You'll Believe A Man Can Fry!

In Two Senses Of The Word
One of which is in shockingly bad taste, and the other in what is hopefully sound good taste.  Don't worry if this seems confusing, it is, though it ought to become clearer once I've explained things.
     Firstly, can I promptly change tracks (this will be punny later) and introduce an epic and immensely influential reference work known as "Encyclopedie".  As you can guess, it was created in France, during the Enlightenment from 1751 onwards, and was intended to collate information and knowledge in a secular form, in the spirit of the Enlightenment.  Art?

Book The First

     It came out initially in 28 volumes, with over 1,800 engravings, although later editions dropped the plates to make it more affordable.  Publication was not problem-free, either, since the church objected to the work in principle and some articles specifically; this was solved by moving printing to Switzerland (nominally) to placate the state.   Not entirely placated - several editors went to jail for their inclusion of articles not heartily approved of (attacks on religious festivals, monastic life or clerical celibacy).  You can't imagine anyone writing for Wikipedia suffering the same fate nowadays -

I do declare - it's Mister Voltaire!
(He contributed)

     So the next time someone brings up that hilarious canard about the French being "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", you can correct them by pointing out, au contraire,  they were quite willing to go to the Bastille for their beliefs in science and reason.*
     Enough of science and reason!  Let us instead load up our Drivel Torpedoes and give both Sanity and Reality a salvo!

You'll Believe A Man Can Fry! (Part One)
That title might need a little explanation, because it does have long roots.  Art?

From a loooong time ago, in a galaxy far sorry.

     Yes, it was a tagline for the original 'Superman' film, which I have craftily amended for my own sinister purposes.  Well, if cooking can be considered sinister.  Let us prod Art into action again -

     This, gentle reader, is 'Shchi' or 'Russian cabbage soup', and ironically the Russian word for it has only 2 characters, which I may be able to conjure up -

щи

     There you go.  I say ironically, because the recipe I used resulted in the pan you can see above, enough for about 8 people, so I hope it does taste good as otherwise there's a lot to get through.   Oh, and you fry the first lot of vegetables before adding the rest.
     Here an aside.  About that tagline - anyone can fly, given a tall building to hurl yourself from.  The tricky bit is in the landing.

You'll Believe A Man Can Fry! (Part Two)
Allow me to bring mention of Nicholas Moran, whom is perhaps better known as The Chieftain.  He has a background in the Irish Army and the South Canadian Army, in tanks both, which is a little awkward, since Nick is about 6' 2".  He can fit in modern tanks, for they have generous design parameters and are fairly roomy.  The steel chariots of the Second Unpleasantness are another matter ...  Art?

Large picture, large fella

     This is an M3 Stuart, known in the service of Perfidious Albion as the "Honey" because it was streets ahead of British tanks in terms of handling and reliability.  In terms of gun power - not so much; it was frankly under-gunned when it came into service, and it lacked sufficient armour.  Although it did go like spit off a shiny shovel and if it was jinking and weaving, it made a hard target.**
     Now, another prod of Art -

Almost like giving birth ...

     This is Nick contorting himself out of the tank again.  Whilst in there he made the jokey comment "The Stuart is on fire", which kind of came back to bite his metaphorical behind, since it took him a good 20 seconds to get out of the driver's seat - and that with an outside assist.  The thing about the M3, you see, is that it ran on very, very inflammable aviation spirit and if it did catch fire you had perhaps 5 seconds to get out before it brewed up.
     Hence our headline, which is indeed in very bad taste.

"Nick, your 5 seconds start NOW!"

     And because I feel like padding this out to try and hit 1,000 words, I should point out that the Stuart was also adapted into a Kangaroo variant, where the turret was removed completely, to allow a bunch of soldiers to be transported in it, their delicate hides protected from shot and shell.  Art?

Thus
(Is it me or does that driver appear to be having too much fun?)

Finally -
SInce blogging briefly about it, I have engendered a desire to watch "The Omega Man" again, probably the best of the 3 adaptations of Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend", since it does away with the supernatural vampirism of "The Last Man On Earth" and the CGI silliness of that Will Smith version.  Art?

     It's a great opening, with things obviously awry, as when Neville abruptly stops his car amidst cocktail jazz cassette soundtracks, and blasts away at A Something with his submachine gun.  You pick up on derelict streets, wrecked cars, skeletal corpses - yes indeedy, something has gone very wrong here.
     The question of 'How did they do that?' also arises.  Some of the streets were cordoned off to prevent traffic or pedestrians giving the game away, and this means people have spent many an hour finding distant background movement that really isn't obvious.  The other way of making Los Angeles look deserted was by filming very early in the morning - you can tell this by the shadow's length.  It was also filmed in the business district on Sundays, where there would be very little traffic, foot or motor, anyways.

Case in point

*  The Bastille is an infamous French prison, not a holiday camp.  Just so you know.
**  Bob Crisp's excellent "Brazen Chariots" explains how he managed this.