Resident Alien

Or, Resident And Alien

No!  Not the Spacehog album.  Spacehog being, for your information, a band of lads from Leeds who made it big in South Canada for a few years a while back.  Yes, I have a couple of their long players and – most unusually – a CD single, “In The Meantime”.

     However, this has nothing to do with what I meant to type about.  Except it concerns music.

Being an alien myself ...

     As you may be aware, Conrad has an interest in the odd (fellow souls!) and this includes music, too.

     Meet The Residents.  Literally, this is one of their albums.  I was minded of them when idly flicking through “The Book of Rock” and there one of them was.

Proof

     Who are they?  Well, that’s quite the question, and a harder one to answer than you might imagine, because nobody really knows.  Except their manager, if they have one, and I wish him joy of it if he does exist.  You see, they always appear in disguise, or costume, or uniforms – take your pick – all with the common theme of Not Seeing Their Faces. Since the Eighties they appear on stage wearing an eyeball mask, a top hat and a dress coat.

     Frank Sidebottom, we know where your inspiration came from NOW!

Proof of - proof of - okay, I'll get back to you on that

     They make music of a distinctly odd cast, e.g. “Third Reich and Roll” anyone? And a more youthful Conrad remembers hearing “Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life” as played by Sir John Peel (back before he was “Sir”), and thinking “What On Earth?”  Which is an apt question.

     Whilst I don’t possess anything by them, Facebook is your friend in this case, and here’s the Wiki link for a very long article, evinced by their very long career and mad productivity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residents

     They also feature prominently in the comics of Matt Howarth (another chap with a liking for odd music).  You know, Matt.  Described as “a crazed acid-head in a blood-spattered lab coat”.  That Matt.

Hmmm.  No, I don't know what's going on either

First Last Again

HOW do they manage it?  HOW!!!*  Since most of you are probably living in the Miserable Outer Darkness (that is, not in the UK) I shall point out that secondary schools, which host shrieking pubescents in mob form, ended their Summer Term on Friday.  Consequently there are far, far fewer passengers getting on the First Bus 409 service from Rochdale.

     Which was still late!   LATE LATE LATE!!!  So late it was lapped by the next 409, and they played bus-passing ballet all the way into Ashton.

     I repeat my assertion that, if human evolution has been left in the hands of First Bus, you’d all still be living in the trees.

Tabbouleh

There, you thought I was going to bang on about Matt Howarth, didn’t you.  Nope.  This is another recipe from that diabetic cookbook, and yes it does include dried fruit – high GI because of high sugar content – but the proteinacous nuts and the salad help to bring it down overall.  It used up plenty of fresh mint and parsley, which meant bagging the opened pack of mint, lest the whole fridge smelt like a Polo mint – Wonder Wifey not notably fond of mint.

     The kicker is, I haven’t tasted it yet, so lunch today will be interesting, probably right after I stop typing this.

Not bad actually.

The Division – Well

No!  Not a mistype for that Pink Floyd album.  Because later on this week I will doubtlessly be yarking on about the 6^th Canadian Infantry Brigade Machine Gun Company’s War Diary – SIT BACK DOWN THIS IS INTERESTING! – we need to establish a little background first.  Normally I refer to the Canadians as the “British Americans” because that’s what they are, and it annoys the French Canadians, which is always amusing; for the article I think we’ll stick with Canadians.

Canadians with tumplines

     Anyway, in the First Unpleasantness the British military force on the Western Front was the British Expeditionary Force, usually abbreviated to BEF.  By 1916 It was made up of 5 armies, named from First to Fifth.  Each army was broken down into Army Corps, e.g. VII Corps and XVII Corps, and an Army Corps was made up of (usually) 2 Divisions.

     So to the Division itself.  This was the smallest all-arms self-sufficient formation there was, although at @ 18,000 men it was hardly ‘small’.  It had troops attached to the HQ itself, including a Machine Gun company, Medium and Heavy Mortars; then there were two Brigades of Royal Field Artillery, three batteries of 18 pounders and one of 4.5” howitzers in each Brigade.  There were 3 infantry Brigades, each having 4 infantry battalions, each battalion supposedly at a strength of 1,000 men.  Each Brigade had a Trench Mortar Battery attached, and a Machine Gun company.

Canadians at practice

     Which is where the 6^th’s War Diary comes in.  Canadian Divisions had their infantry Brigades numbered in sequence from the 1^st Division – e.g. the 1^st Division’s Brigades were 1, 2 and 3.  Thus the 6^th Brigade is part of the 2^nd Canadian Division.

     Everything perfectly clear?  Topping!

Canadian MG officer

*  I know, I know – three exclamation marks, it’s almost Continental levels of emotion.