So Much For Good Intentions

"O Look", I Told Myself, "It's Only 21:30"
Or 'Half Past Nine' in Proper Language.  "Why, there's ages yet before we need to bother about creating <ahem> Words Of Wit, Wisdom And Wonder," Conrad mused.  You know, BOOJUM! as you are reading it*.
     Well, sadly, no.  For what comes of slacking-off with a deadline?  Ah yes, poking around on the Internet "In the interests of research*".
    <hangs head in shameful manner>
    I have, gentle reader, thus commented on a variety of Youtube channels, and Facebook.  The former about the Sterling sub-machine gun - of which more later - and in the latter some political commentary that we simply cannot replicate here.  Although - although -
     - look, they are frankly not flattering to the South Canadian's incumbent.  That is as far as I dare go, given that BOOJUM!s remit is to stay very, very far away from Politics. 

An incucumber.  Close enough.

And also Lithium Wafer Battery Design.  Did I mention my 5,000 word monograph about "Forbidden Planet"?
     And here we are at 23:23, not a lot further forward.
     Okay!  Let us look firmly forward by looking firmly backwards, and here we take up the studio system from before the Second Unpleasantness, for I wish to discuss Olivia De Havilland back when she was Young And Hot.  Art?

Pretty Rowr.

     Back then - calm down, Art!  Think of Mara Corday - back then the Hollywood studios were immensely powerful and dictated what actors and actresses could do, and when, and how, and tellingly for how long.  A contract could last for years and years, with the studios, not the actors, deciding what films they would appear in, and the threat of being sent to the Hollywood Penal Colony on the Moon if they misbehaved**.
     Now, I know what you're thinking -

A Mozzie

     Yes, she was a relative of Geoffrey De Havilland, designer of that awesome multi-role combat aircraft the Mosquito, the terror of the Luftwaffe.  Small world, hmmmm?
     One morning young Olivia wakes up, rolls out of bed and decides that she's had enough: she is going to take on the studio system, but First! she needs a nutritious bowl of porridge**.  She then beat Jack Warner senseless in a ju-jitsu deathmatch** and so impressed the Supreme Court that they found in her favour, and all was love and roses thereafter.  Actually, she had been threatened with never working in Hollywood again, whether she smacked down or not; she did, though but only after flying 73 combat missions over Germany**.

Olivia and sis.  They did not get on.

     O and she won an Oscar and shizzle and was in "Gone With The Wind" (shades of Mosquitoes there!) for those of you interested in that kind of thing.  Which I'm not, so that's all you're getting.

Conrad: A Beacon Of Truthfullness And Honesty**
Well, sometimes.  I do worry so when I post gloasting articles about completing a codeword or cryptic crossword that you won't believe me, and slyly nudge each other with a knowing wink that says "O Rly?"
     So!  I thought it might be instructive to post a set of photos as I tackled the Skeleton in last week's "Oldham Times" and prove to you that I don't cheat.  Art!

     As you can see, I put "ZEBRA" when it should have been "PANDA", and "EMIGRANT" when it should have been "EMIGRE", two mistakes that wouldn't have happened if I'd been cheating.  What helps is that there's a line of symmetry from top port to bottom starboard, so you can mirror the squares already filled in.
     Still, not easy.  So I feel a sense of intellectual achievement.

Last Week's Brew
I don't think I put up a picture of the beer bottle I got last week, which is shockingly remiss of me and I shall amend this omission right now.  Art?

     This, I think, is a little closer to the English Civil Unpleasantness as a theme than the "1692", which is closer to the Enlightenment than Crommy.
     "Why so?" I hear you ask.  Well, because of these - Art?

A big gun

     In what eventually became the Royal Artillery, your average trooper is known as a "Bombardier", because he ladles explosive evil upon his opponents.

More From Our Slavic Chums

Or, you can put the "Slav" in "Slave" but you can't make him behave.  As detailed in Adam Tooze's excellent "The Wages of Destruction", the Nazi economy used large numbers of slave workers, or dragooned workers in other lands to produce Teuton weapons.  That this was a short-sighted policy is immediately obvious; you cannot expect Frenchmen to bust their bottoms building panzers for their hated occupiers.

     There were other, creative ways of getting back at the Teutons.  Peter Caddick-Adams, in his three-inch thick (and that's paperback) "Sand And Steel" recounts the story of a B17, hit repeatedly by flak shells that mysteriously didn't explode.  Once safely back at base, the flak shells lodged in the wings were taken apart and found to have no explosive filling; they did, however, have a carefully-written note in Czech, which stated "This is all we can do for you now".
     O Marketa!  That's your countrymen taking a chance - if the Teutons even suspected their ammunition was being sabotaged, they'd have hung people left, right and centre, pour encourager les autres.

Finally -

Your Humble Scribe is having to wing it a bit this afternoon, as Blogger has finally made the change they were threatening in June, so I'm having to see what's changed and what's not, in the middle of a post that was begun under the old model and is going to finish under the new.  So far it looks cosmetic only, apart from pictures - changing size isn't as straightforward, and I'm not sure how to add captions.

     O well.  These things are sent to try us.

Here's a werepig.  Just because.

*  "Waffle" comes in a late fourth
**  Some of this may be exaggerated.

