This Is Mightea Important

Less A Storm In A Teacup - 
 - than a tempest in a teapot.  If you are familiar with Conrad, then you ought to know that his weekend is largely fuelled by copious quantities of tea, up to a gallon if you need to know.  Let us be honest, tea is an important part of life here in Perfidious Albion, and has been for centuries.
     So!  Being forced to use a small teapot of only a single pint's capacity borders on mistreatment that should be referred to the ICC.  Thus Wonder Wifey came to the rescue earlier this week with an acceptable substitute, from her vast stock of teapots.*  Art?

Teapotty

     It's a bit of a bruiser, indeed, coming in at about 2 1/2 pounds weight, which means simply lifting it when filled gives your humble scribe plenty of exercise.  It does, however, hold two pints of the amber nectar, which is compensation.  I still don't have a tea-cosy, so have been forced to improvise.  Art?

     Don't knock it: the pot (and tea within) stays warm.
     Okay, time to dig a trench in a peat bog and send the motley down it with a snorkel mask and flippers!**

"Vituperation"
Another in our series of occasional epistemological excursions.  In case you aren't familiar with the word, it means "Harsh criticism".  You know, the sort of thing that Conrad ladles upon First Bus regularly. Of course, like 90% of English, it has Latin roots.  Latin, the zombie language - dead but still walking around.
     It breaks down into "Vitum" which means "Fault", and "Parare" which means "Prepare", which morphed into "Vituperare", and eventually into that word which applies so well to the miserable public service provider I have to use.

First Bus spokesdemon looks upset

     I know what you're thinking - but we shall break down the meaning and origin of "epistemology" at a later date.

Biggles And Buckingham
No!  Not the palace; the incendiary ammunition.  Of course!  
     Conrad's memory is a bit of a jumble, if we're being polite, and a skip full of rubbish if we're being honest.  Thus he clearly remembers short stories of James' exploits in the First Unpleasantness where he went off shooting up Teuton observation balloons, using Buckingham incendiary bullets, for which he had to carry written permission.  Art?

Wash your dirty minds out!

     Here an aside.  Ballons and airships of this period used hydrogen as the lifting gas, because it was cheap and widely available.  The downside of this is that hydrogen is highly flammable ...
     The Buckingham incendiary round contained phosphorus, which ignited in flight a short distance from the gun muzzle, creating a smoke trace out to about 1,000 yards, and an effective incendiary effect up to 500 yards.  Art?

Mr Buckingham at work

     Hitting a giant bag of hydrogen with a few dozen of these projectiles would turn it into a giant bag of exploding hydrogen.
     Oh yes, those written orders?  They were needed because it was forbidden to use Buckingham on people, so you could blow up or incinerate a balloon or airship crew, but Oh My Goodness! not shoot them with the stuff.  Because that would be unfair.

Perfidious, Invidious And Will Render Oblivious
Ah yes, about that last sentence.  There are some who fondly imagine that, when Perfidious Albion goes to war, it does so clutching the ethos of cricket fondly to it's bosom.  Not so; if it has any ethos it is that of the rugby pitch:  ANNIHILATE! which is wielded like a club, not clutched to the chest.
     To that end, may I present you with Grand Slam?

With puny humans for scale

     This kind of thing is, to be honest, quite unfair.  It weighed ten tons, reached supersonic speeds during it's drop, would go through yards of reinforced concrete, and didn't need to hit the target to destroy it.  Art?

Down below, someone is going to have a very bad day

     It would penetrate deep into the earth before exploding, creating a vast underground cavern, into which everything for hundreds of yards around would collapse, the end.  According to aircrew, you knew the instant their Grand Slam had been released because the (specially-modified) Lancaster would leap upwards, grateful to have gotten rid of ten tons of high explosive.

Well, that was very martial, wasn't it?  Let us balance such unpleasantness with something light and fluffy.  Blancmange!  I don't see how Art can get this one wrong.  Art?

Ah.  A killer alien tennis-playing blancmange.
Thanks for that, Art

*  Sorry, I've no idea why, either
**  Bog-snorkelling.  It's a real thing.