Licence To Nil

Some Contests Are Inherently Unequal

A CV33 versus a Matilda, The Comsat Angels versus U2, a stickleback versus a pike - all egregiously biased one way or another.  So too is the equation "Car versus tree" because, if we're talking a mature deciduous that probably weighs a couple of tons and has a root network that extends out for thirty yards both vertically and horizontally, anything travelling at less than ninety miles per hour and massing less than two tons which impacts said tree itself is going to be the loser.  Art!

Tree 1 Car 0

     Thus we come to our Darwin Award Wannabe of 2020.  I must caution all those who dwell beyond the shores of South Canada that the local news station URL cannot be viewed by non-South Canadians; I know because I've tried umpteen times and only ever get an insincere-sounding apology on their webpage.  Dog Buns yer eyes, WKBN news!  Art!

     Actually this picture isn't bad, thanks to Google and Snip, and shows (I think) the later crime scene.  Our story begins when the un-named female driver discovered her car door wouldn't close and lock.  Rather than delay her journey by taking it to a 'shop' for remedial repair work, she decided to 'double-down' and improvise a means to keep it shut.  Which she did by  -

     - holding it closed with her hand.  Since this is South Canada we are talking about, she'd be holding it closed with her left hand, whilst driving with her right, and - again assuming South Canadian driving habits hold true - she was driving an automatic, so no need to bother messing about with the gearstick.

     Splendid!  Hooray!  South Canadian improvisation saves the day!  This is the spirit of the people who rebuilt the White House after we Brits burned it down.

     Except no.

     

More like this, I'm afraid

     You see, she either forgot to put on her seatbelt or decided to forgo it, because what can possibly go wrong?  

     Falling out of the car is what can go wrong.  She ended up injured on the roadway whilst her car continued on and into the (rather modest) tree shown above, upon which incident various neighbours appeared, to enquire what was going on?  Our doughty protagonist ignored their requests for information, got back into the car and drove home, hoping that it was all a bad dream

     Alas no.  Examine that second photograph closely.  You will see that she left her car's front bumper AND HER LICENCE PLATE behind at the crime scene.  With this evidence the cops were able to track her down, charge her and also take her to hospital.  WKBN, the local news affiliate, thoughtfully left her name out of their coverage.  Sheila Laura Anna Mercer?

Probably a close relative of hers

     Bear all this in mind when driving, folks, because unless you are behind the wheel of the Triphibian Tactical Tree-crusher, you will always come off worse.

CAUTION!  poor gas mileage

     Now, can the motley do better than a car versus tree, if we give it a stout helmet and fire it from a cannon?  Let's find out!

Let's Be Cheaty 

Yes, it's time to once more answer the questions that "The View From The Turret" put up on 22/06/2021 and which Conrad has already confessed to being pretty useless at.  It's because I specialise historically in the First and Second Unpleasantnesses, you see, whereas TVFTT covers several thousand years.  Okay, bring on the first question.

Q6) Was the South Canadian M8 'Greyhound' armoured car used by the Teutons in the Second Unpleasantness?

A)  Conrad would say "Yes" because the Teutons were acquisitive little goblins, who would seize and use anything they got their hot sweaty hands on.  Art!

     This is an M8, unarguably in Teuton service, complete with a rather sullen-looking crew.  This brings us to the issue of Teuton "Beautepanzer" which were acquired from other nations, usually after being blitzkrieged into surrender - a whole other topic that would take weeks to cover.

     I'll give myself a mark for this one.

Q7)  Which British general was given the nickname "Gentleman" in the <shudders> American Revolutionary Unpleasantness?

A)  General John Burgoyne, it seems.  Before his involvement in horrid military matters, and afterwards, he was a very successful dramatist, and was enough of a gentleman not to pen an apology about his military career in South Canada.  Well well.  Art!

John, doing his Dennis Price impersonation

     Q8)  Which South Canadian general was known as "The Reluctant Warrior"?

     A)  Conrad can only guess at this one, but would have to say one of the less capable and dynamic Union generals in the American Civil Unpleasantness?  General Hooker or similar?

General Mcclellan

     He was a bit of a plonkoid.  When he outnumbered his opponents four to one, he imagined them outnumbering him by two to one.  If it was possible to run away, he ran, at the very head of the retreaters.  One of those generals who are immensely reluctant to risk their ever-so-precious hide.  The Union got rid of him in late 1862.  O if only he had been around in the Revolutionary Unpleasantness!

