A Hard Of Bison

I Know What You're Thinking -
"The senile old bafoon has either been at the cooking sherry or his dementia meds stopped working.  If he's still taking them, it's hard to tell."
     Pausing only to inform you that sherry is dreadful stuff, fit only to soak dried fruit in prior to putting them in a cake, and they are anti-psychotics, I shall elucidate.
     Yes, I do mean a "Hard" of Bison, not a "Herd", because these are emphatically not creatures of flesh and blood.  What have I told you before about your humble scribe and spelling?  Words, do my bidding! <said in best evil dictatorial scientist voice>.
     Art?  Less coke more bloke!


     These are Bison; an extemporised vehicle build in the summer of 1940, when the Allotment of Eden was anticipating airborne Teuton invasion at any moment.  Rather than use valuable steel for armour, they used - concrete.  Not so daft as you might think, as they were designed to be used for airfield protection, as a mobile pillbox; they could be driven across the nice flat airfield and parked up in position.  Airborne troops being lightly armed, the Bison would have been quite a tactical obstacle.  Due to their great weight, only the biggest, sturdiest lorries could mount the pillbox.  Those above are the Mark 2, where the cab and pillbox were separate.  Let Art illustrate a Mark 3.

Thus

     Of course the wheels and transmission are vulnerable, leading to an immobilised concrete pillbox sitting on a runway.  Well, if you've won, no bother, you just get it towed away; and if you've lost, the opposition has the thorny problem of trying to move six tons of reinforced concrete.

Art's dinner
(Because there are other kinds ...)

     Righto, time to put the motley in the boot and drive our car over a tank assault course!

Meanwhile, In The Kitchen -
Hopefully I can get this typed out and posted and get them dishes washed before anyone complains, as I have been baking this afternoon.  Danish applecake, in case you were wondering, and even if you weren't.
     Preparation took an age, because the measurements were in "Cups", a bizarre South American method of volumetric listing, and of course I couldn't find the 1/4 Cup.  Art?

     There you go, this is what film directors call an "establishing shot".  So, I copied out the recipe again, then measured out all the ingredients in Cups, then weighed them on my handy-dandy electronic scales, filled those values in on the copied recipe and binned the old one.  Because, really, have you ever tried to cram the correct amount of butter into a Cup?  Art!  Less coal more goal!

Fresh outta the tin

     Of course, O Hideous Irony, I can't actually eat any myself <sighs heavily>

And Another Thing That's Annoying Me -
There used to be an unwritten rule in the MEN Codewords that they wouldn't use unusual or overly complex words, certainly none that were foreign.  Which seems to have rather gone up in smoke, if something intangible can give off fumes.
     The examples are from last Thursday, and the answers are "ASTHMA", "PUTSCH" and "TESTATOR".  Not normally at a loss with words, I had to check in the dictionary and see if "testator" was a real thing.
     It was.

Someone who has made a will.

     Of course I completed the whole thing, which should go without saying, because Words Do My Bidding!  I just felt like having a bit of a rant.

Why Voldemort Was Rubbish
Come on, admit it, he was.  All that magical might and power, and he gets blitzed into oblivion - by a baby!  He looked like a right twod, as well.  And not only did he not take over the world, he got blasted into oblivion - by a moody teenager!  If he ever returned, he'd probably get offed by someone's grandma.
     Now, if your humble scribe had been the Dark Whatever-he-claimed-to-be,** the whole wizarding world would have been under my control within days.

"Conrad!  You - you're so - so - beastly!"

     You see, there's the 'Imperius' mind-controlling curse, isn't there?  Supposedly anyone using it is punished horribly by - er - deprivation of ice-cream?  Still, that's not going to stop your white-haired wizard in pursuit of world domination.  All I'd need to do is use it on one of the magical community, turning them into a mindlessly obedient slave.  MOS #1 is then instructed to go out and use the Imperius curse on another wizard, and instruct them to go out and repeat the process.  Thus I now have MOS #1 and #2.  These 2 then become 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, then 64, then 128, then 256, then 512, then 1,024 - you get the idea.  A geometrical progression that, in the end, means World Do My Bidding!
     Sheesh.  This taking over the world is childsplay.

Okay, it's childsplay for some of us.

*  D.A.R.P.A. still haven't recovered that 'telepathy helmet', you know.
** Incompetent?