BOOJUM!: 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.

Image result for world war one drink container

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.