Sweet Revenge: 200 Delicious Ways to Get Your Own Back

disliked me intensely. He disliked the Armoured Corps, cavalry regiments, toffee-nosed subalterns and, for what seemed an eternity, I was subjected to a torrent of abuse - all because I was a junior officer to the Brigadier.
    'Coming to the end of his tirade he challenged me to find and attack his brigade before daylight. Very quietly our host inquired whether this was an order, and the Brigadier confirmed that it was just that. As he was driven off in a drunken stupor, our host came round the castle in an old Bugatti and offered me a lift. His purpose soon became clear when I realised that he was following the Brigadier back to his camp without lights so that I could discover the whereabouts of his brigade. They were in a small wood nearby. All the vehicles were under camouflage netting and there was no sentry on duty. As the Brigadier tumbled into his tent, my host and I returned to my troop. Twelve rather sleepy men started up the tanks and we retraced our tracks to the Brigadier. We surrounded the camp with a trail of diesel oil and, as we drove away, we were confident that the whole brigade was on fire.
    The sweetest part of the revenge was not so much the conflagration, but the hand-written note from the German which awaited me upon my return to camp. It read: "In the event of your court martial, I would be honoured to attend on your behalf to confirm that you were obeying an order to a junior officer." '
    - with thanks to Anthony Snow, the well-respected chairman of Hill and Knowlton (UK) Ltd.
     

     
    A trouper in the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars was on exercise in Germany - his specific duty was to look after the officers' mess tent which was a marvellous affair, equipped for great comfort with furniture and paintings. The officers' latrines were in a tent behind the mess tent, behind which was another tent and the soldiers' latrine was beyond that. Trouper North got into the habit of using the officers' latrines rather than the soldiers'. He also smoked like a chimney and more than once Major Christopher Hanbury warned him that he should not smoke in the latrines, with a merry caution that 'it's neat alcohol down there!' Trouper North still did not desist, however, so between them, a few officers hatched a plot to stop him by pouring petrol down their latrine. Later, they saw North creep in and, a few minutes later, there was an almighty explosion and North was expelled, airborne, followed by a torrent of the latrines' contents. There was, apparently, little hair left on his body. He dutifully made the long journey to the soldiers' latrines in future.

     
    It was common practice among officers in a certain regiment to get their own back on someone by placing a small pebble in the back left hubcap of their car. This would produce a little rattle which, because it was on the far side of the car from the driver, would be almost impossible to trace and would even baffle the garage mechanics to whom the cars were sent.
     

Animal Antics
     

     
    'People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.'
    'Dear Abby' newspaper column, 7 March 1974
     

Animal Antics
     
    'Tiny' is the name of the large stuffed shark which hung in the Food Halls of Harrods for some time as part of the continuing feud between Tiny Rowland and Mohammed Al Fayed. Here Mr Al Fayed, chairman of Harrods, explains the true story of events.
     
    'When Mr Leo Kennedy, a London shipping broker, caught a record-breaking Mako shark off Mauritius something inspired him to telephone me from his holiday hotel offering me the beast. I accepted immediately and arranged for the shark to be placed in the care of a skilled taxidermist and shipped to me at Brompton Road. I knew that, whatever had happened to him in his life, the shark's true destiny now lay ahead of him.
    Checking only to make sure that there was a good likeness, I ordered Tiny to be taken to the Food Halls and suspended over the smoked salmon counter, his new name proudly painted upon the dorsal fin.
    His arrival was widely reported and Tiny soon became a must-see on the list of London attractions. As Mr Tiny Rowland's vendetta ran out of steam and it was clear to everyone that there was no justice to it, so his demands for recompense grew more ambitious. I ignored them. I said, and often repeated, that the only concessions I would ever make were as follows - I would shake Mr Rowland's hand, I would give him a

     
    jolly good lunch and I would take down his fishy namesake from