The HORROR Halibut Of Andrew Offutt!

It Might Even Be True
For those who are curious, Mr Offutt was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, so somewhere in all his scribblings about mighty-thewed warriors over-compensating with huge swords, there may very well be a halibut that kills.
     I realise that in the real world, halibut can kill, too - you have to be careful preparing seafood*, vize "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life".
     Now, let us hit one another over the head with pigs bladders on a stick, and proceed into The Valley of Silly.

What did I say about the swords?

"History of the 51st Highland Division"
Probably the last time I can legitimately bore you with this volume as I finished it on the bus this morning.  No mention of ghastliness done by Man upon Man, so you the squeamish can carry on reading.
     First, I had to look up a "Foden Disinfector" as this is mentioned in the text and I'd never come across it before.  So, by the power of Greyskull Google, allow me to show you a Foden Disinfector:

The "Foden" is the truck, the "Disinfector" is the pair of steel drums

     Yes it does look odd, doesn't it?  It wasn't built for speed, it was built to kill off vermin: soldiers would put their uniforms into the drums, which would then be filled with steam, and the lice, fleas, ticks, chigger worms, etcetera, would be exterminated.  Getting de-loused clothing after suffering from "chats" is an experience Conrad has never undergone, hopes never to, but can understand.
     Second point is the few reproductions of pencil scribbles in the book - because, as Conrad realises, the publishers have scanned this volume from an original, viz:

Scrawling and indistinct

     - and whoever had owned this original had pencilled in notes of their own.
     A minor point yet one that makes the work seem a bit more human.

Lemonade Escapade
As you well know - because you DID read yesterday's blog, didn't you? - Conrad pointed out a bottle of lemonade that lacked any lemon content.  Plenty of suggestive artwork on the bottle, yet an absence of any citron in the drink.
     You get what you pay for, I suppose.  That bottle cost 50p.  Here's a somewhat more expensive one that retails at 69p:

No lemons!

     Nary a one!
     Yet here's the ingredient list:

See?  2% lemon.  One of your five a day!

     Soooo.  There are lemons in there.  I may continue this theme tomorrow and see what lies in the depths of a bottle of Cloudy Lemonade.

Nuclear Acronyms
I didn't have time to explicate these last night, or I couldn't be bothered.**So here are a few for your delectation:
MIRV: Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles; typical Americanese, calling the warheads "vehicles", as if you could hitch a ride on them!  These are a number of missile warheads housed in a large "bus", that launch from that platform and are guided to different targets on the ground.  Thus you might launch 150 MIRV'd missiles and hit 1,500 targets.
SLBM: Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile; these babies are launched from submarines that attempt to sail deep, slow and silent, so they can't be tracked. Up until Trident they weren't very accurate; now they are.
PAL: Permissive Action Link; this is a physical component of a warhead or it's operating system that has to be enabled for a launch to take place.  You might steal one of Uncle Sam or Brother Boris's nukes, but if you can't enable the PALs, you're not going to make it pop.

Only Fido stands between you and nuclear annihilation!

SSBS: Sol Sol Ballistique Strategique: A French SLBM.  Yes, the French have a large, independent nuclear arsenal.  Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, eh?
FOBOS: Fractional Orbit Bombardment System; invented by some canny Russians, this was a missile that didn't make orbit, instead firing a braking rocket before it did so.  It came down with less than ninety seconds warning time and could arrive from any direction, not simply the North Pole approach.

Fobs.  Close enough

     There you go.  If you think this little lot is scary, you should have been around in the hot days of the Cold War!

"Mason And Dixon"
Up to page 593, folks, and once agin old Tom throws up an item of interest:  "Small beer".
     I'm sure you're all familiar with the phrase, but what is the actual stuff?
     According to extensive research***it was beer with a very low alcohol content, often left unfiltered.  Why drink weak beer?  Because it was sterilised during the production process, and was thus a lot safer to drink than regular 18th Century water.  Men doing hard manual labour would often get through 10 pints of the stuff.  Get them!

More a small glass than a beer, but you get the point ...

     When I finished reading Tom was giving a lengthy description of the story of "The Lambton Worm", a bit of Geordie folklore that he gets totally spot-on accurate.  It's an English story I'd not expect an American to know the first thing about, but - that's Tom for you.  A completist!
     There's also a weird chapter on Mason going astray in time when the calendar is advanced by eleven days - going from Julian to Gregorian time - which reads rather like a bit of "The Langoliers", except with fewer toothy monsters.

Stephen King's "The Langoliers" - no, hang on a minute -

Good gravy!  That's the 60 minute limit and we're already at over 900 words.  Okay, time to add pictures and the pimp the post -



* Unless you're an alien whose digestive system is made up of diamond and titanium.  Like me.
** Can't remember which.
*** "Thirty seconds on Google" - revelation courtesy Mister Hand

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