Conrad Is ANGRY!  O SO ANGRY!  EVER SO ANGRY!

For yes, we are back on Codeword solutions once again.  SIT BACK DOWN!  I've got a rant to get through, which you can just put up with.  Once again, whose blog is it?  Precisely.

"NEXUS": I wouldn't have brought this up were it not by coincidence also the name of one of my favourite comic book series, as created by Rude and Baron.  Art?

     I have a partial collection, which I ought to go tabulate and correlate, because it's about time I completed it and then read it end-to-end in order.

     O - and yes, Codeword compilers BAD!  How many people out there have a collection of these comics and can thus solve the problem?  Not many I bet.

     Now for

Finally -

Yes, I bet you didn't anticipate the sweet relief of Conrad's Frothing Nitric Ire being brought to an abrupt conclusion, did you?  We're stopping here as otherwise the blog would be 5,000 words long, 4,000 of those being a violent tirade about Codewords that would risk bringing MI5 to the front door.  We have quite enough to worry about with those nosy parkers UNIT and Spectrum without bringing in more snoopers.

     See you tomorrow*!

*  Zombie Apocalypses and Robot Rebellions permitting

Gloomy Sunday

Proof That This Sceptred Isle's Weather Is A Lottery

After torrential rain this morning and again this afternoon, Your Humble Scribe ventured forth with Edna Wunderhund when it was dry yet still overcast, except it began to rain immediately we set out.  Then it stopped.  I declined my usual walk into Royton and instead took the car, thankfully, because as I darted to and from the Ratmobile there was torrential rain, which would have caught me in mid-walk.  Then, half an hour ago the skies were blue again and Wonder Wifey made noises about taking Edna for another walk.  Conrad, considerably less trusting, put his wet laundry in the tumble-drier; a wise precaution as the clouds now form a Uniform Grey Layer.  It's going to rain again soon, and when it does we shall get a tremendous downpour followed by ceaseless hours of steady rain.  And all the while the temperature remains high.  Art!

In other countries, a charming pastoral scene.  In the UK, an invitation for hypothermia

     Enough of our perpetual ice-breaker of a topic!  We are here to create a short, content-light collection of links to past posts, not go on about the rain, because we're already about a fifth of the way to a normal Compositional Ton <sighs mournfully in a much-put-upon fashion>.  Let the links begin:

2020

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2020/07/ah-good-old-korean-satire.html

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/07/taglets.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/07/you-lose-krasnaboos.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/07/oh-irony.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/07/its-july-4th.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/07/im-from-iowa-i-only-work-in-outer-space.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/07/colour-conrad-confused.html

2013

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-didnt-know-that.html

It's Been A While

Since Bus Posters Proved A Source Of Content Creation

After all, with no cinemas open, why would film companies bother to promote their product?  THIS IS EXTREMELY SELFISH AND THEY ARE NOT TAKING BOOJUM! INTO CONSIDERATION <ahem> The dearth of same seems to be almost over now, as every other bus going past now sports a big, bright banner lauding "Fast And Furious 19" and if Art will oblige -

     Conrad has to confess he's got absolutely no idea what this franchise is about: it seems to consist of cars, shooting, more cars, things blowing up and yet more cars.  No wonder the acting <coughcough> linchpin of this series is a man named Diesel.  It will probably cease when Mister Diesel decides he wants to do Shakespeare*.

     ANYWAY back to films on bus posters.  This now allows Conrad to do a BOOJUM! Film Review, and as it's been so long, allow me to explicate our rigidly-applied guiding principles (which may also be immediately abandoned if we feel like it):  1)  We go off the film's title; 2) we generalise wildly; 3) We may capitalise after punctuation or not, depending on how we feel.  art!**

How to restrain cats the Mark Kermode way!

     Go look up reviews from Ol' Mark above if you want a proper film review.  Let the biased badinage begin!

"Black Widow": nOPE**.  We all know what a massive coward Conrad is, and also how unreasonably entirely justifiably terrified he is of spiders.  What, is this a two-hour documentary on the horrid eight-legged fiends?  Possibly not, I note that there is also a human female off in the corner of the poster.  Art?

