Out For A Dux

Or, Rather, Not Out For A Dux
RAF Duxford, that is (if you say that you thought I'd made a typo, I shall reach down the internet and slap you). There is an extensive collection of aircraft there, as well as the Parachute Regiment's Museum, and your humble scribe has made noises at times about visiting, until I really sat down and looked at the logistics of the situation yesterday.  Art?

Visible is a Vulcan

     Well, since I refuse to spend seven hours driving, it would have to be as follows: a  bus into Manchester; a train from Manchester to Cambridge; another local train service to Willesford Parkway; a bus from there to the museum.  This would take about 5 hours, involve at least four changes en route and cost well over £100, and at most I'd get four hours on-site, which isn't long enough, and I'd not get home until after 11 post meridian.     Besides which, I wouldn't have any time to have a nosey around Cambridge, which I've never been to.  What undiscovered bookshops do they have?      Ah well, time to put the motley in a barrel and send it over the Angel Falls.

Angel Falls

"Deadly Magic" By E. V. D. RoehrIn case you missed it, this work is by a cryptanalyst working for GZ20, a South Canadian code and cipher organisation of the Second Unpleasantness, recounting his history with the organisation.
     One of their coups was obtaining a precise and detailed schedule of Admiral Yamamoto's itinerary, where he was visiting various scattered Nipponese garrisons, and travelling by air due to the great distances involved.  Art?

No hair, but lots of medals.

     Ol' Yam was an interesting character, very far from the gung-ho attack-at-all-costs ultra nationalists in the Japanese Army who intended to wage war on South Canada.  For one thing, he'd lived there, and knew and liked the country and people.  In his opinion, picking a fight with them was A Very Bad Idea - as indeed it turned out to be.  For all that, when war did break out, he prosecuted it to his utmost.  He was a formidable naval commander, and he was right about that Bad Idea, because his plane was intercepted and shot down by the South Canadian P38 Lightnings on 18th April 1943, killing him very dead indeed.*     I think the moral here is that you ought to be very, very careful telling folks where you're going and when, if there are eavesdroppers who wish to do you harm.

A P38

The Basilisk Strikes!
Most of you will only know of the basilisk via those "Harry Potter and the Moody Teenager" films, although it has a mythic history going back a looooong way.  Art?

Also good when roasted

     The thing about the basilisk is it's deadly gaze and toxic breath, for anyone or anything it breathes upon, dies.
     Except the mighty and noble weasel.  Only a weasel could tackle and kill the basilisk.**     Okay, keep in mind that metion about deadly breath, and allow me to introduce another improvised armoured vehicle in the service of Perfidious Albion during the dark days of 1940.  Art?

An AEC Basilisk armoured car

     I can tell what you're thinking, except no, it's not a gun, it's a flamethrower.  Deadly breath, remember?
     They only built one of these puppies, probably because it was frankly unfair to treat your opposition as human rotisserie-fodder.  Still, that means it's now fair game for scale modellers to produce them, and have them turn up on the battlefield in droves.
"The Rockford Files" - Season 3 Episode 18
I definitely remember seeing this one, and especially that line spoken about airfield construction in Vietnam: "We'd put 'em up, they'd blow 'em up," which is pretty good for something seen only once over forty years ago, don't you think?

THIS MAN IS A VILLAIN!
(I'm just surprised they didn't use a Brit for the role)

     However, I didn't remember any other details, other than that scene where the body of the murdered - but that would be telling.  I shan't spoil it since it's still in syndication and you might be watching it tomorrow.  It was interesting to see how they worked in references to the recently-ended conflict in Vietnam, which I had mostly forgotten.

Right, now to post this and make tracks into that sinful township of lust and depravity - Royton.


*  Struck by Lightning?  Or is that a bit tasteless?
**  I have long maintained that Weasels Are Our Friends