On 20 June, 10:42, Ian Jelf wrote:

Sorry for the ambiguity.

No worries. In 1972-3 when I worked for the Ordnance Survey as a
surveyor's assistant, we kept in the Bedford Beagle an implement known
as "the slasher", and part of my duties consisted of having at the
vegetation which covered whichever spot Old Cliff the surveyor wanted
me to designate with the staff. Considering that sometimes we were
using survey points from the Somerset County Series the leafy woody
twiggy stuff could be fairly thick. While I was doing this he would
stand by the Kern Self Reducing Tacheometer smoking his pipe and say
how he hadn't needed a slasher in the Western Desert in 1942. You'd
look a bit suspicious wandering around Hampstead with such a tool
however.