Nice Weather For DUKWs

O I Do Amuse Myself Sometimes
Whether or not you out there find my puns and wordplay equally amusing is a moot point, because my opinion is the one that matters.
     Okay!  We have returned to the redoubtable Peter Caddick-Adams, professional scholar and soldier, and author of a tome dubbed "magisterial" by James Holland*: "Sand And Steel", which is about both D-Day, and the build-up towards it.

     This is a big book, over 1,000 pages if you include the Notes in my paperback edition, and I am not yet at 25% of the way through.  Anyway, I think we have already made a point about the enormous logistical backup the Allies enjoyed before, during and after the invasion of Normandy.  Ol' Pete makes a point about the DUKW amphibious truck that we here on BOOJUM! have highlighted ages ago; with thousands of 2.5 ton carrying-capacity trucks able to float out to sea, load, drive ashore, dump supplies and repeat the process, Allied logistics were not notably impaired by not having a major port to work from.  Art?

The DUKW is a  Sea Truck

     As Robert Citino has observed, logistics was something the Wehrmacht were rubbish at; they had at most 25 such amphibious vehicles in 1940 and were going to invade Perfidious Albion with such an arsenal - yeah right.
     You might want to judge the qualitative performance of the DUKW - "D" for year of service introduction i.e. 1942 "U" for "utility" "K" for "Killer Kommando Kangaroos" "All wheel drive" and "W" for "Dual-tandem rear axles" - because they carried on in various roles for another 30 years - 50 years in some cases.  
     Not exactly a war-winning wonder weapon, and I doubt anyone doing a "Top 5" of Bovington will ever select a DUKW, yet a vehicle that matters.  When the South Canadian's artificial harbour was destroyed in a storm on 19th June, they simply made to with DUKWs and managed fine.  By the power of Detroit!
     And because it's been pouring down all day long.



That Didn't Work!
Okay, last night I tried to make Syrniki, Ruffian cheese pancakes, with cottage cheese instead of the mysterious "Farmers Cheese", and it was an utter failure.  I used a mesh muslin bag to squeeze out some of the liquid, but it still came out as utter glop, not remotely like a dough at all.
     Consigned to the bin.  I shall have to go and really research what this Dog Buns "Farmer's Cheese" is.
     Watch this space.

It was almost this bad

"Pancake"
What a coincidental irony.  I have decided to give Pierre Closterman's "The Big Show" a re-read, and you know Conrad, I cannot look at a book in conventional order.  First I skipped to the Appendices, and skimmed them and O what's this?  An explanation of RAF codes, with a cheat-sheet of different ones, and there in large lettering is "Pancake".  Art?

Nice try but NO.

     "Pancake" was an instruction to return to your airfield, so the controllers might call out "Turban flight, pancake pancake" and the pilots would hurry back for tea and crumpets in the mess.  No pancakes.

     Ah, you know, the occasional cup of tea with a slice or two of lemon is really enjoyable.  I must not bolt it, though, since I am already a-swill with porridge.

More Of The Mysties
Thinking about it, the Mysterons - for Lo! it is them again and to whom I am referring - are a bit sexist in their statement at the beginning of each episode of "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons".  How does it go again?
     "We know you can hear us, Earthmen ..."  Art?

The rings of doom ARE IN YOUR ROOM!

     Well excuse me, inscrutable alien artificial intelligences!  You only excluded 50% of the Earth's population there.  Or - you're not cross with the women of Earth?  Again, that's so sexist.  And where were you during #MeToo, hmmm?
     Well that went off on a tangent.  What I really intended to talk about was a comic strip I discovered thanks to a website that reviews either old British comics or Gerry Anderson or both.  The author said that in the television series we never see a Mysteron so exactly what and who they are remains open to question - a conjecture he then shoots down, because the Mysterons were depicted in a comic strip in TV Tornado - Art?

A bit tetchy, aren't they?

     And those, gentle reader, are the Mysterons.  As the website author put it, sugar cubes from outer space - who kill a lot quicker than diabetes will, matey.


Conrad Can Get Behind This One - 
No!  Not to stab it in the back.  Really, what must you think of me!
     No, I refer to - obviously! - entry number 16 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the top 50 sci-fi series ever, which is "Devs", a series I've never heard of.  Art?

Yup, the hairy one is from "Parks and Rec"

     It has a good pedigree, being from the mind of Alex Garland, the writer who has moved into making films, and jolly interesting ones, too.  After a brief skim of the episodes in Season One, it is most definitely a sci-fi show, unlike that boring eyestrain "The Handmedown's Tail" or whatever.  I did accidentally glimpse how the last episode goes, so I shall have to avoid it for a while until the information fades.  Yes, it is a series I can see myself watching, which will no doubt relieve Mister Garland mightily: the BOOJUM! seal of approval is not lightly given**.

Conrad unsure what this is - probably Evilllllll

Finally -
You may not have noticed, or you may, in which case SIT BACK DOWN! about the owl that was rescued from a well in the land of the Teutons.  It was an impressive well.  Art?

There has to be a joke in here somewhere -

     It was a rescue carried out with characteristic Teutonic thoroughness, involving the fire brigade and oxygen pumping and abseiling and animal advisers, and it had a happy ending with the distressed owl rescued and taken to a sanctuary.

Sitting pretty

     I have to go now but - there HAS to be a joke in there somewhere ...


*  Brother of the more famous Tom.
**  We hate a lot more than we like