ThePenIsMightierThanTheSword

No!  You Dirty-minded Rascals
Read it carefully and take note of where there is capitalisation.  Had you forgotten that BOOJUM! is most definitely Safe For Work?  
     Unusually, this Intro does actually have a sense of purpose and a direction.  Perhaps I should clarify that: "A direction that is not straight off the cliff edge via Toronto and Ulan Bator".  For I am typing this up on the Tuesday evening, prefatory to Wednesday, hoping to get the whole of tomorrow's blog done today.
     "But why!" I hear you query.  "What insane creative boundaries are you trying to stretch, Conrad?"  And also "There are some things Man Is Not Meant To Know", which I will qualify by saying that, bar the inside of a Ladies toilet, you're wrong.
     Pens!  I am talking about the functional fashion accessory that your humble scribe wears and carries in large amounts.  I suppose I'd better dig up a photo or two that prove me oh-so-correct.  Art?

Totally rocking the "Sneer of cold command" look

     The thing is - I'm not boring you, am I?  It's just that not everybody likes pens as much as I do (excuse me whilst I wipe my hot sweaty palms) - the thing is, I buy them all at the same time and don't discriminate about (excuse me, gotta wipe those palms again) when I use them, so they are all likelsersyert (damn! those sweaty palms again!) likely to run out at the same time.  
     Thus, I need to go buy a dozen more narrow-tip fibre-point pens at lunch tomorrow, which means I won't have time to hammer out the words of wonder that constitute BOOJUM! so I am getting my retaliation in first.

Just barely enough!

     Well, with that calligraphic epigraphic, I think it's time to run a lawnmower over the motley!*
     
The Sword Is  Mightier Than The Pen
And how, by Jove!  You don't think that Mad Jack Churchill got results by going into action against the Teuton hordes armed with a Parker gold-nib fountain pen, do you?  No!  Mind you, he was rather eccentric in his choice of weapon, since a sword doesn't quite have the range of a .303 Mark IV Lee Enfield.
     Anyway, I would just like to point out that a basket-handled sabre is NOT the same as a claymore, as some people in the print media and cinema reviews seem to have trouble with identifying either.  This annoys Conrad almost as much as the same people describing a Self-Propelled Gun or Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle as "a tank".

A claymore

     Okay, just so we know, let me show you what a basket-handled sabre looks like.  Art!

Gun, Propelled, Self

     This handy piece of military kit can be used to slice fruit or act as an emergency razor, besides allowing you to introduce your opponents insides to their outsides.  Note that it is used with one hand, and that the "basket" handle affords the wielder a bit of protection.  All clear?  Splendid!  Now let's look at a claymore.  Art!

     Art?  Art, you'd better put down that plate of coal and do your job.  I'm warming up the Tazer as I type

Add your own hilarious Freudian comment

     This is the Scottish "Claidheamh-mor", Gaelic for "Great Sword" and you needed both hands to use this monster.  None of that farting about with fancy French dance moves when you wielded one of these; you whirled it around your head and marched upon the enemy, and if they didn't get out of the way there would be twice as many of them in half the size.

Just So You Know
Conrad first came across Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia, in the Gerry Anderson documentary film "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun", where - no, hang on, that hasn't happened yet, has it?  Damn this being shunted about in time - having the Doctor as a mate can be very confusing.  Okay, the (uses air-quotes) science-fiction film "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun", where an air-sea rescue operative introduces himself as being based there.  Art?

The film

     Locally, it is known as "Ulaan baatar".   Art?

The city

Finally -
Here we go swanning about.  Literally.  Art?

Get this -

    Here we have a swan in a wired enclosure, except - it's a female swan.  And it's being kept secured deliberately.  So - it's a penned pen.**



*  Don't worry, the blades are blunt.  Or they were last week.  I doubt anyone's sharpened them since then.  Probably.
**  The name for a female swan.  Honest.