Why are parade grounds always called dusty? Muddy would be more to the point. And this choreo . Left, right, turn. Left, right, turn again. So repetitive, it wouldn't hold the attention of a three-year-old. And I don't even want to imagine the music they'd come up with. Though drill is very much like dance practice. Precision, coherence, rhythm…repeat, repeat, repeat once more… and getting yelled at when you get it wrong.

There's a lot of yelling today. Some of the guys didn't sleep well. They're sore from yesterday's training, and it looks as if nobody's ever told them that focussing on the pain only makes it worse. I wish I could explain that distraction is the key to get past all that. When you're scared, when you're tired, when you're cold. When you're hungry because there's never enough time to eat, when your feet hurt worse than your heart… distraction is the name of the game.