Sixteen Thirty One?

In The Sense Of "What?  It's Half Four Already?"
Not in the sense of some grim battle of the Thirty Years War such as the Sack of Magdeburg*.
     Where has the day gone?  It started so promisingly:

  

Tea and ice cream - the basis of every weekend breakfast

      I was even able to enjoy breakfast unmolested by Jenny, who generally surfaces from whatever distant bolt-hole she's been hiding in, only to try and creep gradually closer to the food.  Not today -

Possibly playing possum

The Journal And SOTCW
That's "Society Of Twentieth Century Wargamers" and, as ever, I shall pay you if you can create a working acronym for it.
     Anyway, I took delivery of the latest Journal yesterday and put off having a look at it until this morning, when I could look over it at leisure.

The layout
Very nicely done Pete!

     This edition marks the debut of Pete Jones as editor.  Pete recently retired (almost - he now has another job) so can devote time to the Journal, taking over from Richard Baber, who was ten years in the job.  It really is a labour of love, and it looks very impressive; if we could print on glossy paper it would compete with professional publications.
     Here a confession: I used to be a lot more involved with the Journal, to the extent of writing articles, but BOOJUM! has rather put the kybosh on that.

http://sotcw.co.uk/

There's the link to the homepage.  Contributions to the Journal are welcome and solicited, but please be aware you need to have your game head on.

Like this.  Game head.

Superheroes With Their Pants Down
Today we shall pick on - Spiderman!

      I hope the revelation that Spiderman is cub reporter Peter Parker isn't too much of a spoiler.  Anyway, I want to focus on the web-slinger's webs themselves.
     Presumably these are generated as a result of a biological process? In which case he's going to be expending body mass and moisture creating webs as he swings from skyscraper to skyscraper, or bundles up bandits, or halts runaway prams.  Using up whatever creates his webs means having to replenish his metabolism via food and drink or he'd fall over in a hypoglyemic coma.  Yet do we ever see him pausing to snaffle up the contents of a hot-dog franchise or a Coke vending machine?  We do not!  

You see, this is what I'm talking about
(Just ignore Loki)

     Then there's those webs themselves.  What range do they have?  Won't web get deflected by wind? Has PP conducted any load-bearing experiments to see what it's breaking-strain is?  How does heat or humidity affect his webs?  Big question - is it biodegradable?  because if not the city is going to look like a cliche haunted house.
     Go away and come back with the answers, PP!

"Chink" By Lavinia Greacen
I have just been through the Twenties in this biography, when Chink was best friends with Ernest Hemingway and where he perpetually parties in Paris.  Greacen describes the Hemingway's flats as having a "Bal Musette" at the entrance.  Of course Conrad the pedant looked this up - it's "a seedy hang-out frequented by low-lifes and Bohemians".

     The names that occur in this chapter are a whose-who of modern art and literature: Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Picasso, Ford Maddox Ford and John Dos Passos. Chink, the epitome of an English officer and gentleman**, made a very strange contrast with these people.

Induction at Sandhurst, Class of 1928

     Then in the next chapter he moves on to Sandhurst, the staff college for British and Commonwealth army officers, where he knocks around with people whose names are synonymous with high command in the Second Unpleasantness: Brian Horrocks, Alec Gatehouse, Boy Browning, Richard O'Connor and Bernard Law Montgomery.
     There could not be two more different sets of people, evah!
     Fascinating stuff, really.

A wild, swinging, singing bal muse - no, hang on a minute -

"Spy"
Another fim poster glimpsed on the side of a bus.
     What's that comment from a film critic?
     "Dangerously funny."
     Dangerously funny, eh?  That's odd, I thought the only joke that killed was on Monty Python.
     I'LL DECIDE IF IT'S DANGEROUSLY FUNNY!  ME! USING MY OPINION!
     I do note that it does have The Stath*** in it, so it's not a complete loss.

'S Pi.  Close enough

Blimey.  40 minutes gone already, although several were spent getting another cup of this delightful loose leaf Darjeeling.  What next, Oscar?

Ah, Yes, Adverts
Since I was dogsitting Edna for half the afternoon, I ended up on the settee, doing my index and intermittently watching "Star Trek" - the original and still the best.  There are a worrying number of adverts pimping firms of solicitors - I suppose making money from misery means making the most of the media, the muppets^.
     Anyway -
     Galaxy 
     (It's a chocolate)  "Why have cotton when you can have silk?" they ask, featuring a girl made up to look like Audrey Hepburn, for reasons that escape your humble scribe entirely.
     Well, one reason is that you might be a vegan.
     Another reason is that you're going out to dig up the garden, the wet, muddy, slimey, weedy, beetle-infested garden.  Are you going to do that wearing a silk peignoir?^^
     Then again, those boxers made of Egyptian cotton are £1.50 for three, whereas a single pair of silk ones cost £183.87 plus VAT.

Same name.  Close enough.

Well, that's the 60 minutes up, and at nearly 1,000 words some of you will be thinking "Good!^^^"


* This might be a real thing, I'm not sure, I was in Mecklenburg at the time.
** Though he was from County Cavan in Ireland
*** That is, Jason Statham, for the gratuitously uninformed amongst you.
^ Muppets in a BAD way.
^^ I'm not entirely sure what one of these is, although it sounds appropriate
^^^ I know who you are.  I'll come round and have a word.