I did write this Intro on Friday, except I've not had the opportunity to post it since then, so please imagine - or, if you have one of those handy-dandy TARDIS devices knocking about then please action - we are on the 28th July.
Today is your humble scribe's last day at the Denton Centre <pause for sympathetic sighs> and I am following a routine established for many years - poem and cake. Actually, calling it a "poem" is an insult to the language of Dickens and Kipling*, so I call them "Pomes", which is apt enough. Usually this vile doggerel is about someone else leaving though for today I changed the subject.
I like to think I've been like a comet at the Denton Centre - a heavenly body that has brightened everybody's life and which is now moving on.
Oh, and here's the cake -
The robust Halloween Pumpkin Cake recipe, using carrots instead of pumpkins, as we have lots of carrots and no pumpkins. Not till October, anyway**.
Right! Let us reset our imagination (or TARDIS) to 31st July 2017, and allow the motley to stagger forward on it's palsied old legs.
6th MG
Yes, back to the spiffingly splendidly entertaining War Diary - yes, I am lauding it up a bit, as perhaps not everyone finds it quite as riveting as I do - for the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade Machine Gun company. At the time the British Americans were armed with the venerable Colt 1895 MG, which see -
That bit sticking down toward the front is the lever, which flew back and forth during firing, and which would dig a small trench if the tripod was too low.
Now we know what we're dealing with, let us examine the note for June 6th 1916. "Three of our guns inflicted very heavy casualties on the enemy, firing in all 4,000 rounds."
This note is illuminating for two reasons; firstly, it shows the Teuton addiction to counter-attacks to regain lost ground, which continued all through the war. Secondly, it's no mean feat to manage that amount of sustained fire with the 1895, because it overheated pretty quickly - air-cooled, you see - and also because the gun oil thinned-out after firing a certain number of rounds, whereupon it would likely jam.
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| No! Art, you baffoon - |
Reliability was an issue with the 1895, and I recall one user retelling how he was given complicated technical instructions to follow on how to disable his gun if in danger of capture. His response was that it was far simpler to just chuck dirt on it.
Doubtless minds were much relieved when the 6th MG went over to the British Vickers gun, which was a model of reliability and British engineering. Want to RELIABLY kill your enemy stone dead? The Vickers is your go-to gun. The anecdote most quoted is of the 100th MG Company during the Somme, but the 6th MG, over 5 nights in 1917, fired a total of 40,000 rounds of harassing indirect fire, which is simply not possible with a Potato Digger.
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| A potato digger. Close enough |
I Love My Dictionary
Indeed I do! Only today one of my new work colleagues informed us that he'd been working as a "tribologist" in the petroleum industry in Austin, Texas.
Nobody thought to ask him what a tribologist is or does; so Conrad decided to look it up in his Collins Concise Dictionary.
One who studies friction, lubrication and wear between moving surfaces.
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| A trilobite. Close enough. |
I May Have Given Myself Away -
During the ice-breaker session this morning - have I told you I'm back working again? - one of the questions was "What superpower would you have?" and it was interesting to see what people chose. Flight was the most popular choice, followed by shapeshifting and then invisibility.
I did point out that you would have considerable issues with flight, including bird-strike, collision with pylon cables, other aircraft, insects and - a major worry - unless your costume is skin-tight and extremely so, sheer wind speed will tear your clothing away.
And my choice? Mind control, that I may take over the world. So - is that giving my long-term plans away? I did say I would be a benevolent dictator*** ...
| My role model! |
* DON'T mention Shakespeare
** This is very annoying. When I take over, it will be resolved. Or a lot of people will disappear.
*** But I was lying
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