There I Was -

Waiting For The Muse To Strike

(For she is a fickle lady and cannot be relied upon) when, perusing this mornings crop of maladies  mishaps and misfortunes - yes I was on the BBC website - I came across an article about a "Mysterious black sarcophagus" that had been uncovered on a building site in Egypt.

   Here an aside.  I presume that the Egyptian government has a policy in place for such events, given that there must be tons of stuff buried from the Pharaohnic era just waiting to be dug up.  And if you don't report such a discovery - plenty of jail time for you!
     Anyway, back to the sarcophagus.  The contents were in a shocking state, being a set of skeletons swimming a small sea of sewage.  Art?

Frankly, I wouldn't have touched this unless with a robot arm from a mile away

     That's not the bit I wanted to focus on, though.  The sarcophagus is said to weigh in at 27 tons,* and I shall pause to let that sink in a little.  The ancient masons who carved this thing out were also able to transport it from it's quarry to the burial place, without anything but basic tools and human ingenuity; no power lifting for them!

I strongly advise not to drop on foot

     Such an effort is perfectly feasible - I refer you back to the shifting of the Baalbeck Trilithons - but you are inevitably going to get some loonwaffles bleating about how "I don't understand it therefore ALIENS!"  These are the same swivel-eyed tinfoil-hatters who go "The Sphinx - ALIENS!  The pyramids?  ALIENS!  Mummies?  ALIENS!"

Ah yes - about that last -

     Gene Roddenberry (creator of some obscure Sixties television series) had a good quote on the subject:  "Did aliens build the pyramids?  No.  Human beings did, because they're clever and they work hard."

     Right!  Time to put the motley in an old car, the car in a car-crusher and see what happens!

Perfidious Albion - It's In The Name

Back to the skies of Occupied Europe during the Second Unpleasantness, where the night fighters of the Luftwaffe attempted to intercept RAF bomber stream, and those same bombers attempted not to get shot down.
     Helping them, as mentioned yesteryon, were the <excuse me for using a South Candian expression> 'electronic warfare platforms' of 100 Group, whose aircraft simply bristled with mischievous black boxes.  One of these was 'Jostle', an incredibly powerful airborne jammer that would block out the whole of Teuton ground control radios over a huge area. 
Art?  An illustration of a bit of their kit.



     Going back to the Teuton night fighters, these increasingly numbered twin-engined adaptations of the JU88 and Me110, fitted with the very effective 'Lichtenstein' radar system.  Art?

Quite - bristly, wouldn't you say?

     The thing is, fitting all those aerials on the outside, and a ton of radar equipment on the inside, made these aircraft a lot slower than intended, with a poor rate of climb, which would come back to bite them very severely, because of - Monica!  Art?

NO, Art, no!

     I'm sorry - and he was doing so well.  'Monica' was a radar installed in the rear of RAF bombers, which picked up anything to the rear, as this was how enemy night fighters attacked, and thus warned the crew.  The downside of Monica, unrecognised by the brylcreem boys, was that the Teuton night fighters could passively pick it's emissions up from miles and miles away, thus homing unerringly in on the bomber.
     Oh dear.
     Then, enter the Mosquito night fighters of 100 Group.  The Luftwaffe night fighter pilots hated this particular aircraft with a passion, because Mosquitos flew in the bomber stream to protect the bombers; they were spectacularly fast (and almost indestructible) and carried a battery of 20mm cannon.  They also baited the Teutons by having Monica installed; many a Teuton night fighter waltzed over on a Monica signal, expecting to find a lumbering heavy bomber as an easy, only to discover that it was one of the dreaded Mosquitos, painted an appropriately funereal black.

The rascal in question

     Recall the degraded performance of the Teuton night fighters?  Well, that made the Mosquito's job even easier.  The Teuton phrase was "Moskitopanik".

Wow, that was a long and grim piece of work, wasn't it?  Let's have something light and frothy.

Aha!  Just The Ticket
The Beeb  - that font of all that's fit to fetch - has an article about one of the rarest creatures in the whole world: the Scottish Wildcat.  Art?

Cute - BUT DEADLY!

     There are only 35 Wildcats left in the - er - wild, and the two orphans above thus represent a substantial proportion of the survivors.  Don't be fooled by their Awww! factor, as they are wild animals, emphatically not domesticated nor tame, and will quite happily claw or bite your face off if you stoop to get a selfie.
     Hmmm.  Perhaps not quite as light and frothy as anticipated.  But they look cute.

Right - time to empty the car crusher.  There wasn't any blood, although since I'm not sure that motleys actually have blood, that may not  - O I say!  Feeling a bit flat, motley?

Car Crusher 1:  Motley 0

*  None of that metric nonsense here if I can help it.