A Day Of Off

Yet Without A Cough
For the first time in over 3 year your humble scribe is off work, ill.  O so ill.
     Well actually just a minor illness (feeling fagged-out and with cotton-wool brain) yet there truly is nothing more pathetic than a man with a minor illness.
     "What a great opportunity for a skive!" I can hear you say, you unsympathetic wastrels.  "A lie-in and no work!"
     Hardly.  I lay fainting on my bed of sickness until 1 p.m. ta very much, and needed every second of it.  Rashly I ventured out in mid-afternoon to do the weekly shop and felt like going home after Iceland.  Once back home I had to sit down for 10 minutes to recover, before I put anything away, consequently suffering anxiety pangs over what the cat might be taking an interest in ...
     On the plus side, I now know what it feels like to be 78 years old.

The office noticeboard, to give you a sense of place

     Nor is that all.  We have to inform the office before 10:00 a.m. of our invalid status, so I rang and got answered by Catherine.
     "Hello sir," she replied after the initial intro.
     "Hello - guess who this is!" I quoth.
     Long silence.  Catherine clearly unsure.
     "It's Rob!" I explained, preparing to -
     "Sorry, who?"
     "Rob."
     "Who?  Sir?"
     "Rob.   ROB!  ROB WHOM YOU WORK WITH!!"
     "Oh, Rob.  Great sick voice!"
     How soon they forget.

The New Notebook
Let me illuminate a little of the logistical process behind the airy-fairy art that goes into - SIT BACK DOWN!  It is interesting!  It is!  As I was saying - Art?

Perpendicular pile of pads

     Notebook Left is the old one dating from the beginning of January this year, and it's almost full.  There are a few pages left empty for making notes against and about "Bleeding Edge" which means I can't junk it yet, and there are some notes still present that haven't been added to BOOJUM! yet, so I still can't junk it even after completing BE.
     Notebook Right is the less-than-novel notebook, 26 pages of longhand notes in there already from "Seeking Victory On The Western Front".  One problem is that it's softback and the pages warp and bend when being written upon, which might seem a minor point but when you're on a bus with bad suspension and the driver deliberately hits every single pothole in the road -

What that feels like -

Accursed Bus
Which, oddly enough, rhymes with "First Bus", which is probably what a lot of folks were thinking to themselves at the 24 bus stop last night.  The 24 service had been cancelled from 3 p.m. onwards, because apparently a low-flying tram had detonated the nuclear landmines on the Russo-Sino Border causing a pram to go out of control on the Long Island Expressway.  Something like that.
     "The Butterfly Effect," would be how the bus inspectors explained it, if I'd bothered to ask.  

Mothra Effect.  Close enough

One gentleman could not subdue his inner rage and was venting noisily at the inspectors, who shrugged it off afterwards as "a nice friendly chat compared to some."
     Of course, it could all be an hideous social experiment carried out by First.  Bear in mind that four of us on the 409 were talking to each other - about vile bus services only, but still talking - and that this would never have happened without First's service being so dire.

Hmmm.  Not so sure anyone would be happy to talk to him ...

Lindybeige
Discovered this chap's videos over on Youtube, although typically I cannot remember anything about what I was looking for in the first place.  Probably illegal anyway.  The video I saw first was posing that immortal question "Which is better - Bren or Spandau?" and here's the man himself -

Lindy, wearing beige

     As ever, here's a link to the video mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQygRVvEmM


     And for your further enightenment, in case it's not clear what on earth Conrad is babbling on about, a Bren and a Spandau:

Bren

Spandau (actually the MG34)

     What's better?  Hard to answer succinctly, but in attack, the Bren; in defence, the Spandau.  As Lindy points out, the Bren (which has some Czech DNA in there) was used by the British Army up to the Nineties and it's still being made in India.  The Spandau was adopted by a few countries after the Second Unpleasantness, but not that many.  That may go to answer the question a little.  
     Now, because we're at count, I shan't blather on about how Lindy goes into detail about tactics and differing practices*, but his site is worth checking out.  Even if your palms don't get sweaty and you get an adrenaline rush at the sound of those two words "machine gun".



*  Maybe tomorrow ...