Love Gun

Stop Me If You've Heard This One -
Okay, I shall carry on.  The odds were pretty much against you having heard any of what I am about to describe, but because I'm such a wonderful chap I gave you a chance.
     Okay!  We are back to a subject which is close to Conrad's heart, or at least the fusion-powered pump that stands in for it: the desert war in North Africa during the Second Unpleasantness.
     Here an aside.  My interest was sparked by a novel that I bought on spec one day in 1978, entitled "The Sands of Valour", and if Art is conscious -

The edition I bought

     Back on our dusty beaten track.  Yes, I am continuing to read Alexander Clifford's autobiographical account of the war in the desert, "Three Against Rommel", which is a bit of a misnomer as Ol' Erwin doesn't appear until Page 71.
     At one point in the narrative, Alex mentions the British firing an artillery barrage using sixty pounder and twenty-five pounder guns, and you out there reading this will probably be thinking "Wow!  A sixty pounder must be at least twice as good as modest twenty-five pounder!"
     WRONG!   Not only that, please study this photograph and tell me what's wrong with it:

Yes - exactly!

     That's a 6" howitzer.   It may have pneumatic rubber tyres added but it, and that 60 pounder, are both weapons of First Unpleasantness vintage.
     "Wow!" I can hear you remark, now with a touch of caution.  "Still in service in 1940 after twenty-two years - the British must love their guns!  What gun love!"
     Sadly, no.  They were in service because there wasn't anything better or more modern to replace them, the Western Desert Force (for so it was known, long before it became the Eighth Army) being waaaay down the list when it came to getting the latest bit of kit.  They were still using Rolls Royce armoured cars, again of First Unpleasantness vintage, at the beginning of the desert war.  Art?

Off for a jaunt, desert-style

     What's that?  You thought that I was going to be discussing or pouring opprobrium on those grease-painted South American purveyors of tat, Kiss?  Because they have an album of the same name?  Apart from that being an AMAZING COINCIDENCE if it is true - and I reserve the right to be utterly skeptical about that - I have nothing further to say on the matter.
     Now to lash the motley forward after having attached it via harness to a dog sled!

The Beavers Who Are Eager
Quite by chance, I happened to look at my blog stats yesterday, before getting home in order to post this collection of scrivel, and what do I find?
     No!  A cyborg weasel had not usurped the hamster busily pedalling away at the heart of my PC.  Before I'd even posted there were 3 visitors already!

A Foofoodilly.
Honest, MI5, it is!

     This worries me.*  I cannot believe that there are actually fans of BOOJUM! out there, still less that they anticipate it being officially published: no, it must be those interfering swines at MI5 and UNIT, snooping again  <sighs heavily> I guess this means no more talking about nucle - excuse me, about foofoodillies for a while.

The Breeches Buoy
No!  This is not a pun about thoses South Canadian surfer musicians The Beach Boys - I think I've mined that seam of humour to exhaustion - but is instead a Real Thing.  Jane happened to mention it as she recalled that classic disaster film "The Towering Inferno", in which an attempt is made to escape the titular fire in - a Breeches Buoy.  Art?

In action

     As you can see, this is a pair of breeches - 'trousers' to you modernists out there - attached to a flotation device, all the better to rescue inept landlubbers from shipwreck.  Predictably, someone in the Goofs section of IMDB was loudly crowing that in fact the device used is a Bosun's Chair.  Art?

Fit for a bosun

     Lest you  be unawares, "Bosun" is a corruption of "boatswain", in the same way that "foc'sle" is a corruption of "forecastle".  Another fact you never knew before today.
     Anyway!  because Conrad is a hair-splitting pedant of the very worst best kind, allow Art to illustrate exactly what was being used to evacuate people from TTI.  Art?  less coal more goal!

More like a shark-cage

      SO!  It is neither.  NEITHER I TELL YOU!
     I feel so happy at proving another person wrong.

Finally -
Quiver in fear at that most terrifying of Doctor Who monsters, the Mara!
     Embodied as a giant snake, this horrid being consisted of hatred, anger, greed and a willingness to use up the last bit of jam in the jar.  It infested poor Tegan, and that's as far as we'll go with that one out of NSFW concerns.  Art?

Art!

     <sighs heavily> really, I didn't think our coal-eating sub-human sloven's performance could get worse than it already is, but - it has.  I can now definitely confirm he has a crush on Mara Corday.  Sorry Ms. Corday.  Now, for the real thing -

Er - pink?  The embodiment of evil is - pink?

*  Of course I am not happy unless I have something to be unhappy about.  That's me!