A Touch Of Class
Oops – no, sorry, I meant a touch of chaos. In fact utter chaos spelled in letters of
fire FIFTY FEET TALL!* For today I set
off extra-specially early, aware that the curse of SNOW had visited the
township of Babylon-Lite (a.k.a. Oldham, if we’re being formal). Anything more than a millimetre of the white
stuff brings Perfidious Albion to a screeching tremulous halt; the good lord
aloft only knows how those countries to the east function. Perhaps they don’t – which is why we aren’t
all being ruled from Przmysl.
Foolish Conrad! Neglectful Conrad! For I had forgotten that there are roadworks
still in the centre of Royton, and we ended up sitting in a traffic clot (like
a jam but bloodier) for twenty minutes.
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| The horror of SNOW! |
Not only that, the previous
bus, or perhaps two, had failed to turn up, so there were football crowds
waiting at each stop, trampling their smaller and weaker members into the
greying slush in their desperation to board the bus and get warm.**
So, the journey that began
at 7:15 ante meridian ended up arriving in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell (or
Manchester to you, if we’re being formal) at 8:50 ante meridian, when it should
have arrived by 8:00. Fortunately for
the other passengers I had my crossword and abridged version of Ivan Maisky’s
diaries to occupy me, or there would have been blood.
How I look forward to
tomorrow!**
|
| No, really, the HORROR! |
“To The Finland Station”
As I have maintained on frequent occasions, exactly how my mind works
is a bit of a mystery to all present, including me. It works, after a fashion, which is good
enough.
So – exactly why “To The
Finland Station” popped up in my mind is a moot point. I wasn’t reading anything about either the
land of the Lapps nor railways, and this was before the enormous volume of snow
arrived. Art?
 |
| There's a joke in there ... |
It’s a summary of
revolutionary history from that of France in the Eighteenth Century to the
arrival of Lenin in Saint Petersburg at the – you may be ahead of me here –
Finland Station. I haven’t read it and
don’t feel inclined to – so –
Why on earth did it pop up
in my head? Answers in the Comments,
please.
|
| I'm not sure I'm persuading you, so - the HORROR of SNOW! |
When Alan Got It Wrong
As you know by now, your humble scribe is a hair-splitting pedant of
the very best/worst variety (depending on your point of view). Who else, for example, reads the ingredient
list on bottles of cosmetics in the bathroom?
And then looks them up to see what they are and what they do? Exactly!
So it is with Alan Moorehead’s
“African Trilogy”. He sums up the rather
dismal end of the Axis in North Africa, summing up their total losses in men as
being of the order of one million, and all for nothing.
Of course your local anorak
couldn’t let this lie without doing a bit of digging, and I discovered that the
actual Axis losses were more like half a million. Which is still rather a lot for what some
people (Ruffians I’m looking at you!) sniffily dismissed as a sideshow.
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| This PoW farm has raised a bountiful crop |
A Flirtation With Current
Affairs (And Politics)
I see that the Beeb’s website has a sidebar entitled “Where Might Trump Go In A Nuclear Attack", which then rather goes off-topic and vents at what it terms "atomic and nuclear warfare".
THEY ARE THE SAME THING!
Just to be clear.
They also advise that you cannot survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead, no matter how better your bunker is built.
Once again, incorrect. This is the reason command centres for the Minuteman missile wings are built of reinforced concrete and buried waaaay underground; to be protected from inbound warheads.
 |
| Thus |
Not to mention NORAD, which is based inside a mountain. If Art will stop mooning about Mara Corday for a moment - Art, it can never work between you -
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| Hard to miss |
As I write, hard to miss, but also pretty hard to destroy, given that 1) it's a mountain and 2) it's made of solid rock. True, you could probably block that tunnel entrance with rubble and debris, which is why they issue everyone inside with a pick and shovel.**
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| STILL HORRIFYING!** |
* None of that metric nonsense here.
** This might be a bit of an exaggeration.
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