Rubber Soul

Okay, Now You Can Accuse Me Of Being Deceitful
Forsooth, because what came up as the default picture of the day on Facebook but this -

Presto!

     Which, if you fail to see the connection, is a sandal with a rubber sole.  And also a drawing pin, the point of which penetrated just enough to tickle my sole, at which point (do you see what -  O you do) I took the sandal off.  I'm pretty sure that the book in question is the London Scottish, about that particular regiment in the First Unpleasantness, which has nothing to do with rubber, souls or soles, admittedly; I just like to keep you properly informed.
     That will do for today's Intro, as I am hungry and intend to go get some lunch. In the meantime, we shall send the motley down a zipwire - blindfolded!

Blatantly baiting by Beatling

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
Yes, more of our patent nonsense.  Hey, if you want a proper film review, go and check out Mark Kermode, who is also a fan of The Comsat Angels.  Our reviews are toxic, short and probably entirely divorced from reality; you don't have to pay for them, on the other hand.
"Pitch Perfect 3":  This sounds perfectly ghastly.  What, yet another film about female ballfoot players?  Conrad, as you may be aware, does not follow or enjoy the sport, and will probably ban it once he takes over the world.  That will devastate those amongst you who keep going to see these films, because that means they still keep making them.  Pah!

Enjoy it while you can ...

"The Greatest Showman": This also sounds perfectly ghastly, and from the posters is probably a musical, to boot.  I shall also be banning those when I take over, don't you worry!  Having just rewatched Hugh Jackman in the very excellent 'Logan', I find it hard to accept him as some happy, jolly laughing fool in a top hat and tails. Pah!

What?  You didn't think you were getting a TGS poster, did you?

"The Disaster Artist": Okay, this is where reality takes a turn for the stranger.  An awful film called "The Room" is taken as the source material for a critically-acclaimed film made by some of Hollywood's hottest talents?  I did not see that coming.  Mind you, "Ed Wood" also came out of left field.

Hmmm.  Just - hmmm.

Really Big Things
Yesterday we touched on the subject of the Transphibian Tactical Tree-Crusher, a monster piece of kit that was trialled in Vietnam as a potential destroyer of jungle.  Art?

Presto - no jungle

     It did the job, but was deemed unsuitable for a combat environment; too many exposed vulnerable bits, and if it broke down, there was no way to recover a sixty-ton immobile metal monster.
     The company that made it was Le Tourneau, and Ol' Tour had a bit of a passion for Very Big Things.  I used a photo of an LT G6 yesterday, and still have no idea what it did, apart from looking big and scary.  I can show you the G175, another BIGGER tree crusher, that rather dwarfs the Transphibian.  Art?

Enter G175, exit forest

     This behemoth came in at 175 tons and is now a tourist attraction in British Columbia.  LT seemed to identify niche markets for gigantic machines and then made them.  Have a look at this beast.  Art?

With added puny human for scale

     Note the size of the <ahem> puny human mid-left.  This thing was a Landing Craft Retriever, capable of driving into shallow water to recover stranded craft and either refloat them or transport them onto dry land.  Ol' Tour cannot be accused of thinking small!  Now - hang on, let me just check on Donald Fagen - Phew!  yes, he's okay, it was just a mild case of grippe, not Dengue Strangling Fever - now what was I going to say?
     Ah yes -
     I think we will revisit this topic in future.

By the way, this is going to be the only new post for today, it being New Year's Eve and all, even if it is a Sunday and I'm sure you've come to expect two new posts on such a day.  I do have a social life, you know: palsied and etiolated, perhaps, but it's still there.

Finally -
Proof that the Ruffians do have a sense of humour, and not all of them dream of dying happily having torn out a Westerner's throat with their bare teeth -

Woof woof!