     Don't tell me, her super-power is being able to transform into a black widow spider six feet tall weighing a hundred and eighty pounds?  Well okay, I think that would cause any bad guys to instantly surrender and require fresh underwear.  What if her powers went wonky?  There she is in the queue at Starbucks, ready to pay for her Double Decaff Mocha Pumpkin Weasel-Poop Latte and - Hay Pesto! suddenly she's a spider.  Cue panic flight of customers.  Also, she'd drop the coffee - spiders not having mutually opposable digits.

"Your Honor":  It really, REALLY grates with Your Humble Scribe to use the incorrect South Canadian spelling here, yet since that's what's on the bus poster it's what we have to use here.  Sticklers for accuracy and all that.  Art!

<imagine the sound of teeth being gritted very hard indeed>

     Conrad is taking a calculated guess here, that this is about a judge in the South Canadian judicial system?  Because there are lots of different types of courts over there - no we're not going to make cheap sporting puns here - presided over by various breeds of judges.  One thing I have learned from my  watching countless "Legal Eagle" Youtube videos is that the presiding judge in a court is The Big Dog.  When they say jump, you imitate an Olympic pole-vaulter.  And as Devin only half-jokingly asserts, when the judge makes a joke, you laugh.  Whenever they castigate, compliment, denigrate or eulogise, they do it in deliberately understated language.  

     No idea about the program itself.

"Space Jam: A New Legacy": Hmmmm Conrad only caught this in a passing glimpse and thought it said "Special Jam", immediately conjuring up thoughts of Turkish Delight or Blueberry & Banana flavours - sadly no.  How about Bubblegum flavour jam?  Persimmon Jam? actually I've made that myself and it is so cloyingly sweet and full of so much sugar only thinking about it is practically bringing on a diabetic coma.

     O the film?  Art!

The sequel nobody asked for

     Conrad saw the first one when it came out and cannot remember a single thing about it, merely that it was an exercise in failing to be funny.  Throwing a lot of Looney Tunes characters does not automatically make a film funny.  

     O that high-pitched whining noise emanating from Hollywood?  Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Mel Blanc all spinning in their graves at 1,200 r.p.m.

     Well I think that's enough critical roasting for one post, especially since those inconsiderate swine at First Bus haven't put up any new posters.

     Motley!  Time to play Which Whack-a-Mole Is The Booby-Trapped One - it might be tNT** or it might be tetrodotoxin, who knows ...

Time For More Astronomy

Another shortlisted photograph from the list of hopefuls wanting to claim the prize and all that goes with it - er - which is probably a nice trophy and a warm fuzzy feeling rather than countless millions of your national specie.  Art!

"Harmony" by Stefan Lieberman

     This is a photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as taken in a lavender field in France - one hopes young Stefan got the farmer's permission - and is the kind of image you can only get when well away from civilisation, otherwise the light from towns and cities would drown it out.  You can see why the ancient Greeks called it "galaxias" for "Milky".

     I was going to hold forth on the solutions for a Codeword, which would doubtless go on too long and cause us to exceed the Compositional Ton and then some - so we shall have that unalloyed pleasure tomorrow.  Meanwhile -

Strange And Exotic Machineries Of Mayhem

Yes, we return to 'Magicfingers' and his website "With The British Army In France And Flanders" which is rather a misnomer -

     - dog Buns**, a 409 went past and it's poster was - "Your Honor" again!

     - as he also deals with other armies, most recently the Italians.  We've already mentioned their discus-shaped hand-grenade, the Lenticolare M14.  Well, as with all armies of the First Unpleasantness, the Italians were always looking at ways to hurl their explosive ordnance further than the muscles of mere mortal men  managed, and so -

Taken from:

http://thebignote.com/2021/06/27/italian-hand-grenades-of-the-great-war-part-one-the-lenticolare-m-14-other-tales/#more-47632

     I hope Magicfingers doesn't mind me re-using his photograph, as it's the only one of this device I can find.  The link to his article above.  Anyway, as he points out, this weapon is almost unique in using centripetal force to launch a bomb - seen being inserted in the first picture.  As can be seen from the second, you cranked the handle on the other side once the bomb had been inserted, and centripetal force threw it from the barrel once it became vertical.  This means your bomb arrives with absolutely no warning as there is no explosive action involved, which must have meant many a startled Austro-Hungarian soldier on the receiving end.

