The Number Of Stations

This Is Going To Sound Odd -
For two reasons.  One, it is odd.  Two, it sounds strange.
     What am I talking about?  The Numbers Stations.  No!  Not the same of some hot trendy indie rockers - plus if anyone does choose that as a band name I want a percentage of the royalties - but a term that describes shortwave radio stations that do nothing but broadcast numbers, either spoken or as Morse code.  Art?

The Mother of all radio

     They date from the days of the Cold War and have acquired a small cult following of people who record them and collate and even possibly trade them.  A bit like train-spotters of the airwaves.  We touched on a bizarre variation of a numbers station with UVB-76, the Ruffian one that broadcasts only a buzzing tone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnXPqUU6fI0

     That there above is a link to one that has become either famous (or infamous depending on your viewpoint)  as "The Lincolnshire Poacher" because it introduces itself with a short burst of that very same traditional tune from Perfidious Albion.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5aow0x_u9I

     And for you completists there's a link to the band of the Grenadier Guards playing that self-same tune to the end.  After the intro the numbers station broadcasts a series of numbers, spoken not by a human being but an artificially-generated voice, the idea being that you might be able to deduce something from a real person reading a string of numbers, even if it's only "wow this is boring" yet you can't derive anything from what sounds like a well-bred Cyberman.

Big Ben

     Here an aside.  Apparently during the Second Unpleasantness, the chimes of Big Ben were broadcast by the BBC, though not live.  They were recorded and the recordings played at the appropriate times, because if they had been played live, then the Teutons might have learned about meteorological conditions in London, since they would affect how the chimes sounded.  Whether or not the bally Huns were craft enough to ever even imagine this, it's just one more confirmation that when I use the term "Perfidious Albion" I speak the truth.

     Back to the numbers.  The Lincolnshire Poacher has had the source of it's transmissions located; Cyprus.  Probably one of the British bases at Akrotiri or Dhekelia.  

     Well, that's what they are, and where one of them comes from - now, as to what they are for ...

     Time to throw the motley in a pool of molten Osmium and venture forth with the rest of BOOJUM! 

Or Not

Again, I'm assuming that we've borrowed a South Canadian backyard for the purposes of tormenting the motley - the weather here in the Allotment of Eden is rarely balmy enough to venture out in anything less than water- and wind-proof - and that it is an average sized model of 20,000 gallons.

     That being so, filling it with Osmium would be a litttttle bit expensive.  About £567 million pounds, give or take a bit of market fluctuation.  Osmium, it appears, is a precious metal, prized for it's hardness, brittleness and - very high melting point.  Art?

A small pellet of Os76.  Probably worth oodles.

     You're going to need some fancy underfloor heating in that pool, because it doesn't get liquid until the temperature hits 30000C, so your utility bills are going to take a hit, too.

More Of Magyars
Looking back, it seems I know a little more about Hungary than I realised.  Not a lot, but every little helps when trying to understand our neighbours.  Firstly, there's 'goulash', a kind of beef stew.  Art?

Hearty fare indeed

     Then there's Laszlo Biro, who invented the ballpoint pen, or biro.  I won't show a picture as I detest the Dog Buns things and won't use them, much preferring a fibretip or fountain pen.*  I'd use my goosequill pen in preference to a biro.
     Enough of my pen snobbery!  The Hungarian for Hungarian is "Magyar", they have a big lake named Lake Balaton, and the capital is know to us in the West as 'Budapest'.** More correctly, it's actually the twin cities of Buda and Pest.

     Oh, and to finish, here's a Hungarian light tank, the Toldi, as used by the Honved (or Hungarian Army) during the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

Probably at Bovvie

     Let's see - I could go on more about Osmium, but I can see your brain glazing over.  Plus, we've hit the word count total and I can now go get some FOOD!

*  Fountain pen nibs are coated in - Osmium!
**  Made famous by that George Ezra chap