Guns And Roses

Specifically, The White Rose And The Red Rose
Yes, we are talking about that ancient conflict fought between the House of Lancaster (the Red Rose) and the House of York (the White Rose) SPOILER ALERT which ended in a triumph for Henry Tudor, of the Lancastrian faction, and the death of King Richard III of the Yorkists.*  Henry ended up marrying a Yorkist, which is kind of a consolation for them.

From our correspondent on the scene

     The whole conflict is known as 'The War of the Roses' and it went on for decades until Ol' Hen came out on top.
     "Where do the guns come in?" I hear you quibble.
     Well, the thing about TWOTR is that there was comparatively little use of gunpowder weapons.  Richard's cannon at the Battle of Bosworth Field were used to screen one flank, and did harass the forward movement of the Lancastrian forces, but overall there was surprisingly little use made of them.
     One reason for this is the comparative lack of sieges during TWOTR.  You humble scribe has covered siege warfare in the period where gunpowder weapons came into widespread use - 

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/indiana-jones-and-teample-of-doom.html

     I make no apologies for the horrid punnery involved there.  During TWOTR, battles in the field - and I mean that literally - tended to be decisive, meaning a defeated army wasn't able to shut itself up in a fortress, since it had already been chopped to bits.

How it was done

     There you go, enough gunnery punnery about great stone balls and curtain walls.
     What's that?  You were expecting something about - a what?  There's a band that goes by the same name?  Pshaw!  Next you'll be saying that my appetite for destruction is an album title as well.  Get out of here!
     Now, let us unsettle the motley by giving it a fish supper and a bottle of Irn Bru.**

This Might Be A Bit - Er - Out Of Leftfield
Ah, what the heck, it is odd.  Okay, there I was, cruising the Beeb website for anything interesting, and Hay Pesto!  There it was: eight musicians who have invented weird musical instruments.   I have already mentioned Godley and Creme's 'Gizmotron', which did not set the world on fire, or even scorch it a little.  One of the items was a Japanese avant-garde band called Boredoms, and a little gadget of theirs called "Sevena".  Art?

     If the text is too small for your straining eyes, allow me to explain that this gadget is seven guitars built into a stack, and the player gets up on a scaffold to bash seven shades of shinola out of them with hammers.  If Art will put down his plate of coal for a second -

I think there's eleven of them

     I'm currently playing one of their tracks in the background on Youtube: "Seadrum", which I can guarantee Wonder Wifey would hate, as it's all wordless wailing, tons of percussion and lots of piano arpeggios.***
     Anyway, back on track.  Playing guitars by walloping them with hammers? I said to myself (I can do this in my Sekrit Layr as it doesn't scare anyone).  Of whom does that remind me?
     The answer - obviously! - is Ex-Easter Island Head, whom I have seen live when they played Sounds From The Other City.  Art?

Compromising by having drums played with drumsticks - that's almost selling out!

     They are somewhat gentler on their guitars than Boredom, as they use drumsticks rather than sledgehammers.  Very interesting minimalist style, worth checking out.
     Well, if you like stuff from out of leftfield.

Some People Have Entirely Too Much Time On Their Hands ...
Yes, I know this is incredibly ironic, not to mention hypocritical, coming from a man whose idea of a good time is typing thousands of words of scrivel every week.  
     Whose blog is it?  Precisely!  You don't have to pay to read this stuff, do you?  So stop complaining.
     Meet a liquid-nitrogen fuelled Nerf gun.  Art?

Does what it says on the tin

     Lest you be unaware, Nerf blasters are a toy plastic gun that fire foam darts or balls, at a sufficiently low velocity that parents need not worry about little Johnny accidentally causing his hated sister a pentrating gunshot wound.
     Unless, that is, he builds the mod above.  It is a bit unwieldy, since the liquid nitrogen has to be poured into a chamber, where it's expansion ruptures a sealing disk, that causes the outgassing to propel a Nerf dart at very high speed indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuhPVWHzbPU

     What can I say?  I am simultaneously impressed and appalled at Hom. Sap.'s ingenuity when it comes to turning ploughshares into swords.

Hmmmmm.

     Guns and roses - this is where we came in ...

*  Yes, it was back in 1485 but both county's residents have long memories.
**  Which we shook up REALLY HARD earlier.
***  I like it!