The Wall

Here Be SPOILERS!

Just a word of warning, in case you were living in an experimental undersea environment mimcking life on Mars for several months, and thus didn't see or know anything about that last season of "Game of Thrones".

     Forsooth, it is about the titular structure that I refer, which is quite the most interesting thing about the series, as far as I am concerned.  We aren't told in detail exactly how The Wall was constructed, but a bit of background from the books informs that it was built 8,000 years prior to the events we are witnessing.  Made of ice, it stands 700 feet tall and 300 miles long, and part of it's construction involved magic that does not allow the undead to pass*.

Keeping the neighbours out

     Well, that's all pretty peachy, isn't it?  For eight millenia the dreaded White Walkers have been kept at bay - until now.  Jon Snow's little foray north of The Wall to acquire a zombie as evidence has gifted the WW's with a zombie dragon.
     Way to go, Jon.  

     Here an aside.  Whilst said dragon was cruising around, turning wights into walking bonfires, why didn't it give the White Walkers a dose of the baddest breath in the world?  If you torch one of them, all the wights they re-animate become immobile worm fodder again, which would mean game over for the Army of the Dead.  Although that would make for a far shorter series, I grant you.

Jon.  Beautiful but not that bright.  Sorry, |Jon.

     The zombie dragon proves to be more than a match for The Wall, as it appears to use an inverse form of fire to shatter the structure apart, reducing it at one specific point to little more than a pile of frigid rubble.  Naturlich, the Army of the Dead are now able to cross over what is now The Rubble, into the now vulnerable North.
     Conrad now stops to ponder exactly what the Army of the Dead would have done, absent that dragon, once they reached The Wall?  They had no siege equipment to aid a breakthrough attempt; The Wall's innate magic prevented them from storming any of the tunnels beneath the structure; forming a human pyramid a la "World War Z" would have been defeated simply by the defenders.

They could have - er - put on a concert!

     Well, that point is moot now, thanks to - Jon.  Congrats, Jon, you just undid eight thousand years of successful anti-wight defence.  Take a bow**.
     What's that?  You were expecting to read a lot of thoughtful analysis about what is arguably Pink Floyd's final album, "The Wall"?  Yes, final, because "The Final Cut" was pretty much just Roger Waters at work, and after that he left the group, or they left him.  Whichever, NO!  This article was only ever going to be about "Game of Thrones", and it's your fault for jumping wildly to conclusions.

     And with that, let us make snowballs out of handfuls of nuts and bolts and throw them at the motley!

- hang on - before we proceed any further, let me see if Donald Fagen is still alive - phew, yes, it was just a touch of grippe - and The Mystery Jets?  How are they?  Oh, good - my hangover cure is just to not stop drinking, lads - and let's just see what Ben Folds is up to - ah, having a sauna.  Another good hangover cure, Ben - okay let's move on
Actually that enormous Intro has nearly brought us up to count.  Let us now discuss -

"Harassing Fire"
Another item that I brought up in an article about the British Canadians and their machine gun tactics during the First Unpleasantness.  This was what you might call "speculative" shooting, a rather spiteful tactic designed to interfere with enemy reliefs, ration parties, carrying parties, and anybody generally being a dogsbody out of cover - usually at night.  It might not actually hit anyone, but it would force them to take cover and interrupt whatever they were doing, and there is little on this earth more miserable than a cold, wet, dirty, hungry soldier in a dugout, whose rations have not arrived.  And are cold when they do.

Bad Canadians!  Naughty Canadians!  Have a medal.

     So, it was more a matter of messing with your opponent's morale than machine-gunning them to mince. 

Of Music And Bows
Because, whilst this will take us over count, things have been a little martial in BOOJUM! to this point, and you know what they say about savage beasts and music. 
     Bows!  Specifically, the E-Bow.  Nothing to do with arrows this time, this is in fact an electronic gadget that one places over the strings of a guitar, and which allows an infinite sustain to play, similar to the sound you would get if playing with a real bow.  Art?

E-bow in place

     I know what you're thinking - "Why not play it with a real bow?"
     Well, because that would be extraordinarily hard, is why not.  It can be done - Jimmy Page take a bow*** - Art?

Proof!

     - but using the E-Bow means you don't have to be a magician with the strings to sound that good.  Trotting out the name of Donald Roeser is not quite trotting out a hack who can barely strum an A Minor chord, but there is an example of Buck playing an extended note via an E-Bow in the middle of "Don't Fear The Reaper", if you care to load that up on your I-pod.

The track in question

     It goes without saying that you need the ALBUM cut, not the somewhat butchered single edit.  And with that, I think we've hit 1,000 words.

 

*  Although, how did that wight Night's Watch guard get past to attack the Commander?
**  No, not the gesture of acknowledgement, I meant one of those things you shoot arrows from; you're going to need it, with all those wights about
***  Do you see what - O you do