Branching out. Allowing a short pause for you to stop wincing, I can indeed confirm that I refer to the film "The Tree Of Life" which I haven't seen and, from the IMDB description, don't intend to. Worthy-but-dull is how your humble scribe would catalogue it.
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| A tree of lime. Close enough. |
Okay, I am at present somewhat handicapped in creating today's BOOJUM! due to having an Edna sitting partially on me. Human-shaped cushions are the best, apparently. Allow me to illustrate. Art?
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| Dozy or despondent? Only you can tell! |
This is actually earlier in the day, as the sharper-eyed amongst you will have seen the daylight instead of the dismally damp nocturnal gloom now extant, and it's only just gone 5 post meridian.
Now, I don't post these cosy updates to keep the world informed of Edna's daily doings; rather, they are to prove to Wonder Wifey (off trawling the briny deeps) that your modest artisan is a responsible dog-parenter. For example, we went walkies last night in order to take advantage of the clear skies. Art?
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| Thus |
"Ah, but that might have been taken early in the pre-dawn today," I hear you quibble.
No. Quite apart from having to get up at an ungodly hour when on holiday, may I point out that above photograph is dry, which today has certainly not been.
Enough Intro! Let us put the motley on a rollercoaster, after getting it extremely drunk*.
On My Travels
Whilst on the return leg of my walk last night, I happened to pass by two young lads out heading towards the park at the end of Tandle Hill Road. Known, for obvious reasons, as Tandle Hill Park.
Here an aside. A sketch of the park appears on The Chameleon's first album, "Script of the Bridge", as drawn by Reg of the band.
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| Lower left. And I'm pretty sure that bridge is the one over the A627 at Thornham |
Anyway, as they passed Edna and I, one of them remarked about the house we were in front of.
"I wouldn't want to live there!" he exclaimed. "I mean, just look at it!"
Rather than resort to a word picture, dear reader, I can offer you a photograph. Art?
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| I've seen worse. There was this house in Portland ... |
It is empty and up for sale, the previous owner possibly having expired on the premises, as there were a couple of skips full of miscellaneous junk outside a while back. Personally, I wouldn't like living there as it rather resembles a police station - in daylight. It does indeed look more forbidding at night, and if there happened to be fog around, and an owl hooting in the background ...**
Ah - Hello Coincidence Hydra - Or Should That Be SHARK?
Really, this is getting a bit much! What do I do but take up the cudgels on behalf of our much misunderstood aquatic friends, the sharks, when suddenly they appear out of nowhere on other media. Take this article from the BBC's website. Art?
These photos are stills taken of a short clip of "Blue Planet", where a gang of sixgill sharks are pursuing the rotting carcass of a whale, which they plan to eat.
You see? You see how beneficial sharks are? Otherwise you'd have rotting whale carcasses making the oceans untidy, and that would make Sir D. Attenborough unhappy, and we can't have that.
In the clips above, the sharks mistake the submarine doing the filming for a competing shark, and they aggressively bang into it - to the worry of one crewman, who simultaneously states that the sub is robustly constructed - yet he is afraid. No wonder. I don't think the design specs on a submarine intended to film underwater include "Must be resistant to head-on impact from two-ton sharks".
After a few seconds the sixgills realise this strange intruder has no intention of snaffling their disgusting dinner, and go back to recycling Moby.
Back To The Life Aquatic
Or, more of Operation Sealion, the planned invasion of the Pond of Eden by the evil Teuton hordes during the Second Unpleasantness.
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| "Arrrk!" - a sealion objects |
In fact we'll skip the nautical side of things for a minute, and tackle the airborne invasion option, as I hinted yesterday. One possible Teuton operational tactic was to fly in paratroopers in gliders or a parachute drop, and capture an English airfield, obviously in the South-East. Having secured this airhead, they could then fly in more troops and heavier equipment, thus setting up behind the English coastal defences and multiplying the difficulties of the English counter-attacks.
This is not as far-fetched as you might imagine. The Teuton airborne invasion of Crete was stopped dead by the defenders, up until the point that the Fallschirmjaeger captured Maleme airfield. After that, with total air superiority, they could fly in the 7th Mountain Division and simply overwhelm the defence - which is what they did.
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| Maleme |
The Perfidious Brits, however, had planned accordingly. They had giant pipe bombs buried underneath and at ninety degrees to their airfield runways, which would have been detonated at the first sign of parachutes. Other grass airfields had special ploughs to carve up the turf and prevent any aircraft landing.
Nor is that all. There was a special retractable pillbox, the Pickett-Hamilton Fort. Art?
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| Memorial version |
This could be safely stowed out of the way when aircraft were beetling about, and cranked up for action in case of unwelcome guests. Nor is that all, since airfield defence did not anticipate any airborne attack having heavy weapons with them, and came up with several improvised defensive vehicles. Art?
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| A Bison |
This is a mobile pillbox, being a concrete bunker with walls 6" thick, which would be shunted around the airfield if it was under attack, and would then sit there, spitting fire and brimstone. Crude, yes, but easily proof against the light weapons available to paratroopers. There was also this horror - Art?
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| A Cocatrice |
This was an armoured truck mounting a flamethrower, which had an effective range of about 50 yards, and I leave the consequences of unfortunate Teuton paratroopers encountering one of these to your imagination.
Finally -
I posted this photograph yesterday, without any kind of attribution. It's actually from a newspaper, the "Southern Echo", which describes it as a ship laying pipline for the PLUTO fuel supply - Pipe Line Under The Ocean - after D-Day.
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| I think not! |
You humble scribe thinks they got this one wrong. Art?
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| How it was done |
Pip pip!
* Don't worry, we provided a sick-bag.
** It does happen out here, as we border on the countryside.
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