You'll Need A Strong Stomach For This

Gallium Trichloride!
That's probably not what you were expecting, is it?  I bet your evil little minds were conjuring up all sorts of ghastly NSFW pictures of gory accidents, or giant spiders eating live kittens, or a six-hour televised tea-party at Alan Carr's house.*
     None of the above!

Alan's guests had yet to learn about passing the port to the left.

     I just so happened to be looking up that bookmarked list of "Extremely Hazardous Substances", purely out of academic interest if anyone from MI5, UNIT or Spectrum happens to read this, and your humble scribe came across GCl3.
     Now, like all of you I am familiar with Gallium Arsenide, as used in - Oy!  No sniggering at the back there! - as used in laser technology; Gallium Chloride was quite novel.

Obi Wan's great-grandand's light sabre

     GalClo, to abbreviate it handily, is used to make the precursors of materials used in LEDs and integrated circuitry.  It is also quite nasty stuff, being extremely soluble in just about any liquid whatsoever, and also liable to give off chlorine fumes.  Chlorine, as in the poison gas from the First Unpleasantness.

The cold, dead eyes of a zombie ...

     Purely as a thought exercise, imagine some GalClo had (accidentally because they were holding it in the Circuitry Doping Hall of Sony's Motherboard Architectural Processing Plant #5) got into that teapot, resulting in the unfortunate picture above.  It's too late for poor Alan, but can we help his guests before they sprint off this mortal coil?
     Well, yes, and this is where the strong stomach comes in, at least historically.  The recommendation for GalClo poisoning, if ingested, was to administer the euphoniously-sounding "Syrup of Ipecac".  
     Do not confuse this with Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup.  The two could not be more dissimilar. Art?
     
                  CAUTION!  Keep in separate cupboards
     SoI is made from the roots of the Ipecacuhana plant, and here's the rub, it's a poison in it's own right, except you're unlikely to really do yourself an injury with it, since it is an extremely powerful emetic.
     That is, it makes one vomit.  Profusely.  So, if you do happen to nibble on the rhizomy root of the plant itself, you'll purge yourself before it kills you.  This is the old principle that people used to be made to guzzle it for - vomit up all that nasty GalClo and Hay Pesto!  You're all better.
     Except not.  A major study in 2005 concluded that SoI was a lot less effective than the far-less pleasant sounding Activated Charcoal.  Yum.  Art?

Hmmmm.

      It's not a lot better, is it?  Essentially you're eating soot.  Or, finely powdered coal.
     Frankly, I think I'd prefer the GalClo, or even the SoI.
      Okay, time to send the motley skateboarding - into Mount Etna's smoking crater!

"Nimrod"
Ah now, time for BOOJUM! to take on it's occasional responsibility for teaching you a thing or two, about things that you either didn't know existed or did know and didn't care about anyway.**
     You may not be aware that Nimrod, in the Biblical sense, was a mighty hunter, one of the kings of Mesopotamia and also a great-grandson of Noah.  Interesting pedigree!  Art?

Guaranteed never to feature on an RSPCA calendar

     Probably, it is deemed, a concatenation of various real kings of antiquity with a bit of mythology thrown in as his pedigree to boot.     But wait!  That's not all, not by a long way.  If you recall earlier in the week, we were poking a bit of satirical fun at the Magyars, whom you probably know better as the Hungarians.  Well, we can balance the scales with some due deference to their martial prowess in the Second Unpleasantness, where they also had a Nimrod.  Not quite a hunter, more a killer.  Art?

Happy Honved

     This was a Bofors anti-aircraft gun on an armoured chassis, in an open turret with all-round traverse.  Meant to accompany armoured formations to keep off Sinister aircraft; ironically that one above has the Hungarian flag prominently displayed to keep away their own air force, just in case.  Getting strafed by  your own side is a right dose of Ipecac Syrup.

     We shall have more of Nimrod later.  O yes indeed.  In the meantime, let us change subjects to that of <thinks> PIRACY!

Not that kind, Art, you bafoon

 The Irony, It Burns
Well well Jean Jaques Burnel.  What do we have here?  A sideline on the mighty BBC's website, all about how software developers and game makers are aggressively pursuing people who make unlicensed and unauthorised "cheats" for computer games.
     It seems the intellectual property pirates were selling fixes that would allow users to customise their copy of the game, without sanction from the game's owners.  Plus, they could activate a "God" mode that made them invincible, which rather takes the fun out of the whole business, Conrad feels.
     Of course, that root of all deviltry across the globe since time began, money, was also involved.  This always gets the pulses of lawyers beating faster, and puts seven-league boots on the feet of businesses looking to maximise profits.
     Oh, the game?  
     Yes, there lies the rub: "Grand Theft Auto".***

£250 the lot?  It's a steal.

Okay, we've had tanks, and zombies, all that remains to fulfill our remit according to the default Facebook description is - 

SOLAR-POWERED ANGLE GRINDERS!

     Can also play CDs at a pinch, though only once, and don't try it with ones you've borrowed from a mate.

Enough of the scrivel for today - gotta keep some in reserve for tomorrow.  Later!


*  You won't be able to un-see this, for which I am a little sorry.
**  This latter being a shocking state of things and you should be thoroughly ashamed of your wretched selves, if it applies.  What the heck, even if it doesn't, be thoroughly ashamed anyway, just to be on the safe side.
***   It amuse me.