Getting Horny

NO!  Wash Your Dirty Minds Out -
 - and elevate your perspective from that of the gutter.  Really, some people!  Do I not protest loud and long that this blog is eminently sensible logical Safe For Work?*  Yes, we did feature a female bottom once - once! - but it was on a statue, which means it was Art and thus rarefied and elegant and all that shizzle.
     What I refer to, OBVIOUSLY, is the Elasmotherium Sibericum, which our resident Neanderthal Art will illustrate -


     There you can see the source of today's title.  Stop sniggering at the back!
     Now, this is news because what has been dubbed the "Siberian Unicorn" had originally been thought to have died out 200,000 years ago.  Carbon-dating of bones has proved that they were around up to 40,000 years ago, which is still a long way before breakfast, yet recent enough that Art's grandparents might have been familiar with the hairy rhinoceros.
     Here an aside.  The word "Rhinoceros" comes from the Greek - hooray, not a Latin origin!** - for "Nose-horn", which is pretty much what you'd expect as a description.  Art?

Possibly living near the - er - Horn of Africa?

     Here an aside to the aside. "Rhinoplasty" refers to surgery involving the nose, the principal reason for which is cosmetic surgery, and no, Conrad is not going to have his prominent proboscis plasticed, thank you very much.  Certainly not after reading the wince- and tears-inducing scene in Thomas Pynchon's "V" where one of the characters undergoes a lovingly-detailed surgery.***

A very short title for a very long book.

     Here's another Rhino, whilst we're on that particular theme.  Art?

Rhino to starboard

     This mobile metal monster is a conversion from the Challenger tank, and is an Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle, meaning that it's job is not to shoot Eeeeevil Sinister Enemy tanks, but rather to tow disabled ones out of trouble and give them some Tender Loving Care.
     There are more Rhino AFVs I could parade before you, but I think we've squeezed all the juice out of today's entry.  All that remains to do is superglue the motley to this sleeping tiger's tail!

Oops.  Tiger woke up.  Tiger not happy.

Brown Dwarfs
A note to fellow grammar-Nazis - that plural is correct.   
     Brown dwarfs are very odd astronomical objects that seem to fall between two stools.  They were hypothesised as existing way back in the Sixties, but the technology to detect them didn't arrive until the Nineties.  They are far more massive than any existing planet, being at least 13 times heavier than Jupiter, and perhaps as many as 80 times more massive.  They don't have enough mass, however, to sustain nuclear fusion, like a normal star.  Mostly, they emit infra-red radiation, not visible light, which makes them verrrry tricky to spot.  Art?

The impression of an artist

     There may be a lot of brown dwarfs out there that have cooled sufficiently over a few million years or so, to the extent that they're not even detectable in the infra-red spectrum, in which case your humble scribe postulates that they be called <ahem> Dead Dwarfs.

"Bad Conrad!  Naughty Conrad!"

     This astronomical post is by way of an introduction, as we shall come back to this.  O yes indeed!

Monty's Python
I'm not sure if I can work in a proper reference to "Monty" in this, but I'll give it a go.
     As you are surely aware, Conrad is currently educating you (and himself, if we're honest) about the early and prototype vehicles that were constructed by Perfidious Albion and the M8s in the days before TANK rumbled forth.  "Early and prototype and peculiar" might be a better description.  Feast your glazzies on this - Art?

Not very HD.

     This is the Aubriot-Gabet "Cuirasse", which was a Filz tractor chassis with an armoured superstructure added, topped by a turret with a 37 m.m. gun.  The engine was electric, rather than dull diesel or stupid steam or <thinks> persiflaginous petrol, and because there wasn't enough room for the gigantic batteries required to propel this beast, it trailed a long cable connected to a power source - you can just see the wiring at lower starboard, which is where the "Python" crack comes from.

Proto-Dalek?

     Unsurprisingly, they were not very successful when first used at Verdun, not least because they couldn't cross rough terrain, couldn't cross trenches and that cable was very vulnerable to shellfire (and harsh, cruel Teuton laughter, too, no doubt).
     Sorry, couldn't work in a Monty.  Maybe next time?

From Landship To "Last Ship"
Ha - do you see - O you do.  Not wanting to reveal too much plot information, I did tut rather at the heroic and totally successful South Canadian attack on a much larger vessel by a small commando team, who slew numerous - I suppose they were camo-clad contemporaries of a Star Trek redshirt - and got away with the rescued persons, hooray!  Frankly, chaps, it called for a bigger suspension of disbelief than I wished to invest.  Don't do it again!

The show's real star.

Finally -
Being somewhat of a Grinch in humanoid human form, as well as being an utter curmudgeon down to his metallic underpinnings bones, your humble scribe has been viewing the shelves in supermarkets with distaste since September.  For why?  Because since late September an increasing array of produce has arrived clad in the raiments of Christmas.  Not to mention tannoy systems playing Christmas songs.

My hero!

     Tomorrow marks the beginning of December, when it is now permissible to BEGIN thinking about Christmas.
     You wait and see, by the year 2037, when the world is a barren despoiled radioactive ash desert - not painting too rosy a picture, am I? - you'll be sorry.
     "O how we wished our days away," you'll bleat.  "If only we had read BOOJUM! and paid attention."
     Yes.  Quite.

Christmas Fair, Manchester, 2038

*  One out of three's not bad.
**  I spit on you, Latin, you ZOMBIE LANGUAGE!
***  I haven't mentioned Tom in a while, and thought you might be pining a bit for him.