Totally ROC'ing It

No I Have Not Mis-spelled It!
First of all, you are being addressed by the Northern Hemisphere's biggest spelling and grammar nazi, and that by a long way.  People have died for confusing there, their and they're in my presence.
     Anyway, and typically, that's nothing to do with the Intro.  I have finally made Red Onion Chutney, the acronym of which is ROC and once again I have indeed cheated by not putting full stops in an acronym.  I know you'll forgive me because we're such terrific chums.  Art?

NO!  Dammit, where's my Tazer -

 - ah, that's better.

     You can't really tell here because it's all caramelized, but I had to use a normal onion as there weren't quite enough red ones to go around.
     All of this is kind of an Intro to the Intro, because Conrad's mind, rather like a sentient pogo-stick, had already hopped on ahead three places and was wondering about the Roc.  Art, if you mis-picture this it will be a week in the septic sump.

The Roc, with prey for scale

     The Roc, you see, was a gigantic bird of Middle Eastern legends, big enough, so they say, to pick up an elephant and carry it off (see above).  We presume this is a fully-grown African elephant, as anything else just isn't impressive enough.
     Now, in order to carry an elephant, the Roc would have to be the size of Concorde, and it would need to eat an elephant-sized meal daily simply to stay alive.  Thus, a single Roc over the space of a year would finish off whole herds of elephants or rhinos or giraffes.  As for domesticated livestock, a pig or sheep would be no more than an hors d'oeuvres for it.

A camel or bald sheep?  Only you can tell!

     So, as a farmer, how do you prevent Rocs from carrying off your livestock livelihood?  Why, you build a giant decoy elephant full of explosives with a mercury tilt-switch to set it off once those claws pounce.
     Which is why the Roc is extinct*.

"Napoleon's Invasion Of Russia" By Paul B. Austin
I've actually finished this between yesterday's notes and this post, which will not deter me from inflicting my thoughts on you. 
     We are now up to December 7th 1812, on what is formally known as Napoleon's Retreat From Moscow, but which your humble scribe would call Napoleon's Raggedy-Arsed Starving Mob Of Freezing Cossack-Fodder Stagger From Moscow.  Oh, that date is also a tad ominous, isn't it?  However, in the sunny Pacific, December 7th 1941 was a balmy tropical day.  In Tsarist Russia 129 years earlier the temperature dropped to -37.5 degrees centigrade, the coldest night of the entire retreat.  This kind of cold kills people on the spot and is - lest one have the memory span of an amnesiac ant - one of the reasons invading Russia is a Very Bad Idea.  Whilst Nappy may avoid battle with the Ruffian armies, whose generals fear him immensely, he cannot avoid General Winter.

Russia:  Big!  Cold!  Deadly!  Do not enter unless invited!

     Then there's Nappy's personal retreat.  This is actually good sense for an Imperial dictatorship which is centred on a single person - Nappy, do keep up, that's whom I'm referring to.  The whole Napoleonic Empire thing required Nappy to sit in Paris like a spider in a web, pulling the levers of power - yes, yes, this is mixing metaphors but it's MY blog - and sitting on a sledge stranded amongst snowy wastes 50 miles from the nearest toilet doesn't really work.  Ergo - he runs away.
     Typically he has to have a stalking horse suggest he return to Paris to him, as otherwise it would look bad.
     "Look bad"?  I refer you to my first paragraph.

Hot Moscow nightlife?

Keeping It Reel
Kind of.  Edna's leash will rewind automatically if it slackens, so that makes it a kind of reel, okay?  And I pride myself on being a dedicated dogsitter tho' a bit of a bull - 
     - actually I plan to attend the Pub Quiz tonight by abandoning her to her own devices.  Don't worry, Wonder Wifey gave permission.  Otherwise do you think I'd be gloasting about it on here?!
     Anyway, here's a picture from the morning walk:

No doubt smelling something unwholesome

     We went to the park in the afternoon, where she worked off her zoomies:

     And because I took this picture you are going to get to see it, even if I can't think of a clever caption:

Hedging one's pets?

     Jenny, on the other hand, tried to prevent me from making notes in my notebook.  Art?

Sabotage!  Treachery!  Mutiny!

     Finally, here is Edna making use of the "leg nest" position of your humble scribe, stretched out on the settee.

*  This may be a complete untruth.