Rocket To Russia

NO!

This is nothing about raining ICBMs down on Sinister Union 2.0 - more formally known here at BOOJUM! as 'Ruffia' - because that is A VERY BAD IDEA and you are all extremely wicked for even thinking about thinking about it.  

     Nor is it anything to do with that Ramones album, which, if Art can rouse himself from his coal-and-coke induced stupor - 

NOISE!  LOTSA NOISE!  AND GEETARS!  LOTS OF GEETARS!

     Conrad's probably heard a track or two from it, yet he was never a fan of The Ramones - SHOCK HORROR HOW CAN THIS BE! - so he's not even going to bother checking the track listings.

    O you know I can't resist.  I checked and yes, I have heard "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker", so there we are.

     Here a musical aside.  I'm playing music as I type this, because having a television program on is far too distracting and it prolongs the blog into a three-hour marathon, and the first track that came up was "I'm Not In Love" by 10 CC.  Art!  Less coal more goal!

     This was always a bit of the musical background to Your Humble Scribe, thanks to being a Number One hit, so it was a slight revelation to read how the band managed to boost three singing voices to a choir equivalent to 624 people, and realise that there's no rhythm track.  Of more interest to Conrad was the <shivers> female voice-over <slobbers lasviciously>, whom he guessed was a professional voice-artist.

     Not a bit of it!  She was Kathy Redfern, the band's secretary, who happened to pop her head into the studio whilst they were trying to determine what voice-over to use.  Art!

Kath.

     Phew!  Because that reminds me of another aside - BE PATIENT WE'RE GETTING THERE - from the original "The Andromeda Strain" where James Olson's character tries to flirt with the seductive-voiced instructor speaking over the intercom.

Dr. Mark Hall:
Sorry... Her voice is quite luscious.

Answering Service Supervisor:
Well, the voice belongs to Miss Gladys Stevens, who is 63 years old. She lives in Omaha and makes her living taping messages for voice-reminder systems.

Dr. Mark Hall:
[slightly sarcastic] Much obliged.

     Thank heavens for Kathy.

Who's laughing now, Hally?

     Where were we?

     O right.  Conrad has recently purchased the whole series of "The War Illustrated" because Bonus! and would like to invite you to admire one of his new collection*.  Art!

     In rather better nick than the old charity-shop edition I had.  Note, too, that this one has the Index, which some <loud swearing> had torn out of the C-SE.  Here you can see the cover picture of edition 156, with an archetypically cheerful Tommy escorting a party of Teuton prisoners.  Most look a bit glum, apart from that chap on the right, who seems quite happy to be a PoW.  Decent food, medical care and not having to risk death on a daily basis, one supposes.  Art!

     Take notice of the upper port photograph, and what seems to be a Hurricane fighter balanced on a stair-lift.  This is actually a Catapult-Armed Merchantman, which we have covered before, but not for ages.  The Hurricane is kept on deck of a freighter, which is part of one of the convoys to the Sinister Union in the days before Perfidious Albion had enough aircraft carriers to send as escort.  The Hurri will be 'launched' if any Teuton recon aircraft come stooging around, thanks to being mounted on a rocket-sled.  It takes off at 1,500 m.p.h. and intercepts said Teuton aircraft, shoots it down and then -

     Ditches in the sea as close to a ship as possible, pilot crossing his fingers manfully that he gets picked up before freezing to death.  Art!

On wings of fire, hmmm?

     Conrad has to wonder who on earth they got to test this infernal devices, and how much gin they had to ingest before getting into the cockpit.

     So, maybe only a Rocket Towards Russia, but close enough for our intent.

Rather Less Rambunctious

At least I hope so, I've typed out the title without checking the picture first.  Yes, we are back on the BBC's 'On The Water' theme, so if Art won't mind doing the business - 

Courtesy Katherine Wilkins

    This is the photographer's daughter having a paddle in wellington boots of dubious waterproof value.  She will have noticed how cold the water is, since this in the depths of winter.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Good or bad, there's about twice the word-count present here as compared to "Tormentor", and we're only just getting into the beginning.  Setting the scene is important to proper authors, and Conrad too.