Brothers In Arms

More Of Metaphor
I am currently reading a recently published autobiographical work, a diary that has been edited together from notes taken at the time, written by one Harry Drinkwater.  It is called "Harry's War" and is about his experiences in the First Unpleasantness.  If Art can put down his bowl of coal long enough -

     Harry was a perceptive and literate fellow, though thankfully not one of the pre-war Literary Types who were desperate to show how Typey and Literate they could be.  He enrolled in the 15th Royal Warwicks battalion, one of the "Pals" battalions made up from local communities or workplaces.  Their tours of France and Flanders began with what might be called an "acclimatising" tour, with little conflict or loss, but a whole lot of hard manual labour.  Harry spent most of this time dirty, wet and sleep-deprived.

"Somewhere in France - "

     I am only about 1/3 through the book, but Harry has already cheated death on several occasions.  He describes a fatigue party carrying rations through an artillery barrage, where the man in front of him was killed, instantly, by shrapnel.  Even more poignant is the death of his best friend, Jinks, during a frightful artillery bombardment on the 4th of June 1916; how Harry survived mystified him afterwards, given that his company was reduced to a literal handful of men.
     "Where does this stuff about brothers come in?" I hear you query.
     Well, just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are very few selfish or thoughtless men in trenches under threat: you look out for the man on your left and the man on your right, and trust them to do the same.

A fox hole

     Harry describes two occasions when the average man next to him risked life and limb, matter-of-factly and without thought of reward.  The first was a ration party of four men, returning to their front line trenches carrying food and drink, which slowed them down considerably; yet they chose to carry on humping these rations forward even under an artillery bombardment, rather than drop them and take cover. They got a well-deserved cheer from the whole company when they successfully got back into their company's trenches.

Close-formation tickling practice?

     The second occasion is when Harry witnessed a stretcher-bearer from his own company crawl out into no-mans-land, to a patch of bushes where movement had been spotted.  There was no hesitation about the stretcher-bearer, he simply got up on the parapet and went off to seek out what was presumed to be an injured man; half an hour later he re-appeared from the bushes, dragging an injured man whom he'd patched up.  He could only manage a snail's pace, dragging the injured party, and it took him an age, but he got both of them back to safety.*
     That is the 'Brothers in Arms' metaphor for you; you look after your mates and they will look after you.
     Now - after that rather serious Intro, DO NOT come whinging and cringing to me that you expected this article to be about a rock album of any description, or By Jove I will bite your arse!

Enough of serious - let's chuck the motley into the same room as a bandersnatch and see who wins!

The Guy With Staying Power
If you recall, and you ought to because it's not that long ago and you're not goldfish, Conrad mentioned Mythbuster's attempt to recreate a monstrous ball of Lego.  They failed to replicate the myth, so it got busted.  It was interesting to see all the sub-components that went into constructing the final, enormous structure.  Art?

2 million pieces!

     Of late, another attempt at building a mega-structure (well, relatively mega) took place in Israel, specifically that of a tower.  The aim was to get into the Guiness Book Of Records with the tallest Lego tower.  Art?

Look at all the guys -

     er - this is where the title for this article comes from.  A structure of that height, made from very small pieces of plastic, is incapable of supporting it's own weight in any kind of breeze, so they have it braced by guy wires, in order to keep it stayed.
     As a tower, it's also not solid all the way through, as photos of it's construction prove.  Art?

Modular and cross-braced for structural strength

     As you can see here, they use basic architectural principles: the individual modules used to construct the tower are hollow, to reduce mass, and yet are internally braced, to preserve strength.
     I dunno - next thing, some idiot will try to build a house out of Lego.

Oh!

Finally -
You know that "Crablogger" machine from 'Thunderbirds'?  Art can provide a refresher if your memory is hazy -

Conrad not sure where the Crabby bit comes in

     Well, real life is getting there, even if we're not quite there yet.  Art?

I don't know what it's designed for, but it certainly scares me.

*  As Harry also observed, in full view of their Hideous Teuton Enemy for the whole business, yet who notably held their fire.