Purple Grain

No!  This Is Not Not A Music Pun
Besides which, I cannot stand that preening popinjay Prince.  If he was from the republic of South Canada, why did he aspire to be a member of the aristocracy?  Don't forget, those South Canadian ingrates fought a war to throw off the beneficent and enlightened rule of Perfidious Albion, and then they come up with Prince this, and Count Basie that, and Duke Ellington the other.  I think we should be told!

See what I mean?

     Which has nothing to do with baking.*  And perhaps the 'grain' bit is slightly misleading - okay, that was a complete lie.  In fact there is a complete absence of grain in this instance, because we are talking about the following.  Art?

     This is gluten-free Beetroot Cake batter, and this version is actually rather muted compared to the old recipe I used, which would nearly make your eyes bleed.  This one uses ground almond instead of flour of any description, gluten free or not.  Hence the absence of grain.
     Okay, time to strap the motley into the rocket sled and accelerate it to 150G!

I Hesitate To Say This -
Because Art does have a rather major pash about Mara Corday, and he needs very little to go off-topic, but I am currently watching "Tarantula", one of those class of films that your humble scribe has classified as "Buggers", in that they deal with gigantic bugs.  Art?


     ART!

Phew.  Better.

     Note that the film takes place partly on location in Arizona and California, the latter at a spot entitled Dead Man's Point, which see -

No corpses on view

     I have seen bits of this over the years, yet not the whole film in a single sitting, so I am doing my homework by watching it all at once.** It does feature a lot of great desert cinematography akin to the above, which is worth watching.  Also, the idea of a gigantic spider fifty feet tall is one of your humble scribe's worst nightmares, since he is quite terrified of the ones that come in at normal sized.

Spare Part Salad
Earlier today we mentioned the phenomenon of spare parts for tanks in the armies fighting in North Africa during the Second Unpleasantness.  I described the narrow requirements of the Afrika Korps, and then inferred that the ground forces of Perfidious Albion had a somewhat - shall we say - wider requirement.
     Which is true.  The Western Desert Force, which later became the Army of the Nile, and then the Eighth Army, had a multiplicity of tanks to equip.  If I can't compare thee to a summer's day, I can at least compare Tables of Organisation and Equipment - Art?

A Vickers Mark VI

     I used the above photo years ago in the infancy of BOOJUM! for your information.  That's the Vickers Mk. VI.  You also have to  consider the A9, A10 and A13 cruiser tanks, the Matilda, the Honey, the Crusader, the Valentine, the Grant, the Sherman, the Churchill and - allegedy - a few Vickers Mediums.

A13  

     That's twelve different types of tank, most of which have different designs, requiring different stocks of spare parts to sustain, and because the desert was such a hazardous location for mechanical equipment, you can bet your sweet patootie that they'd need those spare parts.  Or, if your tank was out of action because the Griffin Grommets were polarically spacularised, and you had no fresh Griffin Grommets to substitute - net loss one tank.  A bit of a blow, that, considering Griffin Grommets only cost 1 shilling and thruppence each.


Cotter Pin
Now would be an appropriate time to introduce the Cotter Pin, which Conrad thinks he read about in "Who Goes There", but is not entirely sure as it was about 46 years ago.  Anyway, this is a kind of split metal pin that can be used to join separate objects together.  Art?

The pin

     As you can see, the pin is split longitudinally, enabling it to be poked through a hole and the two separate parts folded back to secure the item.  If Art can stop mooning about Mara for a minute -

Thus

And that's all for tonight.  See you tomorrow!***

*  If you mention 'King Biscuit' I shall shoot you.
**  Watching Fifties sci-fi films for a living.  A dirty job.  But I am willing to undertake it, for your sake.
***  Unless the robots rise in revolt.  Don't sneer, it can happen.