How Very Apt: 19:42

I Say This Because It Refers To The Timestamp
 - of 19:42 in the lower right corner of my PC, and also to a major event in the year 1942 itself.
     "Oh goody!" I hear your exclaim.  "With a date like that it can't be anything whatsoever to do with 'Doctor Strangelove'."
     Correct.  But don't celebrate just yet.
     I am watching the rather good British documentary film "Desert Victory" (6.8 on IMDB), and here's a link to Youtube if you feel like watching it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBuqXs7pU7k

     Although released in 1943, the events it details occurred in 1942, and because it's wartime British propaganda it has fantastic Received English Pronunciation from the narrator.  I mean, he pronounces "crucial" as "crewsheeal".  Conrad did a bit of digging and he turns out to be the chap who wrote the film's narration itself: James Lansdale Hodson, a native of Bury.

Warning: actually in black and white
(also likely to annoy Nazis and Fascists)

     I realise this may not mean anything to you out there who neither hail from the Pond of Eden - actually given today's weather I think we can use Allotment of Eden - nor whom comprehend the complexities of English dialect, but folks from Bury most certainly do NOT speak REP; they would call their home town "Boorih" rather than the REP of "Berry".
     Anyway, if you want to imagine JLH rather than listen to him, picture Robert Newton putting on the Queen's English a bit.

"Arrrrrr!"

25 Things
Again this is relevant.  Oh - allow me to expand on the title:  "25 Things That The UK Does Better Than The US".
     I understand that the Youtube creators are limited in time and they could easily have added several zeroes to the end of that total, which is bordering dangerously on satire and thus Current Affairs, so we shall press on -
     Okay, Mike, what do you have for us?

     Absolutely correct.  As he says, move from smallest to largest, it's not rocket science.  2/9/2016 ought to be the 2nd September 2016, NOT 9th February 2016.  Anything else?

     Mike used an example I've not heard before, from 1940 when Britain was being bombed from end to end by the Luftwaffe*.  Winston Churchill described this as "The Unpleasantness", which is surely classic British understatement and - well, Conrad calls the First and Second World Wars the First and Second Unpleasantness, so I am obviously following in the footsteps of the great and good.  There is also that joke - " - The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats in Islamabad and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved."
     Just be careful of us when we get to "Wrinkling Forehead And Putting Down Cup Of Tea".

Further To The Chauchat
My friend Richard, who hails from Wales - not really relevant but it rhymes - posted a spelling correction about this French automatic rifle from the First Wor - Unpleasantness.  I also realised that Ian, the Forgotten Weapons presenter, added another reason South Canadian troops might have disliked the weapon.  Art?

Blending in with his butt

     It was bad practice to hold the weapon close to your cheek; in the above screenshot you can just see the end of the receiver under Ian's right ear, as he holds it at an angle and forward of the butt.  This is because of the "energetic" action of the bolt, which would cause the receiver to move sharply backwards, which taught French troops to hold the weapon in the position Ian is in.  South Canadian troops, however, were taught to get directly behind the rifle to aim it accurately.  So it would hit them in the face.  Painfully.

What On Earth?
Conrad has a complete Bloglossary, which he may post in future if in need of a quick ascent to word count, where he contracts the above to "WoE".  This is a whole lot more SFW than that dubious acronym WTF, which I shall not elaborate upon here.
     This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with this:

     For the dull of vision and/or intellect, this is a pile of single socks.  Socks with no mate to pair up with.  Solo socks.  Socks that <Mister Hand intervenes to progress the post> alone.
     My point is - WHERE ARE THE OTHER SOCKS!  WHERE!  
     Conrad divests his feet of both socks at the same time, and hurls them into the laundry hamper at the same time, and puts these into the washing machine at the same time.
     So - WHERE ARE THE OTHER SOCKS!
     I can only posit a creature of urban legend, the "Koboldsocke", that infiltrates your house at night and steals individual socks.  Because, otherwise, WHERE ARE THE OTHER SOCKS!

Well, then again -

*  If this makes you cross, then rest assured we repaid the favour.