Can't Buy A Thrill?

I Beg To Differ, Steely Dan!
It is readily apparent that you jolly well can buy a thrill, if you but put your mind to searching for the very same.  Art?

No idea what the heck it is, mind

     There you go - 'fibre gum', whatever that is. I suppose I'd better do due diligence and find out, hadn't I?  My guess is some kind of high-end construction filling agent <goes off and checks> Oh.  Hair gel.  Well, I was in the right ballpark there.
     Nor is that all.  Those rather grim places that call themselves "Amusement Parks" are another source of thrills being exchanged for specie.  Art?

Hard to believe that people pay for this experience.

     It takes all sorts, eh?  Personally your humble scribe, who possesses a cowardly streak wider than himself, would pay to avoid one of these things.
     My diligent internet searching also brought up something that called itself "THRILLPOWER power booster for men" which, frankly, looked like the kind of product that, if searched for at work, would bring up big red warning screens in I.T.  Let's not go there.

This is the stuff I was ta - no, hang on, is this the right one?

     Contrarily, there is another source of thrill-power that is SFW, if you don't mind oodles of violence, gore and futuristic swearing:  2000AD.  It always promoted itself as a source of 'Thrill Power', being endlessly self-referential, and Tharg the Mighty (chief editor) was never one to sell himself short.  Art?

See what I mean?

     So there you go.  Between perfume, pharmaceuticals and print, your humble scribe has pretty much shattered The Odd Couple's* premise.  Of course, when their debut album came out in 1972 the internet didn't exist, so they can be forgiven - this time - for not getting it right.
     Okay - hang on, whilst we're on the subject, let me just check that Donald Fagen is still alive - Phew!  yes, he just looked a the sun a little too long, it wasn't a laser attack - now that the Intro is out of the way, let's prod the motley out onto a swimming pool full of wet custard powder!

What? You expected something that had absolutely nothing to do with Steely Dan?  Pshaw!

Dog In The Manger
I always did find that analogy puzzling.  The aphorism goes, I think, that a dog is asleep in a manger full of hay.  Art?  Illustration, please.

Fully-loaded

     Along comes a horse, who wishes to dine.  The dog refuses to get out of the manger, even though it cannot eat and digest the hay therein, which means that the horse is unable to satisfy it's appetite.
     Of course your humble scribe cannot simply leave it at that.  No, the dog cannot eat hay; on the other hand, it's got a nice comfy bed that is considerably more comfortable than sleeping on the ground.  If the horse eats the hay - no more comfy bed!  So, Ol' Fang is not being bloody-minded purely for the sake of it.  He appreciates comfort and wants to keep it!
   Which is kind of tangentially related to this.  Art?

Happy dog

     Here's Edna, dozing happily on her human-shaped cushion, in what she regards as her legally-sanctioned spot.  This means your humble scribe is forced to lean over and type single-handedly on the laptop, which is very slow and awkward.**
     However, she did get down of her own accord, and I am now typing with the laptop on my lap.  Edna came back briefly, saw that she had been usurped by the computer and went off to sulk on the bed.

"Three Against Rommel" By Alexander Clifford
It's interesting to see how Alex's role as a war correspondent differs from those in today's world, with the possible exception of Ross Kemp.
     Here an aside.  You may not like Ol' Ros, but you can only admire his intent.  Before going to Afghanistan he was trained to use firearms, on the (rather scary) principle that if things went wrong, he might be the last man left standing.
     Anyway, Alex's writing career was nearly over before it began, as he was along with the crew of a Sunderland flying boat when it got intercepted by six Italian fighters.  He and the pilot were the only two left unwounded, and he had the job of sitting in the rear turret and warning of incoming fighters.  He also had to winch bombs back into the bomb bay before they crash-landed - splash-landed? - just off Malta thanks to damage.

An intact Sunderland

     He managed it, if only just.
     Then there was the time he and Alan Moorehead were off at the very head of the British vanguard, pursuing fleeing Italians.  They were so far ahead, in fact, that they ran into an Italian ambush; unarmed and with no minders or escort, they rapidly skedaddled back along the route.  The entire military involvement with them had been an officer in an armoured car asking if he was responsible for their safety and intact skins, before they set off to find the fighting.
     "No," was their reply.
     "Then by all means come along!"

A Sunderland bomb bay, with bombs.  You don't want these rattling around loosely if about to crash!

     If a correspondent of today were to gaily waltz off into combat like this, their P45 would arrive by e-mail within minutes, which is to say about one minute after their editor's hair went grey, and two minutes after their military escort got court-martialled.

Alex at left, Alan sitting on his bed

     Eventually, in the last couple of months of 1941, the correspondents get a Military Liaison officer assigned to them as a group, which might have been intended to curtail where they went or what they saw, if it hadn't been unworkable.  Their liaison frequently got lost, as did they, because the desert is an awfully big place with very few landmarks, and finding who you were looking for is extremely difficult when you don't have GPS or mobile phones.  

Right!  That's over 1,000 words done.  Time for a second pot of tea, to turn the steeping dried fruit around and <whispers> take Edna for a walk



*  Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, a.k.a. Steely Dan.
**  Mister Hand points out that the ruthless and heartless apprentice world dictator is too soft to move a dog off his lap.