Privates on Parade

We don’t often big up our magnificent pictures team. To be honest with you, generally, we think they concentrate on the pictures side of things because they’re unable to string a sentence together, and were turned down for a job at Maccy D’s. But occasionally, they do something so brilliant, even by their standards – that we just have to congratulate them. Today is such a day.

If you are a hemp-weaving, sandal-wearing, mung-bean-munching, dyed-in-the-wool Guardianista, you will be aware that each day, the Guardian saves its centre pages for one enormous, striking, magnificent image. And today, that image is one of our own.

The picture shows marines larking about in a break from rehearsals for their passing out parade at the Commando Training Centre, Lympstone, Devon. They feature in a Channel 4 series, Royal Marines: Commando School, starting on Channel 4 on Monday 14 July at 9pm.

The picture was taken by Ryan McNamara, and commissioned by Nathalie Mohoboob, the person with the most o’s in her surname I have ever met.

Well done, guys. Take between 3:20pm and 3:24pm off.