The absence of any style or decoration puzzled him, too.  No heiroglyphs, no pictograms, not lettering or embellishment of any sort.  It was possible that applique decorations had originally been painted onto the black material, and been worn away, revealing the starkly functional architecture.  No personality, that was how he defined it.  Nothing but what was strictly necessary.

          Overall, the site so far demonstrated that same lack of personality.  Normally on a dig there were finds, artefacts, remnants of the builder’s lifestyle or the people who used the buildings.  Not here.  Not so much as a single pot sherd had come to light.  Fulgoni didn’t believe that the six Egyptian and two Libyans had absconded with armfuls of relics, whatever Professor Templeman might say, as a reason the site had been bare.  One welcome change from every other site in the desert he’d visited, and Cairo too for that matter, was the absence of flies.  The absence of flies he could put up with in this strange collection of buildings.

          And the scale!  The size of the steps leading up to the interior of The Temple meant an undignified scramble by the expedition members.  Finally Professor Templeman refused to embarrass his dignity (and his considerable size) any longer and a wooden scaffold had been erected, when the Egyptians were still around to build it.  Steps so large a man would have to be a giant to use them. 

      O what can this mean?  Demons?  Aliens?  Prehistoric super-civilisations?  You'll just have to keep reading to find out.

It's My Calling.  It's My -

As we should all realise by now, Conrad is one of those saddoes who peruse the product aisles in supermarkets for pun-worthy pictures.  Don't carp at this, we've not bothered with the chemical contents of shampoo for an age.  Art!

Eye-catching design

     I have no idea what it will taste like.  The only beers that I refuse to drink, on the grounds that cocoa can be cack, are those with a chocolate flavour.  If I do buy one of those I may palm it off on Darling Daughter or Quiet Tom.  Heh.

Finally -

I keep forgetting about those remaindered crumpets.  DOG BUNS!  I hate having to throw out bread products when they go mouldy.  Methinks I shall have to forego today's porridge and indulge in six crumpets with Marmite-flavoured peanut butter.  That will be a Breakfast Of Champions indeed - MFPB has a filling quality beyond it's merely physical presence on your toast.

And with that, Vulnavia, we are O so very done.

*  I have 8 books lined up already to give away in order to satisfy the One-In One-Out principle

Conrad: A Victim Of Gin

Hmmmmm Perhaps

After all, I am getting on a bit.  248 years old at last count, thanks to my peculiar alien physiology.  Hey, what can I say, I come from an ice-world in the constellation <redacted> and the star <redacted> where our metabolism is a lot slower than yours, and we live a lot longer in the service of our wonderful <description of skull-crushing totalian dictatorship redacted>.

     That, or gin. Art!

     

"It's not Gordon's, it's MINE!"

     You see, when Your Humble Scribe was off busy creating words of wit, wisdom and weltanschaung, it was a matter of wonder that my traffic figures would mysteriously increase.  I'd be at 3 visitors before crafting a long link-filled blog, and then find my traffic had shot up to as many as 4!  Or even 5!

Happy happy Conrad

     Okay, okay, from perhaps 11 to 24.  

     'What can this mean?' I asked myself - aloud, since we were at home in The Mansion and there was no risk of frightening passers-by.  'How can people out there know EXACTLY when I am going to be composing deathless prose, and log on to appreciate it?"

     Doubtless you are ahead of me here, gentle reader.  Do forgive an old man's gin-inflected grey matter after a journey of 190 light years in suspended animation with his blood replaced by anti-freeze.  Art!

     For those of you who like to keep track, we are still at 73 Ruffian visitors, meaning that the FSB only got to 3 people overnight; unless they took themselves out of the tracker, because Biter Bit and all that ki

     ANYWAY 'What can it mean?' I'll tell you what it meant.  Your Humble Scribe had been COUNTING HIS OWN VISITS TO THE BLOG.  I had disabled this function years ago, yet it must have come unglued, so I went back in and disabled it again.  FINALLY we shall be getting accurate traffic stats.

     Which today stand at 95 hits.  Not bad for a Monday!

O go on then.  Just a snifter or five.

