It's Mister Scott! - Having A Tot

Although He Would Probably Call It A Dram
Being Scottish it is incumbent upon him* to drink, and to drink whisky.  Despite your humble scribe's background he is not at all fond of whisky and generally avoids drinking it, as quite besides being fire in liquid form, his palate is so bad he can't tell the difference between a single malt or a mingled salt.

"Slainte, laddie!"

     Scotty is also not one to get on the wrong side of: in "The Trouble with Tribbles" he punches a Klingon bigger than him across a table.
     I'm sure you're also wondering about the Red Shirt, as this generally adorns the torso of hapless Security staff whose life expectancy on-screen is measured in minutes, sometimes in seconds.  I think this was Gene Roddenberry being a sadist: James Doohan never knew from one episode to the next if he was going to DIE or not.

"House Of Leaves"
Well up into the 400's now, so I won't be boring you with this novel for a whole lot longer.  It's not as long as might appear at first sight, since the text frequently changes position, size, spacing and format,  viz:

This is quite sensible compared to some pages

     Well now, the Navidson character actually mentions reading "House of Leaves" but the version he's reading is longer than the novel I'm reading, which might be significant.
     Or not.
     Anyway, mention is also made of a "Bartizan", which context renders architectural, except I'd no idea what one was.
     Enter Google:

Behold, a bartizan

     Now I know, and so do you.  BOOJUM! - condescending, posing, wildly abstruse yet also teaching the world**.

"Poirot" - "Four And Twenty Blackbirds"
I got the villain in this instantly.  In fact it was painfully obvious who it was, and all the more so in that the police and Hercule and Hastings all resolutely avoided regarding him as the suspect.
     What really intrigued me - this may be sad or impressive, I leave it to you to judge - was the way scenes were shot and what perspectives were used.  The series is supposed to be set in 1935, you see, so the production crew have to avoid getting 1989 features in shot.  One presumes that they have a team of location scouts off looking for streets and settings that are either timeless or approximate the 1930's look, or where the illusion persists as long as the roofs aren't in shot - television aerials, don't you know! - or you can get away with filming from a height as that excludes modern street signs and shop frontages.

"On Thermonuclear War"
It only hit me yesterday that this was written in 1960, three years before the Cuban Missile Crisis.  What I'll have to do is re-read after finishing and see what lessons apply, or which don't apply.  In the meantime -

An Atlas launch.  Impressive, non?

A Titan launch.  Terrifying, non?

A Nike-Hercules launch

     These are all systems mentioned in the text by old Hermie, and then things begin to get a little weird -

This puppy is actually a "Snark", dear reader

     Just so, Michelangelo.  To quote Wikipedia: " The Snark took its name from the author Lewis Carroll's character the "snark" "
     Let me quote a bit more: "Work on the project began in 1946. Initially there were two missiles designed—a subsonic design (the MX775A Snark) and a supersonic design (the MX775B Boojum).(From the same poem: "The snark was a boojum, you see." ^"
     I think (and hope!) that this is Today's Creepy Coincidence.

"The Australian Victories In France" By General John Monash
All apprentice world dictators need to read works like this to see exactly how to plan your Campaign Of Utter Conquest.
     Hopefully, if you've already read earlier blog posts, you will be familiar with the fact of Australians being present on the Western Front, five divisions of them.  Also four Canadian divisions.  Monash goes into detail about the forward planning needed preparatory to the battle of Amiens - moving divisions around, taking over lengths of trench from the French, bringing up over 600 guns, getting tanks into position, stockpiling 300,000 artillery shells, and all without alerting the Germans.  This was done by moving only at night - no infra-red cameras in 1918! - and covering the noise of tanks with low-flying bombers.

Like this.  Impressive beast, what?

     Monash also explains a couple of bits of British trickery.  During pre-attack bombardments the Royal Artillery would fire a combination of smoke and gas shells, encouraging the Germans to get into their gas masks quick-smart.  Whilst protecting them from gas, this meant they were considerably less efficient in defence as vision and hearing is impaired by the masks.  During the actual British attack only smoke shells would be used, meaning the British infantry didn't need to bother with masks, whilst the Germans were encumbered with theirs.

Why being a Belgian farmer is a risky occupation

     Then there was the "Chinese barrage".  Normally, after a length of German trench was bombarded, the barrage would move on to hit the support trenches, then the reserve trenches, then into the rear.  A Chinese barrage would abruptly return to the front line trench whilst the hapless occupants were dealing with casualties and damage.  This might be repeated for up to five or six times.  Consequently, when the real attack went in on the heels of a non-Chinese barrage, the defenders would be caught with their pants down.

A barrage of Chinese.  Close enough

*"He has to" - translation from Psued courtesy Mister Hand
** Or at least that portion of it that reads this