It's De Forrest Kelly - Being All Southern Gentlemanelly!

I Do Beg Your Pardon -
- that last word is certainly stretching a bit, but I couldn't find anything appropriate under "Engsign Chekov", which I had wanted as my Russian audience appears to have fallen off a bit.  Ensign Chekov - oh, hang on a minute, is he in "Day of the Dove" <checks out the mighty and impartial Wikipedia> yes he is!  Well, that's tomorrow's title secured for sure.
     Anyway, De Forrest Kelly.  Not exactly your standard naming convention, although Conrad understands that there is a South Canadian tradition of using the maternal surname as the child's forename, which might explain it.

Nailed it!

     I think this picture sums up Doctor McCoy in one go.  Charming, hospitable, ever one for a snifter of Ginned Mint Julep*, concerned with the human factor amidst the technology aboard an interstellar starship, and ever one for a self-referential put-down.
     "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an engineer!*"
     
Songs That Have Got Stuck In My Head
Really, I am baring my soul here.  As you surely know by now, Conrad is nothing if not Street Cred with regards to music.  Who was first into Good Rockin' Doopsie And His Cajun Twisters way back in 1982?  Moi.  Who saw The Chameleons in their triumphant gig at The Ritz in 1987?  Yes me.  Who had a signed copy of "Land" by the Comsat Angels?  None other than your humble scribe.  Who saw REM perform "South Central Rain" on The Tube?  Me!
     So it is with fear and trepidation** that I inform you about three songs currently playing merry-go-round in my head.

REM

     1) "Snooker Loopy".  I have NO idea why this repellent bit of verbiage is at the forefront of my attention.  I cannot stand snooker, hate the song and haven't heard it in years, without missing it one teensy tiny bit.
     2) "Boys and Girls" by Blur.  I consider this song to have a bloody annoying riff, also I've no idea what they're singing about, and going back to that riff it seems they might have nicked it off Wire.
     3) The Dioralyte Song.  This, heaven help me, isn't even a proper song at all, it's a silly rhyme I made up as a possible song to promote Dioralyte, and it has come back to haunt me. Let me attempt to exorcise it:

Dioralyte, Dioralyte,

Number one in a field of two!

Dioralyte, Dioralyte,

It helps you when you pooh!

Dioralyte, Dioralyte,

It'll stop you feeling blue -

Dioralyte, Dioralyte,

Puts the salts back into you!

     Nah.  It's still there.

If I Were Human -
Then this would count as cruel and unusual punishment.  Since I'm not ...
     Currently your humble scribe is typing up longhand notes of his index to the history of the 51st Highland Division.  I've done the Units, the Places, the Officers and I'm now on the British Weapons used. This condenses the longhand down to a fraction of what it was. 
     Yes, this is what I'm doing during my leave.  As I said, for humans ...

"The Australian Victories In France 1918" By General John Monash
It may come as a substantial surprise to the general reader of BOOJUM! that there was a considerable Australian presence on the Western Front during the First Unpleasantness, perhaps also including Australian readers, as there does seem to be a concentration of attention upon ANZAC at Gallipolli.
     By 1918 there were five Australian divisions on the Western Front, no mean achievement for a population of only several million.  They were widely used as the spearpoint of any offensive operation by the whole British Expeditionary Force, meaning that the unfortunate German who discovered that the trenches opposite were held by the "Ockers" realised his life was about to become harrowing.  This Corps was led by General Monash himself.

Australian Light Drinking Formation getting ready for Opening Time

     Monash was a general of considerable talent and ability, single-handedly shooting down the old "Lions led by donkeys" caricature.  He has some profound and relevant things to say about being a Corps commander.  As he puts it, a Corps commander was responsible for: "maintenance of roads, railways, canals, telgraphs and telephones; the control of all traffic; the apportionment of all billeting and quartering arrangements; the allocation and employment of all means of transport; the collection and distribution of all supplies, comprising food, forage, munitions and engineering materials; the conservation and distribution of all water supply; the sanitation of the area; the whole medical administration; the establishment of laundries, bathing establishments and rest camps; for the tactical defence of his whole area; the creation and maintenance of the entire range of field defences; for the preparation of demolition of railways and bridges -"

An Ocker with some souvenirs

     The Australian Corps in 1918 stayed together in one unit, which gave them an inestimable advantage over other BEF units in Army Corps, which swapped around willy-nilly all the time.  Monash wisely makes the point that what might be called "Consistency of Continuity" gave the Ockers a tremendous boost in efficiency and organisation.
     I realise this is a bit abstruse, and again not part of the "Lions and donkeys" cliche approach to the First Unpleasantness, but maintaining the composition of an Army Corps might have been one method to enhance BEF efficiency on the Western Front.
     Okay, I apologise for subjecting you to a potential Degree thesis, let us move on to more hilarious matters.

An Old Man Moment
Yesterday I was fuming in baffled incomprehension as I tried to don my rather shabby knocking-around-in track-suit bottoms.  "Why is this pocket not working properly!" I raged.  "WHY!"
     "It's because you've got them on back-to-front," informed Wonder Wifey, and, embarassingly, she was right.
     Today I enquired as to whether or not she'd seen my tea-strainer.

The unaesthetic substitute

     I realise this will never feature on the BBC news channel, nor Sky News***, but since I can get through half a gallon of tea per day on leave, it matters to me.
     Now, I'd spent at least ten minutes yesterday and today looking for this Dog Buns! strainer.  Wonder Wifey took one look in the kitchen and said "I can see it from here".
     Here it is: 

Treachery, thy name is tea-strainer!

     I'd been next to it for the whole day.
     Definitely an Old Man Moment.



* This might not exist but it sounds like it ought to.
** Like trembling, except worse.
*** Fox - about odds-on