Ready when you are Mr Biglorryblog. "OK everyone quiet on the set...lights....camera and.....ACTION!" BLB is delighted to see that British Forces in Afghanistan are about to get a big welfare boost. SSVC’s giant Movie Machine, a state-of-the-art 80-seat cinema on wheels, is deploying to Camp Bastion in Helmand Province for the thousands of British Forces based there. (And here's a picture of a MM mobile cinema in Sarajevo for you taken in 2004.)
Housed in the largest vehicle which is road-legal, this amazing rig can convert from articulated lorry to plush cinema in just half an hour, with one man driving and operating. The Movie Machine will provide a unique respite for our servicemen and women in Afghanistan who have precious few home comforts. For a couple of hours, they can enter another world, and be transported back to Multiplex back home (though hopefully without the mobile phones, talking,and chomping of popcorn...)
The stylish, comfortably appointed, air-conditioned Movie Machine, which is valued at a whopping £500,000 will provide three screenings a day in Camp Bastion, entertaining up to1680 troops a week. It's only one of only four in Britain and will be flown into Afghanistan on the world’s biggest heavy-lifter aircraft, the Antonov 124.
Forces charity SSVC, which also encompasses BFBS TV and Radio, bought the Movie Machine out of its welfare funds, and the MoD pays the running costs. Meanwhile, the PR blurb says: "So here’s to Atonement in Afghanistan, Sicko in the sand, and Beowulf in Bastion!" Actually I'd have thought that something far more "soothing" would have been the order of the day don't you?
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