No! Not The Recent Comedy-Horror Film
Which I have not seen myself, although Tom and Darling Daughter have and say it's pretty good, and I concur from the trailers I've seen. Having raised it as an issue I am now allowed to use it to bait people into reading this blog. Art!
So, that's what this Intro is not about. What is it about? O I thought you'd never ask - Art!
It's my hilarious - laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor for you! - take on the miscellaneous items in storage at IWM Duxford, rather than being part of a regular exhibition. This means there are no explanatory plaques telling viewers what they're looking at, so it's down to Your Humble Scribe to inform you. Also there is no heating in these storage hangars so they are - cold. Luckily for us it was a brilliant day more akin to summer than September.
What you see at the rear, rather obscured, is a Mosquito, the stellar multi-role British aircraft that the Luftwaffe hated hated hated, especially their night-fighter pilots. It could perform any role and because it was made out of layered wood, it was comparatively light; on the other hand two massive engines were hung off the wings, meaning it could go like stink. Art!
The trunnions of a British 7.2" howitzer on a South Canadian carriage, one of the heavier pieces of ordnance they used. They used old 8" howitzer barrels of First Unpleasantness vintage with an internal 'sleeve' that reduced the calibre. Capable of hitting a target 13 miles away, firing a 200-pound shell, and tipping the scales at 13 tons, this was a serious bit of kit. Art!
Breech end of the 7.2 and a DUKW in the background, the amphibious truck that was the Allies secret weapon after D-Day. Art!
Here's a 6-pounder anti-tank gun in desert camouflage scheme from North Africa, with the trail legs together for towing. '6-pounder' since that's the weight of the shell it fired. Once again, a 6-pounder experience was not something Axis tank crews enjoyed in the desert, as it was small enough to be easily concealed, and it's own crew could manhandle it around for short distances - something totally impractical with the 7.2 in the foreground. In mid-1944 the terrifyingly effective APDS round arrived for it, which meant even the Tiger and Panther were vulnerable. The South Canadians, very unusually, adopted it as their light anti-tank gun, increasing barrel length and calling it the
"How many track wheels do you want?"
"Yes."
Here's a Churchill Mark VII, a variant of the range with 6" frontal armour, a 75 mm gun and excellent cross-country capability. Just visible are the circular escape hatches on the side, in case of emergencies, and the 'cradle' the hull machine gun sat in. These were British 'Infantry' tanks intended to be slow, heavily-armoured and to accompany the - you may be ahead of me here - infantry into the assault. Initially they were rushed into service before proper R & D had been done and suffered from serious reliability issues, so much so that Mr Churchill was not happy about them being named after himself. Art!
An oil tanker? Art!
A late-model T-34 with the bigger turret and the adapted 85 mm anti-aircraft gun, for dealing with heavier Teuton armour. Actually it seems to be a post-Second Unpleasantness Polish model, which we will quietly overlook. Behind it is a British Sexton self-propelled gun, mounting a 25-pounder on a Sherman chassis, a combination thought up by the Canuckistanians. The idea was to give armoured formations mobile artillery that could keep up with the tanks. Art!
That'll need more than hot glue and duct tape, mate. Art!
YESSS! Behold the British 25-pounder gun-howitzer, with it's service limber behind it. These artillery pieces were in use by Reserve Royal Artillery formations up until the late Seventies, and are featured at the beginning of 30 Corps advance in 'A Bridge Too Far'. Once again, the Teutons and Romans did not like them, especially since the RA admin, logistics, observation and plotting allowed them to fire with unprecedented accuracy and rate of fire. Teuton PoWs in France used to ask to see the 'belt-fed' or 'hopper-loaded' British 25-pounders. Art!
"ALL GUNS - COMMENCE FIRING!"
And boy do they do so. Art!
Here you have two descendants of the British 'Cruiser' line of tanks, that were supposed to rollick around at high speed and engage the enemy whilst doing so. The one to port is a Cromwell, the basis of a line that you can trace forward to the Centurion, and the one to starboard is a Comet, an up-gunned and up-armoured grandson of the Cromwell. Again, you can definitely see Centurion DNA in the Comet's design. Art!
Early Centurion model
Thus began the British trend of naming tanks with one beginning with 'C'.
Born Under A Wandering Star
Is this a song from 'Paint Your Wagon'? I seem to recall Lee Marvin's dulcet tones gracing the airwaves many decades ago. One wonders how much he got in royalties across the years.
ANYWAY today we are looking at another item altogether, about Mister Mashed Potato Brain. Art!
Here the senile pedophile is gingerly walking down a shallow flight of steps in order to board 'The Beast', the presidential limousine. Art!
He walks past the open door and keeps heading out into the Mojave Desert*. Art!
At this point the Secret Service basically corral him and herd him back to The Beast, as he seems to have completely lost the plot, dramatis personae and footnotes as well. One of these people is going to publish a memoir entitled 'The President's Brain Is Hissing' in 2029.
My sweepstake odds on Pumpkinhead making it to the end of 2026 just abruptly shortened.
Okay, Art, bring on another terrible photo of the Nodfather!
Make it two. 80 going on 90. Is that his age or IQ? Only you can tell!
In Collusion With Literary Allusion
Another look at works on the ancient and classical world that you really cannot do without. Seriously! 'The Pelopponesian War' by Thucydides is still a required text at Westpoint, all of two and a half thousand years after being published. Art!
Actually this seems like the kind of work Conrad would like. We have seen ancient Greece and Rome analysed into infinity; this work deals with the other nations and states that were around at the same time, including Turkey, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Dog Buns, stop trying to empty my wallet!
I think the date range in the title of this work is to do with the emergence of Egyptian civilisation, and the fall of the Persian empire under assault by Alexander Meglos. DO NOT MAKE ME BUY IT TO FIND OUT!**
Although I do have to go on Abebooks to do a bit of checking out. That squeaking noise is my wallet.
I Have Cautioned You, Professor!
As you should surely know by now, Conrad has a small collection of works by Professor Peter Caddick-Adams, as British a name as you can get, whom posts on Twitter about his various academic encounters and which frequently include shots of the landscape.
Not all the time. Art!
I'm afraid this sounds like another set-up to relieve Conrad's wallet of it's book-tokens. What a despicable and untoward plot-generation series***! Dog Buns I did say it was time to check Abebooks -
Wallet, best get used to being emptied. Soz and all that.
Finally -
Do you have a query about Creery? Art!
Punch and Trudi?
* Poetic licence. It may be the <checks> Sonoran.
** Please.
*** How many of these liners were there? O never mind DO NOT ANSWER.