     

Only Slightly Related

Conrad, sitting up in his Sekret Layr*, has a splendid view across the high hill country, all the way over to Oldham Edge, and one thing I notice absent today is wind.  Yesteryon the trees were threshing around like triffids on amphetamine sulphate, today they are utterly lank.  This also means the skies are covered with 10/10ths cloud cover, as the Brylcreem Boys would have it.

     So!  Let us import a picture of a beer can.  Art?

     "Do you have a vocation?"

     "Yes actually I have six of them!"

     Collapse of Stout party and retention to an Ukranian corner.

     Wibble wibble dibble dibble.

If none of this makes sense you need to inhale more Jeyes Household Cleaning Fluid.

Conrad Takes His Frothing Nitric Ire For A Walk

After all, everyone can do with a bit of exercise, can't they?

     Let us now deploy Ferocious Fantabulisms in search of Codeword compilers, because they need tracking down and ELIMINATING.   

"INVEIGHS": Ah me yes I remember trying to define this word to Janice, who hailed from Cameroon and whom had an excellent English vocabulary.  "To speak with violent or invective language".  Obscure and obsolescent to say the least.  You will have seen innumerable examples of 'Inveighing' here on BOOJUM!, usually against the Codeword Compilers, so we can define this as pretty much Business As Usual.  Art!

"A superglue accident caused an episode of inveigh"

"AXIAL":  That is, 'along the axis of -' and Your Humble Scribe is O so familiar with this term because of his unhealthy obsession with TANK.  You the girning public are probably less aware.  Art!

     Here we have a Matilda II, as loathed and hated by the Axis in North Africa during the Second Unpleasantness.  You can see the mighty two-pounder gun, which rendered many an Axis tank into Swiss cheese - and alongside that, on the same axis, is a machine-gun.  Hence co-axial.  If the turret crew came across a target that did not deserve Death By Two-Pounder, why then they would belabour it with machine-gun fire from the CO-AXIAL.

"QUANGO":  YOU WHAT!  THIS - <pauses to draw breath and calm down> This solution refers to <still gritting teeh> 'Quasi-Autonomous National Government Organisation" and it is an ACRONYM!

     I think I'd better change subjects before I spontaneously combust out of sheer rage.

Francophone On A Piping Drone

If you have been keeping track AND YOU SHOULD HAVE then you will realise that we here at BOOJUM! have been replicating editions from "The War Illustrated" and posting them, all the while at least two weeks behind the real events, in order to avoid giving any useful information to the Axis.  Which is a contemporary comment on what's going on in U

     ANYWAY - 

     Here we have bagpipers from the 52nd Highland division, who are playing with their TAM'O SHANTER not 'beret' thank you very much, being studied by curious French citizens whom have never encountered a dudlesack at close range.  I do notice one lady ramming her hands against ears - ah what the Kreplach! you can't make people like bagpipes**.

"The Sea Of Sand"

I do beg your pardon!  Here we are into the meat of the matter and the Scatter My Data post is still unposted.  Let us bring forth the squorth:

Di Fellica nodded back over the way they had come, where sand slid down to fill their footprints.

          ‘I’d prefer to be where the boy is,’ he said, using their nickname for the young graduate.

          ‘He might have vanished too, when we get back,’ said Fulgoni, only half-joking.  ‘Ah, we’re wanted.’  Doctor Bartolomei waved them forward.

          ‘Gentlemen,’ he said.  ‘We are going to take down the overburden on the second pylon.  Can you set up a path with wooden planking for the wheelbarrows?  Take it out to the eastern spoil heap.’

          Thus began several hours of toil, moving tons of sand from around the pylon.  Gradually the tapering column emerged from the concealing sands, and Fulgoni studied it with a practiced eye.  Whilst he might lack the depth of Templeman’s experience or Bartolomei’s knowledge about archaeology, his degree in Classical Antiquities gave him an insight.  He chatted to Di Fellica whilst they sweated, not feeling like conversing with the sullen French duo: Templeman and Doctor Bartolomei would undoubtedly not wish to hear his musings.

          What did he know about this unquiet site?  Firstly, the black pylons did not exhibit any wear or erosion.  Not even at their tips, where they had been exposed to the elements for God alone knew how many years.  Naturally the shroud of the overburden would have protected them once covered over, yet they stood as if their mysterious builders finished contruction only yesterday.  What were they made of?  The material looked like polished jet, glossy and dark, but it resisted the picks and hammers used to take samples.  Fulgoni suspected it of being a vitreous enamel coating, perhaps similar to that used in the vitrified hill forts in Northern Europe.  Likewise, the massive bulk of The Temple stood pristine, untouched by the literal and metaphorical sands of time.