Italian soldiers, French helmets

Finally -

Not exactly looking forward to either my constitutional nor walking Edna, as the weather here in the Pond Of Eden is muggy, overcast and with intermittent torrential  downpours where the Atlantic unloads from the heavens.  We may have to re-christen it the Second Pacific, it being so friendly that it always comes to visit ...

*  Or - Booth Tarkington!

**  See?

Stone Me, The Drama's Mine!

Ha! The Perils Of Punctuation

There hasn't really been any great drama today, unless you count the cat that stopped on the opposite side of the road to warily watch Edna and myself as we took a constitutional.  Hardly the stuff of exciting discourse.

     No, what I really mean is a liquid called "Dramamine", which seems to be the most peculiarly inappropriate label possible.  Art!

Variant name

     Also -

     The reason I bring this up is that, in the first season intro to "Better Call Saul", we see our favourite sleazy attorney pouring himself a glass of spirits, which he tops up with tonic water and - Dramamine.  Which is supposed to combat the effects of nausea, and would thus be better titled "Dramaless" in my opinion.  Your Humble Scribe is willing to bet folding money that there are contra-indications if you consume this chemical on the back of a pint of whisky, O yes indeed!

     That's not all.  Since it's a chemical compound, it can be marketed under different names, one of which is - Art!

     Well well well, I bet patients have to be persuaded pretty hard to consume by mouth what sounds like a handful of stones.  Picture the scene:

CORONER: We pronounce a verdict of death by misadventure.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Can you explain why the decedent weighed over 195 pounds at the time of their death, yet was only 120 pounds when treatment began?

CORONER: Yes.  Their physician prescribed a Gravol per day.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Gravel?

CORONER: Yes, that's what they thought, too.

     Motley, we're going to test this Dramamine stuff.  Just neck a handful of tablets and we'll send you on a 36-hour non-stop rollercoaster ride.     

Testing to destruction!

Gastroliths

Swallowing stones deliberately is not a valid biological choice for Hom. Sap. although there are animals that carry out this odd act for perfectly sensible reasons.  The stones are known as "Gastroliths" because "Stomach Stones" isn't cool enough and biologists and paleontologists do so love to spit out Latin whenever they get the chance.  Art!

From a Pleisosaur

The idea is that a stomach full of stones is better able to crush and separate the ingested elements of an herbivore's diet, all the more essential if said animal doesn't have efficient grinding, chewing teeth.  The defeated food is then shunted further down the bowels for processing, at which point this item can end, as we're NOT going into the subject of coprolites.

     There will now be a short break whilst I go lay in some beer*.  Please be patient.

Remember Gunpowder?

Of course you do!  A mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and potassium nitrate, all mixed together.  Not stuff to mistreat since there are various ways to set it off.  A few days ago the South Canadian police in Los Angeles were impounding almost a ton of illegal fireworks, the major component of which would have been gunpowder.  Art!

     This is the truck they were being loaded into.  It's unclear what's what in the cargo bay and whether there's a sealed-off section behind the cab.  Notice that there's no roof; in case of accidental explosion the idea would be to direct the energy from same upwards as much as possible, rather than confining it and having it omni-directional.  Art!

     When it went BANG.  Remember, gentle reader, that gunpowder can be detonated thanks to static electricity, not simply a naked flame.  There doesn't seem to be any flame source, so - it may have been a spark caused by friction.  The explosion destroyed the truck, injured 17 people and wrecked nearby cars and houses.  No information has been released about where the explosives were being stored; judging by the overhead drone footage this is a residential neighbourhood, so the consequences of a ton of gunpowder going off in someone's shed is sobering indeed.

     How very grim.  Let us immediately change to lighter and frothier matters - Lithium Wafer Battery Design Astronomy Photographer Of The Year!

APOTY

I can't be bothered to type that out every time the title or subject comes up, so make do with that.  Art!

     This is the Dolphin's Head Nebula, as taken by Yovin Yahathugoda.  It's less dramatic appellation is Sh2-308, which has absolutely no poetry about itself.  What is it?  A shell of gasses that were blown off the outer layers of that bright star in the middle, which now form a cosmic bubble 60 light years across.  Radiation gives the hydrogen in the nebula it's nice blue colouring.

