Thanks!

     Cakeday
     Today at Chez Connolly it was "Cakeday", in honour of my birthday yesterday and my darling daughter Sally's excellent A level results.  Cakeday has a shallow history, only being instituted a couple of years ago, but it follows an outline, viz:
     Invitation:  specific and general invites are sent out, with times
     Preparation:  Mr Connolly - me - bakes a ton of cakes
     Anticipation:  the premises at 625 are given a clean and tidy
     Participation:  various guests turn up and enjoy cake.
When you have 19 guests turn up at different times in differing numbers across seven hours you learn to wash up and dry dishes and cutlery before the next person arrives ...
     This year, in addition to the usual cake and cookies, we were able to offer Tassimo coffee, and four varieties of ice-cream.

     Nook
     Which is, an electronic book.  I got this as a birthday present and am still puzzling out how to use it.  With a book, you simply turn the pages; there may be an index, and a bibliography, and a list of maps used, but it's pretty basic and has been since some gifted Egyptian invented it 3,000 years ago.
     The Nook, mind you, is a digital device with almost-human cunning and levels of complexity that remind me of the first work I'm reading upon it - "The Diamond Age".

So - Tanks?

A factory-fresh Vickers Mk VI.  Direct offspring of Dalek and Bren Carrier



A Vickers Light Tank Mark VI.  Apparently brassing the cr@p out of the landscape.



Not quite what you imagine when the word "Tank" runs through your mind, is it?  These little articles - Vickers Light Tank Mark VI - were a mainstay of British armour in the early years of WW2.  Bearing in mind that they mounted a .50 inch Vickers machine gun, if you were the enemy and not wearing a suit of armour plate, you were in for a torrid time of it.