More Of BIG Things!

First Off - Megalomania
This ties right in with the current theme, which is looking at BIG things, rather than the rather coy, everyday stuff that might otherwise not bring in the readers.  After all, would you rather read about SIOP, the South Canadian strategic plan on how to blow up the Bolshevik half of the world, or about Conrad making a cup of tea?
     Come on, come on, make up your mind!

It's either this -

 - or this

     Whilst you ponder, allow me to explicate "Megalomania".  It means, of course, a delusion about being mighty beyond all belief and as Conrad suspected it derives from the Greek: "Mega" meaning "Great" and "Mania" meaning "Potty as fruit loops".
     An apt example might be The Brain, from "Pinky and the Brain", who, every night, tries to take over the world.  He's not succeeded yet.  Conrad has studied every episode as a guide to what not to do if your aim is world domination. First off, don't be a minute mouse.  Second, don't be locked up in a cage all the time. Lastly, don't have an idiot assistant.

Thucydides - The History of the Peloponnesian War
Nearly a third of the way through this work, which has featured invasions, sieges, battles, naval blockade, lots of speeches - these Ancient Greeks would compose and speak at the drop of a hat - and currently the plague. And the war's only in it's second year!
     One thing not edified, presumably because it was so obvious to Thuck and his readers, is the nature of warships at this time.  They were used by the hundred, yet there's no idea of how long it takes to construct one of these vessels, nor of how long they would last in the field (the metaphorical field).  Conrad is guessing that the normal civilian shipping would be used as transports, escorted by the warships, but again this isn't clarified.

The Ballistic Missile Sub of it's day

     Then there's the plague, which sounds extremely unpleasant*.  It hit Athens extremely hard, most especially since the city was bulging at the seams with refugees from the Attic countryside, which was being laid waste by the Spartan-led Peloponnesian armies.  Conventional wisdom has it that the disease, with some support from archaeological finds, was typhus.
     Always nice to know what's killing you off ...
     Conrad has dug up his copy of "Greece and Rome at War" by Peter Connolly, which has a detailed and lengthy Appendix about naval warfare, so there may be some answers there.  I'll let you know.

"Someone was having a very bad day"

The Mars Volta - Lyrics
In "Cygnus - Vismund Cygnus" old Bixler sings strongly forth that "The ocean floor is hidden from your viewing lens", which made Conrad think.
     I realise this is a bit beyond the lyrics of One Direction, which tend to be along the lines of "La La La Lalala La Lala <raise key> La La La Lalala La Lala" and also lack the clinical efficiency of classic Pink Floyd - "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces".  Still and all, how do you know there's an ocean floor if you can't see it?  Conceptually it might not have a bottom at all; the Jovian surface probably lacks a solid demarcator where gas becomes liquid becomes solid, as an example.

By  Jove!

     I know what you're going to riposte with: can you imagine the sound of one hand clapping?
     No.  I can quite conceptualise one hand slapping, however, slapping the cheek of those who ask stupid questions. Slapping with a bat**.

Well - okay, that would work as well.

Conrad - Well Heeled
Perhaps that ought to be "healed".  The past week I have been suffering from a small stone in my shoe, or so I thought.  Not consistently, which was puzzling as I'd changed my socks and emptied the shoe out and yet it still happened.
     Well well well, stap me vittles.  A post on Facebook illustrated a drawing pin stuck in the sole of my sandal from two years ago, which produced a similar symptom.
     What did I find stuck in the sole of my shoe?

Spiky thing with pen for scale.

     It looks like the sort of thing you'd impale a small candle on, not your humble scribe's tender sole.

You What?
Oh dearie me.  Once again the Foobs and the Twits demonstrate an uncanny ability to get it completely wrong when "suggesting" posts that your gifted author might be interested in.  Take this, for example:

What?  Whatwhatwhat?

     I have NO idea what this vapid drivel means, and from the look of the illustration I do not WANT to find out.  Is it to do with military history?  Zombies?  Atom-bombing the Moon?  No? Then get out of here!
     But wait, for there is more.  After the Twits pass the Idiot baton to the Foobs, what do they come up with but this peculiarity:

Upper right, ta.

     What the heck?  "Titicaca" is a lake in Mexico or Columbia, somewhere over that side of the Atlantic anyway, so why is the text in either Chinese or Japanese?

Well, I had a long screed about public transport all ready to go but that would extend the piece to over 1,200 words and I have yet to consider what cake to bake for the office gannets this Friday.  Also, I have to sweet-talk Wonder Wifey into allowing me to print 90 pages of my novel MSS for posting.  

I'll get back to you on that.

Pip Pip!

* Find me one that's not!
** Only a ping-pong bat.  A cricket bat verges too closely on the lethal.