     Ooooh Creepy-Pasta time!

Finally -

I think we're pretty much done here.  All that remains is to terrify, torment and titillate our Ruffian members with new nicknames for the Puffy Petrol Pimp.  <thinks hard> this one won't work unless you pronouce it in English: Pooh Tin - and then look to ascribe it,

*  The only typographical error we allow here.  Just so you know.

**  If only, if only.

Ooops

I Stayed Up Far Too Late Last Night

In my defence, it was to complete "The Sea Of Sand" because I'd written it so long ago that the details had become obscure.  I kept looking at the clock and thinking 'O this means I'll be starting the blog really late' which changed over time into 'O I don't intend to be still writing this at 01:30'.

     And so here we are.  Art!  Click-baity picture!

"Vampires ripped my flesh"

     Hmmmmmm.  Nope.  Bats are nocturnal, or at best crepuscular, NOT diurnal.  So we're going to pass on that cover and move on to links.

2021

BOOJUM!: Warily Dipping A Talon In Political Waters (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: This Version's An Infinite Recursion (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Sorry - More Sinful Pride! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: I've Been So Mean - To Astatine (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Back With A Ban (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Give An Inch, Take a Yard (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: Sixteen Thirty One? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Blue Skies And Sunshine - Conrad Is Very Cross! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

Dirty Projectors

Yes, I Thought I Was Right

Conrad remembers this South Canadian rock band being mentioned a geological age ago on the BBC's website, possibly as being a band to watch as they were going places.  I don't have anything by them, not even on a compilation album, so I'm going to have to tackle Youtube and see if it can provide.  Art!

     Hmmmmm possibly a bit lightweight, but then not everybody can be bonkers prog-metal mathcore (The Mars Volta I'm looking at you).  They are a passion project of founder David Longstreth and have been around since 2002, only really hitting the big(ish) time in 2009.

     ANYWAY none of that is what I wanted to talk about in this Intro, since I have come across mention in my notes taken from "Seeking Victory" about the LIVENS PROJECTOR!

     No, Vulnavia.  Nothing to do with films or film reels.  I think we need to get Art's attention with a steel ball-bearing fired from a catapult.

     O go rub an ice cube on it, Art.  The LP was a simple large bore mortar, fired electrically by the hundred or thousand by the Special Brigade or Royal Engineers of Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness.  They were intensely disliked by the Teuton infantry because a single LP cylinder contained thirty pounds of gas, and the Special Brigade could prep over a thousand of them per day.  They could deliver an enormous amount of gas very quickly and with nil warning, meaning that the Teutons had to have special 'Luki-luki' sentries posted to watch for the tell-tale sign of a thousand-plus Projectors being fired.  Art!

     

     Thus Perfidious Albion - the clue is in the title - learned to put their Projectors in dead ground, where they couldn't be seen.  And to fire them at night, just to be even more hateful.  They could create a concentration of gas so heavy that it overwhelmed the Teuton gas masks, in which case their trenches would be manned by the dead (not very sporting and not at all cricket).

     The LP could also be charged with other harmful fillings, like oil or thermite, which were great at setting anything flammable ablaze.  Like woods.  on 04/06/1917 the Special Brigade fired 1,200 oil drums at Grande Bois and Wytschaete woods, which caught fire.  The Teuton defenders, the 33rd Fusilier Regiment, reported utter panic breaking out thanks to their locale becoming a bonfire and they in the middle of it.  Art!

Captain Livens

     In another demonstration that the British in war can be as un-gentlemanly as the next chap, the Special Brigade used their incendiary Livens shell upon the hapless Teutons another 23 times over the next six months.  You can bet your supple leather boots that by September the Teuton stubble-hoppers were calling the Livens a Dirty Projector, and probably harsher words than that, too.

     Which is where this evening's title comes from.  What, is Art still whinging?  Put a bit of Sudofed on it, you whining piker.

     Chin chin!

