Tean Wolf

Okay, That Is Cheating A Little
But my boyish charm allows me to get away with it*.
     I am typing this at work, or more correctly (because you never know when those interfering busybodies at UNIT or IT will be electronically looking over your shoulder) during my lunchbreak.  No chance whatsoever of typing it up in between phone calls, as there has not been any 'in between'.

My phone.  Honest.

     So here we are.
     Now, if you are conscientious and read BOOJUM! every day - which will save the lives of your descendants when my starship invasion fleet gets here - then you cannot help but know that Conrad HATES ALL MUSICALS!
     Which is why I shuddered when Phil and Rosie informed me that they were going to see "Oh What A Lovely War", which I had to endure as a smaller version of myself a very long time ago.

The message, I believe, is "War is not good"

   
  <Short pause whilst Conrad relives the horror>

     I did recall that Maurice Roeves is in the cast, which I think is pretty impressive recollecting from several decades ago.  Rosie promptly Googled (safe to do so as there was no Quiz that night) and gawked** at how many stars were in the cast: Ian Hom, Edward Fox, Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, etcetera.  Phil was impressed that I remembered Maurice whilst completely forgetting all the other, far more stellar, performers.
     What can I say?  It's a gift I have.

Young Maurice, looking the worse for wear

"Hundred Days" By Nick Lloyd
I have just finished this work, and of course - obviously! - cannot wait to share my thoughts about it with you.  It details the last three months of the First Unpleasantness, the endgame that tends to be ignored by most commentators on the war, probably because we British don't like to boast about doing well, or because it clashes with the "Lions led by donkeys" mythos that some authors and journalists push.
     What folks don't realise, and which Nick brings out well, is that the final months of the war were times of major movements out in the open, with trench systems left (literally) behind.  He also exposes the Teuton "Dolchstoss" lie in detail.
     "What?  We are not fluent in German, Conrad.  Be merciful and illuminate our dank and fetid world," I hear you say.
     Pausing only to note that you ought to draw the curtains back and open a window or two, I shall explicate.

The edition I have

     "Dolchstoss" means "To be stabbed in the back", and was the claim, loudly put about by the Nazis when they came to power, that the German army hadn't actually been beaten in the field, it was rather the Jews and Bolsheviks who had somehow (the exact "how" not explained) done the army in.
     You could fertilise the flowers with that, it's so full of excrement.  The German army only survived because it ran away faster than the Allies could pursue it, and even then it was falling apart due to mass desertions, not to mention those killed, injured or taken prisoner.  We are talking of figures in the hundreds of thousands here, so all those people knew the Dolchstoss was nonsense.

Is There No Truth In Beauty?
Well, pretty obviously there is, because June has commented in passing that Sajan's portrait of your humble scribe as a sloth is stunningly accurate.  I have it hung on my monitor at work.  Come to think of it, Karolina was also favourably impressed.
     Represented as a sloth - you know it makes sense***.

Having A Smashing Time
Or, proof that Hom. Sap. can actually be responsible.  On occasion.  Rarely.  You will no doubt have heard of Cassini, the more senior partner of the Cassini-Huygens probe, that until now had been orbiting Saturn.  It has gone way beyond the original mission profile, so much so that it has now run out of fuel.  Consequently it cannot manoeuvre, and there is a finite risk of it smashing into one of Saturn's moons.
     This would be a very bad thing indeed.  For one, the invaders in "The Kraken Wakes" may have come from one of the gas giant's moons, and it would be ill-advised to annoy them into actually invading.  For another, if there are primitive alien organisms roosting beneath the surface of Titan or Enceladus, Hom. Sap's interstellar cred would be in the toilet were it discovered that they'd poisoned and killed a whole ecosystem.
     So, Cassini has been "de-orbited" as the phrase goes.  To you and I, this means SMASHING IT INTO A PLANET!
     Conrad is unsure if the probe has radioactive thermal generators; if it does, be prepared for the swivel-eyed loon brigade to start whiffling about NASA BLOWING UP PLANETS!
     As if.

Cassini gets ready to give Saturn a right malletting

*  Right?
**  I think that's the word
***  It doesn't really, but since when did that ever stop me?