he came to let off steam: recollections, opinions, and the letters the newspapers never printed. His writing remains here for everyone to enjoy, with Frank, his dog, as ever, in charge.
From The Steam Room
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Thoughts that have been universally ignored………………..
Letters to the Press on a wide range of matters fly through the interweb from my PC like rounds from a Multi Launch Rocket System. However if they do reach their intended target there is seldom any reaction and publication rarely results. So it’s back…
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The Sins of the Father
The Sins of the Father It is a pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury has chosen to focus on statues and Jesus’s skin colour rather than on such pressing issues as: FGM, child & forced marriages, starving children in the Yemen and the persecution &…
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From Nursing to National Parks via Rutland
Some recent failed attempts to get my outrageous views published in the MSM are offered below: The Name Game Your Editorial rightly states that Nurses have better things to do than read a 26 page Guide on how to refer to people. A better solution…
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Recent House Moving Experiences
Allow me to offer some thoughts – in brief (I hope): Selling. While I did not mind the lack of continuity in terms of who the Agent sent to show potential purchasers around, I was dismayed at the ignorance of the details by the young…
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From Beckham to the Belligerent Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Evidence suggests that nobody is the least bit interested in my opinions as indicated by this summary of some failed attempts to avoid the Editor of my favourite newspaper’s axe. School Tax Raid In accordance with Labour’s thinking that Somewhere, somehow, someone is better off…
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Missing the Target
Continuing efforts to get letters published in the MSM have not gone well in the last few months. The Editor’s axe has successfully stifled most attempts to be seen in print. Whither the Church of England (CofE) Archbishop Carey’s excellent piece (ST) picks at a…
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Favourite Quotations
NB. Under Construction The joy of quotations is that it allows for the creation of the illusion that one is widely read. [Action still in hand on this post] Absenteeism. The House of Lords “The only institution in the world that can function only by…
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Raven’s British Army (Revised)
Introduction The process of re-reading The Captain – The Life and Times of Simon Raven has prompted some thoughts. It is a book that merits multiple re-readings if only to understand the references to Greek mythology. Unless otherwise stated the quotations offered below are from…
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Parental Influence (in this case on a politician)
Paternal Influence The influence of a father on his progeny in varies. I will leave the reader to decide how much influence William Rees-Mogg brought to bear on his son, based on this extract from The Captain – The Life and Times of Simon Raven. …
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Bad Year With The Media
So far 2018 has not been a ‘good year’ in terms of getting letters published in my favourite newspaper. Could it be that I have chosen to opine about the wrong subjects or that my contributions are simply not up to publication standards. Feel free…