Let's Have A Little Culture

Charles Marion Russell, to be exact.  You know, the South Canadian artist who portrayed the Old West on canvas.  We've not had one of his prints up for a while, so here we go.  Art!

"Trail Of The Iron Horse" circa 1924

     I can tell you exactly what the chap with the spear is saying to his mates.

     "We are living in the future," with a puzzled expression, because he's go no idea what railway tracks are for.  Better not still be in that place when the 3:10 to Yuma goes by, Dancing Weasel.  It's quite an evocative scene, two cultures clashing without realising.

"On The Water"

Our second example of this theme from the BBC's photography exhibition, which is great for Conrad as it takes a bit of the heavy creative lifting from his shoulders, and one assumes the Beeb has already carried out due diligence and quality control.  Art!

Courtesy Alex Ashby

     This is from Sai Kau harbour in Hong Kong, where that gentlemen was making an unsteady way to shore over a collection of small boats.  We hope he made it without getting a ducking.  And I'm adding this last sentence in to hit the 700 words mark.

"The Spider"

You will recall, if you know what's good for you, that Conrad graced an earlier BOOJUM! with a cover from the pulp magazine "The Spider", despite not knowing anything whatsoever about it.  Art!

     I don't give matey good odds here - that's two men with guns, another with a dagger and mister upstairs with a cleaver.  And if Spider - for I presume it is he - is reduced to clubbing a villain with the butt of his gun, then he's out of ammunition.

     ANYWAY It transpires that TS was big news in the Thirties, and the magazine remains verrrrry collectible.  The Spider is actually Richard Wentworth, an independently wealthy man of means, who decides to take the law and justice into his own hands and fight crime.  The operative word here is 'fight', because Ol' Rick wasn't about to chicken out or pansy around.  No, he intended to stamp out crime, and if this meant stamping criminals into a sticky red smear - he was fine with that.  The criminals were also extremely violent with absolutely no regard for human life, frequently killing or murdering thousands of innocent people.  You can understand Rick's reluctance to let them keep on living. Art!

Master of men.  Women?  That remains to be seen.

     Conrad wonders if any of these are available in the public domain.  One to check on after publishing this blog ...

"The Sea Of Sand"

Where were we?  Sorry, it's just that I've read far ahead of where we are in what's been published online.  Hang on -

He stood, alongside the others, at the rim of a vast, shallow bowl in the desert fully a mile across, in the middle of which lay the buildings excavated so far, and giant rolling billows of sand that hinted at other constructions hidden under the yellow drifts.  Makan Al-Jinni.  The enormous rectangular black building dubbed “The Temple” was the only one completely uncovered, standing fifty feet tall atop a podium that was itself thirty feet high.  Massive pillars held up the roof, and equally massive steps led up each face of the podium.  Further into the bowl lay the partially un-covered circular construction, which Templeman and Bartolomei dubbed “The Dais”.    Standing erect from the multi-hundred ton mass of The Dais was the feature that had originally attracted attention in this desolate spot, the tapering black pylon.  Much of the overburden had been removed from this part of the structure, leaving a mass of sand still lying around the base.  Fifty yards away another pylon, identical to it’s more apparent brother, showed less than half its height through the layers of sand. 

          Wheelbarrows creaking and squeaking, the group made their way down the slope to the planked walkway and into the bottom of the shallow depression, Fulgoni casting a last longing look at the sky behind.  Every member of the troupe seemed to bow their shoulders once they lost sight of the dune sea.  A stillness and silence hung over the abandoned buildings, made heavier by the passing of countless centuries since people had walked or worked here.  Only Professor Templeman seemed entirely ignorant of the atmosphere, stoutly proclaiming that work today ought to begin on further removing overburden from the second pylon.  Doctor Bartolomei disagreed urbanely and a discussion took place whilst others took tools from the barrows and waited for a decision.  

     There you go, a bit more mise en scene established.  Hopefully the creepy nature of this site comes through.

Finally -

We've hit the Adjusted Compositional Ton already, so I shall keep this brief.

     There you go, promise kept.

Sunday's Sojourn

Okay, Sojourn Number One

This is the one with links, in case you were wondering.  I can mix stuff around if I feel like it; once again, whose blog is it?

