20,000 Leagues Under The Tea

Yup, Still With The Puns
I can keep this up, as warned, indefinitely.  Or at least until my mind and imagination move onto another topic, which might be equally as inspired*.
     Like LITHIUM BATTERY DE - except, no, not that.  Although it is a real thing.
     So!  Onto the website "Jim'll Paint It", where you the reader send in suggestions to Jim about what he ought to paint, which only goes to prove how very, very strange some people are**.  An example would help.  Art?

Star Trek: The Next Generation Game

     Last night I posted "Dad's Army of Darkness", which is an hilarious skit on both, and no I ain't going to post it here again, go back and look at "Cup" and boost my traffic.     Except I then worried about how few of you out there were up to speed on "Dad's Army", because it's a native product of the Allotment of Eden, and it's not exactly current.  Ignore the recent film; in fact if you went to watch it or own a copy on DVD, THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY!
     Right, to understand the background to the sitcom, we must make the transition to the summer of 1940 - back when the UK actually had summers.  If this were a television program there would be a wobbly fade-out -

The Local Defence Volunteers
The British Expeditionary Force had been retrived from France; not just from besieged Dunkirk, but from other westerly French ports as well.  Thus we had the manpower, although not a lot of heavy equipment; industry would make that up gradually, so some interim white elephants were brought in; the Panjandrum, for one.
     Expecting invasion imminently, the government went looking for volunteers who would defend their locality - hence the LDV of this title.  This did not last as a name, and evolved into Home Guard.  As the sitcom illustrates, a lot of these were men too old for regular service; however, and a big however, they had nearly all served in the First Unpleasantness, they had beaten the Teutons once and were quite prepared to do it again, in addition to knowing their own towns, villages and countryside down to the last blade of grass.

Dad's Army - The Early Days

     Supplies of weapons were non-existent at first, and Home Guard members at first drilled with pikes, shotguns or hunting rifles.  Later on they got rifles, but with very little ammunition.  Their role would have been to delay the invading Teutons and allow the regulars to arrive en masse.
     There you go - potted history of the Home Guard.

Shakespoke
Windbag Willie might be getting a bit complacent as, of late, we've not taunted him.  Let the satirical drought now be relieved, as the slings, arrows, trebuchets and jet-propelled missiles of outrageous fortune are let loose.  Havoc!

"A horse!  A horse!  My kingdom for a horse!"

I could manage that as a swap, of course.

However, it seems a bit off as an exchange rate.

Are you sure you want to go through with this, mate?

     What else can I say about it?  Richard is obviously drunk here, as nobody in their right and sober mind would trade in a kingdom for some spavined old nag.  No doubt the critics all raved at the imagery and metre and vocab; your humble scribe differs.
     We're a bit light on pictures today.  Art?

A horse.  They eat hay and bite.

     - and you can swindle drunken kings out of their inheritance with them.

"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me."

Here Bill camouflages his ignominy.

Conrad, untutored, is familiar with Greek

I can almost read it, though cannot speak.

Not clean or squeaky, yet still quite Greeky

     Very true, which you may find hard to believe.  However, if you study the Russian alphabet, which is Cyrillic not Roman, then you can also read Greek. My ability is strictly limited to upper case.  Ironically, the centuries of public school youths who were tortured with Shakespeare would have had to study Greek and Latin as part of their curriculae.
     Also, you find a lot of words in the English language - which the Barf of Avon is supposedly to adept with - have a Greek origin.
     Very poor show, Bill.  Go stand in the corner for three hundred years!

Finally -
Because it is a proven fact that the Ruffians don't think the way the rest of you do***, may I present you with the T26 Tank Tank.  Art?

     This is essentially a giant petrol pump on tracks, with that cylinder being full of petrol so that it can refuel other tanks.  Hence my dubbing it the Tank's Tank.  From back in the Thirties, when all sorts of odd ideas came to fruition.

*  Or asinine.  Your opinion might vary.
**  I know, I know, what a hypocrite I am.
***  Brothers!