Arnophilia - Is It Real?

I Only Ask Because -
     It popped up as a word in "Against The Day" and seems to occur nowhere else.  I Googled and the references were all to "Against The Day".  Mr Pynchon seems to suggest that it infers to an over-affectionate attitude towards - er - sheep.
     I think BOOJUM! will quietly leave the subject there - after all, there may be children reading*.

See, children!  Here's a pretty pony for you!  Well - er - pretty creepy, perhaps.  But - it is a pony!

O What To Do?
     The ironing dilemma rears its head again - it's a tedious chore, which Conrad does not enjoy.  So!  He tends to watch films whilst doing it.  Which makes it take ages. Doing it without a visual diversion means it gets done so much quicker. Yet it is - dull.

Irons are boring.  Here's some Irish Guards with machine guns instead!

Stuff To Watch
     Watch and listen to, if the ironing is to be done slowly.  Firstly - "The Pub Landlord - My Gaff My Rules".  I have followed Al Murray on Twitter for a while.  I've even got his book "Watching War Films With My Dad" - sorry, Al, got it second-hand.  Is it funny?  Yes, if a bit - well, sweary, to be honest.  It also has three Commentaries on the show by Al, which are also enlightening.  The Pub Landlord drinks throughout the show, you see, but it's non-fermented beer.  No alcohol.  So he doesn't get drunk.  Except at one show air got into the barrel and the beer did ferment and he did get royally potatoed.

"Roll out the barrel" - or, alternatively, carry it on your shoulder

     Then there's "Looper", which Conrad saw and enjoyed at the cinema.  Plus a not-entirely-legal version, which he also enjoyed.  Conrad's Rule is - watch a Not-Entirely-Legal version and enjoy it, and you have to buy it.  Thus is one's conscience qualmed"**.

Hooper.  Close enough

     Then there's "The Desert War 1940 - 1943", a compilation of contemporary newsreel all about the war in North Africa, which as you know from reading the blog - you do know, don't you? - is a particular passion of Conrad's.

Dessert war.  Close enough

So - Tanks?
     All right, you've been comparatively good.  Let us say hello to the Vickers Mk II, a British inter-war tank that didn't actually fire a shot in anger.

Fourteen tons of fear-inducing ferrous firepower

     Not a thing of beauty, is it?  
     It is claimed that the turret(s) of some Mk II's in Egypt were dismounted and used as pillboxes at Tobruk, but nobody seems entirely sure if this happened, and Conrad has never seen a photograph in all the hundreds of books he's read. So the point is moot.

Rosie and Phil
     No!  Not my pub quiz partners.  I refer, obviously - obviously! - to the ESA's Rosetta probe and it's Philae lander.  Rosettta was launched years ago and only woke up from "hibernation" in January this year.  It is now closing on the comet 67C/PG, with only about a 625 thousand mile gap separating them (small as astronomical distances go).  By August the distance will have narrowed so much that they'll be able to shake hands, and by November Phil will drop in to say hello.

Courtesy of everyone's favourite Aunty, BBC

     That's the plan.  It's all gone swimmingly so far, so fingers crossed for the next 6 months.





*  One rather wonders what on earth a small child would make of BOOJUM! but we must allow for the possibility
** I was going to put "assuaged" but considered it a bit pseudy.