     Okay - yes again - time for Art to provide us with the traditional click-baity picture.  Get a shift on, Art, this Tazer's a-humming!

     Call me cynical, but I don't think that's a draught of smelling-salts.  And only a thorough cad and bounder wanders around in a red cowled robe.  Methinks matey is up to no good.  Conrad would also counsel moderation to the young lady, because drinking so much that you pass out renders one terribly vulnerable - note the chains binding her to the floor.  And it looks a nasty cold damp floor, too.

     ANYWAY on with the links.

2021

BOOJUM!: Wave Hello (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: We Totally ROK It (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Let Us Enjoy A Light Buffet Of Sin! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: The Product Of Decay (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: I'm Toying With You (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: I'm Toying With You (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: It's Steven Seagal - Sipping Chivas Regal! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Make Haste! Don't Waste- (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

The Biter Bit

Here's An Analogy

NO IT ISN'T RUDE!  WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! <pauses to compose self>.  As I am taking pains to avoid mention of Puffy Petrol Pimp and his gimp limp, you can have this Intro instead.

     Recall, if you will, the First Unpleasantness.  It finished over a century ago yet the echoes are still with us.  Originally it had been expected to be over by Christmas - and one wonders how many wars have begun with that strident claim on people's lips - and the Teutons confidently expected to be in Paris dictating terms by Bonfire Night.  Art!

British and Teuton tourists squabble in France

     Sadly not so.  The conflict dragged on into 1915 and April witnessed the Teutons using gas on a large scale at Second Ypres, said gas being chlorine.  Their intent was to break the Allied lines, march on Paris and dictate terms by Easter.  Again, sadly not so.  The Allied lines contracted severely but they didn't break, and Fritz Haber had, literally, let the genie out of the bottle.  Prize-winning Teuton chemist, for your information.  The average Teuton stubble-hopper might have felt ambivalent about Fritzy at the time; this would change, O by Jove would it!

     You see, the prevailing winds on the Western Front blew principally from west to east, on the order of 10:1 versus east to west.  And since gas warfare was conducted using whacking big cylinders of gas, that meant your average Teuton stubble-hopper might very well have a bad hair day to surpass all bad hair days in his near future.  Art!

     Enter the Battle of Loos.  This was a politically-driven attack by the armies of Perfidious Albion, where gas was going to be used to compensate for a lack of artillery and shells.  

      Now, all that most people know about the BoL is that the British gas blew back into the advancing British infantry and caused heavy casualties.  True as far as it goes - in the north of the attack.  However, in the south the gas got into Teuton lines as it was released with the wind behind it - and in darkness, too.  Royal Engineers of the Special Company, detailed to observe gas effects, noted that the Teuton rifle, machine gun and artillery fire immediately went wild and then stopped when the chlorine rolled into their trenches.  The Brits were in possession of the Teuton front line by 07:30.  Art!

Loos.  Definitely a 'fixer-upper'.  "Tower Bridge" (actually pithead gear) in background

     In the centre it was noted that Teuton trenches were empty of either live or dead bodies - they had all bolted rather than face the gas.  Elsewhere gas got into sub-surface bunkers (being heavier-than-air will do that) and forced the occupants out into the open - when they made the acquaintance of British shrapnel shells.

     All told, Teuton anti-gas gear, techniques and practices were poor or inadequate.

     "GAS WARFARE?  GAS WARFARE?  THEY'LL NEVER TRY THAT!" seems to have been the attitude at Teuton headquarters.  "After all, here we are in September 1915 and we began it in April, so nothing can possibly go wrong!"  Hence Teuton gas-masks were rubbish quality and could only be worn for 4 hours before failing.

     By the end of 1915 the average Teuton stubble-hopper was probably beginning to think evil thoughts about Fritz Haber.  I mean, how dare these Allies retaliate with gas when it was us what brung it!  Fighting back?  How dare they!  Art?

     We may come back to this topic, I've got 26 pages of notes I made from a work about the British army on the Western Front and gas warfare*.

Now For Something A Lot More Wholesome

You may recall Conrad putting forth a few pictures from the BBC's pages about unusual bridges of the world, of which there were only six.  Well, whooping Kreplach! do, I found another themed photography page, this on being "On The Water".  Bring up the first picture!

