As you are no doubt bored of hearing, Conrad is still working at "Agincourt", and we're up to the opening skirmishes of the battle itself. After that there's only about a fifth of the book left to read. Anyway - as you do - sitting on the bus reading another book, the word "Chevauchee" popped into my mind.
Now, I may have read this in Anne Curry's very fine and detailed book, or in the "Crecy" graphic novel lent to my by Colin, or it may have spontaneously come into existence thanks to a stray neutrino zipping through the grey matter.
No! My brain, not a bowlful of porridge. Really!
Further to the word popping into my head, I seemed to recall that it was a medieval military practice - you went over to your unloved neighbour's lands and generally pillaged your buns off, rapid-like, before returning home laden with loot.
Wiki confirms this.
Conrad rests on his slightly-wilted laurels.
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| Conrad's brain. No, hang on - |
Whilst being chauffeured from Chez Howell to the Mansion, what did Conrad espy but hundreds, if not thousands of these:
| BOG! (Blue, Orange, Green) |
Has the world gone mad! For these many decades we have functioned without needing to move beyond the chromatic palette of Orange, mighty Orange*.
Green cones, apparently, denote the access and egress points along roadworks - which makes sense. The Blue ones are a warning that there are height issues. I know how they feel - Conrad cannot fit in the bath and has to stoop on the bus, and when visiting cave systems -
- oh, sorry, "Construction height issues". Overhead objects like slip roads, gantries and pylons.
Agincourt
Yes, I have already mentioned this. Whose blog is it? Thank you. If I care to pad things out a bit, that's my privilege.
If I may proceed? Why thank you.
Are you sure? I mean I don't want to OW!**
Yes, well, what I meant to say is that Curry takes pains to point out that large-scale battles of the order of Agincourt were rare events. Most of the English (and Welsh) and French (and Burgundians) had not fought in a battle of this size before. You're talking about perhaps fifteen thousand men combined. How did they practice? Did they practice? Were the monarchs of either side simply advised by men with experience?
Let me be blunt -
No, actually let me be sharp and pointed, that's a better image. Conrad needs to know if the kings and princes and advisers bothered to wargame and thus establish a model of how to conduct a battle.
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| "Throw 3 x D6 and cross-check on the Pillage & Loot chart" |
"The Boxtrolls"
Don't worry, this is a film, not things that hide under the bed and scare children***. Conrad saw a trailer for it at the pictures a month or two ago and remembers nothing about it. This isn't necessarily a comment on the quality of the trailer and is more probably a reflection on Conrad's addled memory. He is 187, you know.
Anyway, there are now bus posters advertising the film, so Conrad flaunted his normal practice of making up caustic comments based on a fleeting glimpse as the 409 drives past. This meant a quick trip to IMDb which stated that it's about a young lad brought up by the titular boxtrolls, trying to prevent them being wiped out by an exterminator.
Go exterminator! applauds Conrad. Have you seen those boxtrolls? Disgustingly unhygenic. A good dose of caustic soda is what they need.
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| Ox strolls. Close enough |
SLUGFEST^!
SLUGBOT
Good grief.
Excuse me, I was slightly surprised. Years ago Conrad would drive home from Salford, listening to Radio Four. One of his favourite programmes was "Material World", narrated by Quentin Cooper, a topical science programme.
Conrad distinctly remembers the item about "Slugbot", an autonomous robot that was designed to seek out and harvest slugs. Evil slugs! Which it would then use as a power source as they decomposed. I suppose "Rottingslugbot" is closer to the truth, if a little less appealing, inasmuch as a slug-harvesting robot can ever find a place in our hearts.
I was surprised because Googling immediately brought up the bot in question.
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| Limax-liquidising slugbusting slimejuicer |
Bou is a village in the Loiret Department of northern France. As an agricultural area, it has many slugs, especially in damp summers. They could probably use a few Slugbots, eh?
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| You don't see it at first - then it jumps out at you. BOO! |
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| Stug III at Bovington Tank Museum |
SLUGBOW
Although the slug's sense of etiquette is not highly-developed, it is possible for the dedicated limaxologist to train their
| Er - not sure which end is bowing |
Ah, the thrills of yesteryear! None of this namby-pamby milksop virtual violence on a computer monitor, back in my day you got your kicks by punching, as here:
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| Laugh as you lambast your opponent! Hours of fun! |
SLUGBOY
I am not going to see if Marvel or DC or Dark Horse or Exploding Seagull have a character in their universe called "Slugboy" - one of them probably has. Let us set out Conrad's version of this repellent individual. Got to be a villain, frankly. Although, on his plus-side, he is a vegetarian; probably given to eating the neighbour's allotment veg, however, so a double-edged quality.
| "Bleedin' 'ell, Doris - next door's lad's been at me Icebergs!" |
SLUGBOZ
Right, this one is a bit of a stretch -
Hug Boz - close enough
* <Get on with it!> warns Mister Hand.
** Sarcasm-busting bamboo skewer deployed courtesy of Mister Hand
*** Steven Moffat I am glaring at you, sir!
^ This is an actual word that comic critics used about strips where superheroes and villains beat each other up non-stop, bemoaning lack of plot or drama or character development - to which Conrad says "Yeah so what?"
^^ As they are armed with the Uzi. Say it out loud.
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