     FYI still further, it was created about 70,000 years ago, at a time when your our ancestors were learning to scrawl painted daubs on cave walls.  At some point it will go supernova, so if you are both immortal and interested in astronomy you may see it go BANG.

A Quart In A Pint Pot

Conrad is not sure he heard right as the gin had flowed in rivers and the window was open, meaning a lot of traffic noise, BUT he is almost sure he heard the following mentioned during a list of the vehicles booked to appear at the "We Have Ways" festival in September: "A seventeen-pounder porteë".

     Hmmmm.  First of all, allow Your Humble Scribe to explain what a 'portee' was.  This was a bit of Perfidious Albion's kit during the war in North Africa, where an anti-tank gun was mounted on the back of a lorry for mobility.  Art!

     It was possible to fire from the back of the truck, although the idea was to dismount the gun and move the portee out of the way, thus minimising the gun as a target.  This was rarely done, making the portee a large and vulnerable target.  That above is the two-pounder version.  There was a six-pounder iteration - Art!

     I have never heard of nor seen a seventeen-pounder portee, and strongly suspect none ever existed, as the seventeen-pounder was an enormous gun which would have needed an equally enormous lorry.  Art!

With puny humans for scale

About the right size

Finally -

The orgy of book-buying has been a little slow in getting going, since Jonathan Ware's "Jocks, Dragons And Sospans" is unavailable anywhere, not even on Abebooks.  One presumes the hardback edition has sold out it's print run, yet not quickly enough to justify either a re-print or an early appearance of the paperback.  I will persevere, gentle reader, I will persevere!

*  Not like that! <mutters despairingly>

I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

Just A River Or Two Will Do

Besides which, I don't want to be a successful world dictator when said world is a glowing cinder, do I?  You don't find that many people vying to become ruler of Mordor, either, despite the best efforts of their Tourist Board*.

     ANYWAY We are back with Cuyahoga and it's River, which as you ought to remember runs through the South Canadian industrial city of Cleveland.  Art!

     This is the Cuyahoga in 1967, being turned a rather hellish shade of scarlet.  Now, those of us not living in South Canada might think "Yuck!" and quite rightly so.  The Clevelanders, however, had a rather different take on things: to them industrial pollution meant all things industrial were booming, lots of $$$ were being made, industry caused pollution so what was the rest of the world's problem?

     SO glad you asked!  The phrase "O no, the river is on fire!" gives you a clue, as does the phrase "O no, the river is on fire - again!".  This, need I add, is not  a phrase you expect to hear often, if at all.  Art!

Just another day in downtown Cleveland

     The statistics are open to question according to whom you refer, but the river had caught alight at least 14 times, conflagrations that ranged from minor nuisances to multiple deaths and property damage in the millions.

Smoke on the water?

     The main culprit for all these infernos were petroleum by-products, which were simply pumped into the river.  There were other toxic compounds in there as well, which would see off even the hardy riverside rat population.  Art!

Extremely unwise!  Imagine living life one-handed.

     The fire of 1969 (Number Fourteen, in case you weren't keeping track) is now seen as the final wake-up call, after which the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency arrived on the scene and began to legislate against pollution.  Since industry in Cleveland had declined in the Sixties, the locals were no longer happy about trading job security for a river of rancid rot.  Art!

Cuyahoga today

     Swings and roundabouts.  All the toxic chemicals are gone, which means that there are lots of micro-organisms such as Clostridium now present, without the chemicals to keep them in check.  At least they don't spontaneously ignite.

     Right, motley, I've got a drum of Brent Crude here, let's tip it into the swimming pool and see if we can set it alight!

Colour Radio

Bear with me on this one.  Okay, Your Humble Scribe was listening to "We Have Ways -" and Ol'Jim was bruiting about an artwork he'd been gifted by Keith Burns

NO!  No, Art, no.  

     - whom is an artist Jim had been working with on Ladybird books AND NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CUYAHOGA FIRES OKAY ART.

Art by Keith

     From what I can see, and from what Jim said, Keith has done lots of work for comics, especially "Johnny Red" and seems to specialise in aviation art, which is apt enough for Johnny as he flies a red aeroplane**.  Recall, if you will, that artist who did all the box art for Airfix kits, lots of which were for aircraft; a niche market perhaps, yet there's always a market for it.  Art!