Courtesy Prantik Biswas

     Very atmospheric, nicht wahr?  It's so much easier to manage that in monochrome.  All I can tell you is that this is a surfer, surfing.

"Ticket Of Leave"

A phrase as used by Josephine Tey in "The Man In The Queue" and because Conrad was deliberately making notes about obscure words or phrases he wrote it down.  The novel was written ninety-three years ago so there's a certain amount of slang that needs checking.  What, AND WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS IN ADVANCE! is a 'Dangler'?  From context one presumes a variety of transport.

     ANYWAY - ToL.  This was a ticket issued to a prisoner released from jail, stating that they had paid their debt to society and were a reformed chap and a thoroughly decent cove.  Art!

     So now we know.

"The Sea Of Sand"

More of my eclectic page-turner - hmmmmm more of a page-scroller I suppose as it's electronic not paper - about the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith stuck, TARDISless, in the hostile wastes of North Africa, during wartime.  Please note the Afrika Korps only put a token appearance in at the very end.

‘Well, better get rolling,’ said Roger to himself, liberating a bottle of mineral water from the stores tent.

 

The seven members trudged doggedly into the dunes, leaving the rolling, undulating gravel plain behind them.  Long practice meant the only sound came from the two squeaking wheelbarrows; conversation would be saved for the actual dig itself.

          Fulgoni felt the familiar sinking feeling in his stomach when the massive black pillars appeared over the dunes ahead, a nameless dread he couldn’t explain or rationalise away.  He didn’t believe the missing Egyptians and Libyans had run off; no, their disappearance was directly linked to this dark and sinister place.  The how he couldn’t imagine, but a man didn’t simply run away in the night in this trackless waste, without food or water or shelter.  Unconsciously he crossed himself, only realising what he’d done when the brooding Valette blinked in surprise.  Fulgoni glanced around, to discover that all the other member’s attention lay on the buildings ahead.  The only good thing to say about this place in the armpit of the desert was the total absence of flies, which were usually an annoying and persistent torment for any dig. 

          The group topped a final dune before the excavation, pausing to look over the site.  Once again Fulgoni felt that anticipation of awe and dread, taking in the vista as if for the first time.

     You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what Makan-al Jinni looks like, matey.

Finally -

Only a short item needed for this bit to hit the Adjusted Compositional Ton.  You remember?  If Your Humble Scribe sticks one of his long-form fictions in then we need to hit 1,200 words.

     Ooooh!  Ooooh!  I got one!  Another insulting nickname for Bloaty Gas Tout.  "The Gremlin In The Kremlin".  O my, what killer satire, that'll have him weeping into his shchi**.  "The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant" have nothing on Dimya's saline oozings.  There's also "Flabby Crabby" because he is, and what is the astrological sign for the crab?   Yeah well tasteless but he O so thoroughly deserves it.

     And now it's time to go make stew!

*  It's either this or the 5,000 word monograph about "Forbidden Planet" and it's effect upon subsequent sci-fi films.  Your choice.

**  Ruffian cabbage soup.

O Be Quiet Edna!

It Doesn't Matter How Many Times You Whimper

My meatloaf and mustard panini half is not going to float through the air and land at your paws, madam.  Get that into your head.  It might work with Wonder Wifey, IT WILL NOT WORK WITH ME.  Conrad: a will of iron and absolutely no mercy when it comes to his food.

     Now, let us prod Art into a semblance of consciousness with this red-hot pitchfork and get a nice click-baity picture.

Pretty sure that's not a waffle-iron

     Hmmmm never heard of this magazine before.  It does tick all the Trope Boxes, though: steely-eyed muscle-man wielding a gun; green-skinned alien of dubious morals; attractive young lady not wearing a lot (at least she hasn't been blessed with the hideously uncomfortable Brass Bra).

     On with the domesticated wolf and very small horse show

2021

BOOJUM!: If I Were To Say "Mosaic" ... (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Still Tinkering In The Infernal Regions (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Sin And Horror The Soul Of The Plot (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Alas A Lax (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Wonder Womanland (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Of Mirrors (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: U2 (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: O Ineluctable BOOJUM! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)