The Clepsydrae Of DEATH!

Sorry - More Scare-Mongering By The Blog
If you cast your mind back several weeks, you will recall my description of various clocks before the invention of the modern clockwork model.  One of these was the clepsydra, a water clock that measured time by means of water flow, later versions having gearing and scales.  The original was merely a big basin with a hole in it, that the water flowed out of.

No scale, but probably pretty hefty

     So.  The possibility of being killed by a clepsydrae is vanishingly small.  
     It could happen - you could be lying on your back, drunk off your ass on wine that you didn't water down*, underneath the shelves supporting a clepsydra, early in the morning so the water clock is almost full, when there's an earthquake, and the clepsydra tilts over and - you drown.

Okay, clepsydra fear is a real thing.  Who knew! 

Reliving One's Youth
This is a particular prediliction of middle-aged men, I understand.  I have no intention of getting a motorbike, going to a rave or trying to drink my age in pints, rest assured on those scores, gentle reader.
     Rather, Conrad found it amusing and instructive to revisit the science fiction novels of his youth, and particular those of Alan E. Nourse.
     But lo!  What is this?  These novels are only available from the States, and with ridiculously high postage rates to boot.  Fond reminiscence will have to wait!

No, no, nothing to do with the film - though I think they had to pay him a fee

     By the way, Nourse was a doctor by profession and wrote just as much non-fiction as he wrote sci-fi.  Naturally he followed the occupation-tropic approach to science fiction that most writers adopted in those days, his work having a largely medical bias.
     This is fine, writing what you know, if you're a doctor or an atomic research technician or run a radio station**, but what if your job is ratting for the council?***

Yes, and we can guess what he's obsessed with!
(A work by Alan E Nourse, not a cover chosen at random)

"Seeking Victory on the Western Front" By Albert Palazzo
This book overturns several misconceptions that people might have about the British Army in the First Unpleasantness.
     The picture of Field Marshal Douglas Haig as an ignorant hidebound duffer won't stand - he embraced gas warfare with assiduity^, despite it being entirely novel, and continued to press subordinate commanders about it, whilst fighting with the War Office^^to get more of it in deadlier form.

Haigy, in his regimental uniform, plus chicken-on-head

     Then, too, the picture of the British as being gentlemanly and sporting when it came to waging war; this they were most certainly not!  One of their more horrid innovations was using an early version of napalm to set afire enemy-occupied woods, and then shell the blazes out of anyone trying to escape.  Gas, high explosive, oily rags, thermite, fuel - the only thing they didn't apparently fire at the luckless German was bubonic plague.
     The British army by war's end wasn't simply a mass of cannon fodder marching to be destroyed, either.  As Al and others have pointed out, what might be called the "mature" BEF combined artillery, tanks, gas, smoke, surprise, intelligence work, aerial photography, sound ranging, flash spotting and minor infantry tactics in combination to crush the Reichswehr.  

Haigy, more conventionally dressed, and apparently not happy with either Conrad or BOOJUM!

Gosh that was unwarrantedly serious for BOOJUM!  Quick, throw in some doggerel - 

A Pome For Rick
Please note I call 'em "pomes" as by no stretch of the imagination can they be called "poems". Plus Rick follows Bury football club.

A POME FOR RICK

Rick, Rick, thy race is run!

You’re leaving us and moving on.

To a metaphorical team of milk and honey

Who heed no phones, only redundancy money

Oh, and Maternity, too, and Death In Service –

The thought of which brings out the nervous.

They also deliver as Terminators

And provide references for Regulators.

This, Rick, is what you’re moving to –

Frankly, a pen-pushing, bean-counting zoo!

Also deserting with you is Happy Mo –

Rascal that he is, glad to see him go.

What fond memories do we have of you?

After thinking hard I know of but two.

1)Failing to make a charity bungee jump,

Because you’d gone and got the hump.

2) Getting wet feet as you trudged home –

Thin stuff, this, with which to make a pome.

Oh!  There’s your UK-wide football pilgrimage

Trekking to all points from Swinton Village,

And the cricketing rivalry with Yorkie Kerry

In which you’d like to hatchet the Bury.  

Thank you.  Playful tone now restored.

What's that, Mister Hand?  We've now hit 842 words?  Gadzooks!  Time to post this little lot and startle bore entertain inform you.

Given that there's more material I may post a second time later on.

* The Greeks by habit diluted their wine before drinking
** Little Philip K Dick in-joke there.
*** Then you do a Thomas Pynchon and amend the "rats" to "alligators"
^ I hope you bored Russian squaddies are taking notes!
^^ Do you see what I - O you did.