Keith probably autographing; you can't tell me he did all that with one pen

     ANYWAY back to that gifted artwork - Jim had asked for British soldiers of the Second Unpleasantness in action, the only stipulation that IT MUST HAVE A P.I.A.T.!  You know, that uniquely British military offspring of a drainpipe and a spring-loaded spike.  Art!

Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank

     The reason I put that up is because - obviously! - none of the listeners could see what the drawing was, although Jim and Al were concerned with the helmets depicted, thinking they looked too much like Teuton Fallschirmjager helmets and not the traditional British Brodie-pattern helmet.  Hmmmm.  Art!

     That's one of the British helmets in limited use from (I think) late 1944 and it definitely doesn't look like a Brodie.  There's also the British paratrooper helmet.  Art!

     This is all moot until or unless we ever get to see the picture itself.  I have just Tweeted WHWOMYT to ask if it can be put up on display.  We shall see.

Let's Have Another Contender For Astronomy Picture Of The Year

I know what you're thinking: 'The elderly dotard seeks to avoid creating new content by relying on the input of others', to which I would reply "Exactly!" because anything that takes the heavy lifting out of the ceaseless search for creativity is welcome.  Besides, it's not as if you have to pay to read this.  Art!

     This one is an aurora over the Ruffian city of Murmansk, caused by charged particles from the Sun reacting with the magnetosphere, usually only visible in the higher Northern latitudes.  Murmansk itself is above the Arctic Circle, thus a prime contender for aurorae.  Art!

     Original photograph by Vitaly Novikov.  Conrad can't help thinking it looks like the Ruffian equivalent of the Bat Sign.  "Commissioner Valenkov?  We've put up the Super Slav Sign.  All we can do now is wait."  "And pray.  We're allowed to do that now.  Curse whoever is stealing our ships!***"

Doing A Bit More Cheating

Back to that quiz put up by "The View From The Turret" which will have had answers posted by now.  Conrad, however, ever one to be perverse, is jolly well going to look them up himself, so Hah!

Q4) Whom did Alfred the Great defeat at the Battle of Etheldun?

A)  Well, if Ethel were dun, I'd guess - Ethel?  Rather a stab in the dark.  Go on, then. 

     O it was "Ethandun".  And Alf crushed the Great Heathen Army.  Art!

A photograph probably not taken in 878 AD

Q5)  What was the destiny of Swedish tanks from 1937 and 1938?

A)  Er - to be used as offshore seed point for coral reefs?

     Ah, it seems they were only used for training.  Art!

Finally -

Conrad generated a few brownie points and 2,000 steps by taking Edna for a trot, since the rains are holding off at present.  It looks as if the deluge may start any second now, which had the added value of 1) not happening and 2) keeping other dog-walkers indoors.

     And with that we are definitely done!

*  Widely acknowledged as one of the hardest jobs going

**  Hurricane?  Spitfire?  Lagg 3?  Conrad unsure.

***  If this ever makes it to television I want royalties.

Armoured Underpants Ahoy!

First Of All -

WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS YOU DISGUSTING CREATURES! There, I thought I'd get that in first just in case your baser natures came to the fore, as they so often do.  In fact Conrad is unaware if such a thing as armoured underpants exist.  One hesitates to Google for such an item as we all know what will pop up.  O well, taking one in the search for truth -

     These are made of silver fibres and loudly claim to be "EMF shielding" although how you shield against Electro-Motive Force is a moot point.  Perhaps they want to imply "EMR" for "Electro-Magnetic Radiation" but dare not say it because that would be lying.  Conrad is more in the market for underwear that is fang-proof, because ONCE AGAIN the Coincidence Hydra has been preying on my nethers.

     "How so, O snowy-haired word-wielder?" I hear you query.  Well -

     Yesterday, in a complete tangent to a tangent, I came across the name "Booth Tarkington", whom it seems was a big thing in South Canadian literature back at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, for a couple of decades.  He even went on to serve as either a Senator or the other brand of SC politician - the distinction outside their shores is fuzzy - for a term.

     He may have been a big fromage in South Canada - I'd never heard of him.  Which is what matters here.

     Then, whilst watching "Better Call Saul", we have a bit of comedic banter between Jimmy and the taciturn and misanthropic Mike Ehrmentraut.  ART!

