I mean, it's August Bank Holiday weekend - and it isn't raining! Pub Quiz partners Phil and Rosie will be happy, as they are off to the Galtres Music Festival in North Yorkshire. They divulged this information as we swam back home from the pub quiz on Thursday, Rosie being worried that they'd be putting the tent up on horrendously wet grass. Well, if it remained dry on Friday the groundwater might have dissipated by the time pitching came around.
Enough of water and wetness! Let us proceed to more interesting things like atomic explosions and Tuscan peasant stews.
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| Ribollita! |
"The War The Infantry Knew"
This is, by consent, one of the best books ever written about the British army in the First World War. Originally it was only published anonymously in a limited print run of 500 volumes in 1938, but Conrad is currently reading a 1986 edition that was reprinted umpteen times in the '90's and 00's. The author was Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer to the 2nd Battalion Royal Welch* Fusiliers, who won the DSO, the MC (twice) and the DCM. Although technically a non-combatant as he was essentially a doctor-in-uniform, Dunn appears to have taken command of the battalion when all the other senior officers were casualties, to have operated captured German machine-guns with enthusiasm if little skill, and to have advised less-experienced officers about what to do and how to do it. He was both brave and shrewd, earning the praise of Frank Richards (author of "Old Soldiers"), Robert Graves (author of "Goodbye to All That" and "Claudius") and Siegfried Sassoon (author of "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man").
Conrad mentions this as he has started to re-read TWTIK, and not un-naturally has come across expressions, idiom and slang from 100 years ago that takes some research to understand.
"Vedettes": mentioned as being the only forces further to the north-east than the 2RWF. Apparently a vedette is a mounted sentry, one who in this case would have been appointed from the Cavalry Division serving as part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
"Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns": these are mentioned but briefly, as if you, the reader, knew of them already. Conrad didn't. So, a bit of research produces the fact that they were light anti-aircraft guns. TWTIK mentions these being used in early September against low-flying German aircraft - to absolutely no effect.
Here endeth your First World War lecture for the day.
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| A "pom-pom". Not to be confused with those things that cheerleaders use. |
You may not care to know, but Conrad is going to force you to endure a whole tranche of activity at the Mansion, thoroughly establishing his identity as a human being**.
Shopping Selection
Let Conrad enrapture you with a vision of what £60 will get you in a morning's shopping at Morrisons:
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| - not including the table or chairs. |
This is not quite what was purchased as the drinks have already been moved away (fruit juice, soft drinks and not just beer!) - oh and there's TWTIK on the table, lower left corner, proving I am reading it and not just boasting.
Chaos Corner
Yes indeed, on the Gluten side of the kitchen stands a collection of cookbooks and loose-leaf pages and pamphlets and dirt and dust. It's been allowed to coalesce over time, with habit and custom lending it a spurious air of permission and permanence.
No longer! Here is the hive of scum and villainy:
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| Mos Eisly Spaceport. No, hang on a minute - |
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| Pristine! |
The Terror of Tea
I am sure you will all be as shocked and appalled as Conrad at the following photograph, where he is reduced to using a PLASTIC SIEVE as a tea-strainer!
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| The horror! The horror! |
Doctor Who
After waiting for a very long time, this has rather snuck up on Conrad - suddenly he has to post in a hurry because it's on in 10 minutes. Hopefully there'll be no hanky-panky or even - God forbid! - rumpy-pumpy between Carla and The Doctor, that air of incipient romance always made Conrad worry about David Tennant and Billie Piper. There is a significant age-difference here, after all - about 700 years?
Also it's not been easy avoiding any descriptions of what's going to happen. Shades of "Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads"
* Yes, it is spelled "Welch" and don't you forget it.
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