     Jimmy, naturally effervescent, calls Mike "the man in the booth" and then goes on to riff about "John Wilkes Booth" (the infamous assassin of President Lincoln) and "BOOTH TARKINGTON"

     What on earth?  I've never heard of this chap and here we have the second mention in 24 hours?  Look, universe, if you're trying to tell me something either send a postcard or use Facebook.

Booth, looking smooth

     The motley cannot partake in any jolly japes as it is currently hammering out sheets of copper to protect my gluteus maximus.

Skeleton!

No, not the bony infrastructure that stops Hom. Sap. from collapsing into a gelid mass on the pavement, and which maintains it's ability to scare people.  Rather, the crossword variant that the "Oldham Times" used to run, and which I've not done for at least six months.  Behold!

     There you are, complete with authenticity-confirming initial error at upper port.  Old wine in new tricks, or some such convoluted metaphor.  For those unfamiliar, you get four clues, and four blank squares are filled in, and you have to complete based on that.  Hah!

From The Base To The Sublime

The BBC, fount of all that's fit to be writ, has an inspirational article featuring exotic photographs of astronomical subjects, posted by candidates looking to win the Astronomy Photograph of the Year, which is fair enough, as competing for Sausage-Sandwich Snapper would lack reason or purpose.  So, let us have a snapshot of item number one on their list.  Art!

     You can guarantee that this took lots of filtering and processing and fiddly photographic trickery to make it look presentable.  FYI, the Bicolour Veil Nebula is the gaseous remnants of a star that went BANG and then some; what you see here are clouds of hydrogen (the reddish tint) and oxygen (the cyan tint), being hurled away from the epicentre of the explosion.  You can't exactly commute to check on how things are settling down since it's just shy of 1,500 light years away.  So what we're seeing here is how it looked in 551 A.D. when a devastating earthquake-triggered tsunami devastated the Lebanese coastline.  Just to give you some context.

Biggest firework evah.

I Shall Now Cheat A Bit

For which read "a lot".  You may recall Conrad's bitter musing on the blog about how few answers he knew in "The View From The Turret"'s weekly quiz.  Two answers out of ten!  Dear me, dear me.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC54PQKtvNnekOkci4FivBIg

     That above is the link to his Youtube channel, should you be curious.  Since the quiz is now ten days old and the answers will have been provided, it can't harm anything (except my ego) if we Googlize the answers here on BOOJUM!  Thus -

Q1)  True or False: Captain Eddie Rickenbacker is a relative of the creator of the Rickenbacker electric guitar?

Ed tips his hat

    A)  Conrad would have guessed "False" and, do you know, that would have been WRONG.  Adolph Richenbacher, the electric geetar creator, was a distant cousin of Ed, and changed his name to make it sound more South Canadian and less Teuton.

Q2)  Which is the odd one out in this list of gunpowder ingredients:  Charcoal, calcium, potassium nitrate, sulphur?

A)  Calcium!  I know this one, thanks to all that research I did into gunpowder for the English Civil Unpleasantness.

Gunpowder green tea.  Just to be different.

Q3)  In which battle did Oliver Cromwell have a horse shot dead under him?

A)  Conrad has no idea.  Marston Moor?

     Actually Winceby.  Never heard of it.  Art!

Olly and Dobbin (whilst still animated)

     I think that's enough cheating for one post.  Maybe more tomorrow*!

"EMBEZZLE": Meaning to fraudulently acquire property or money originally entrusted to the criminal.  I did threaten you with the etymology of this word last night, so you can't complain, and if you do Conrad will merely ignore you.  Okay, unlike many of the words we analyse here, this one comes from the Anglo-French "embeseiller"which meant "To destroy", which is, frankly, very wide of the mark.  If Conrad - purely hypothetically - were to come into possession of £1.35 million worth of gold that he had been inquisitively looking over, do you really think he'd fly it to Iceland and hurl it into the volcano at Reykjanes?

Of course he would!

     Because then people would give up on looking for it.  Heh.

Finally -

We need very little here to hit the Compositional Ton, which is good as then I can go get food and torment Edna by eating it in front of her <sniggers in an evil fashion and tweaks moustache ends>.  No gin tonight, the spigot on the tanker truck has jammed and I've gotten through yesterday's bucket dainty glass tumbler.  These little sacrifices I make ...

     Are done?  I think we jolly well are!

*  Or not.  I'm fickle like that.