I Has Broken Teh Interwebz

Sorry!
Didn't mean to, entirely accidental.  It just so happens that any online reference to a particular combination of Gerry Anderson, poison gas and the Javelina wild pig all react to cause a shuddering breakdown in Hamstereality - that being the operating system of hamsters that power all your PCs and servers and browsers.

Please - won't you think of the hamsters?!

      And who happened to post about all three Trauma Topics today?  That's right, Conrad.
     Me!  I'm Conrad - what do you mean, "Who's he?"  Sheesh.  I think your sanity is beginning to break down, too.  
     Ah, you want evidence?  I've got that.  Art?

Erk.

     Last week I puzzled about the traffic figures leaping to, oh, the modest total of 249 or somesuch.  Now look at it - clearly those hamsters have gone round the twist.
     Okay, that above was a photograph taken at about 10:30 post meridian.  I wondered if things had re-set back to normal by 11:30 post meridian.  Not a bit of it!  

      I shall probably wake up tomorrow to find that the total traffic figures exceed 10,000,000,000, before being arrested for Grand Planetary Treason.*
     To those who say this increase in traffic is a wonderful thing, I would point out that at least 50% of the blog is slanderous invective, 10% more is incitement to sedition and another 5% is copyrighted material stolen without attribution, so eventually some lawyer will read it and detect the scent of money to be made.

     O the travails of a Blogger!  <pauses, wondering if there's any way to make money out of this ...>
     I think we'll  let the motley off with a hearty handshake and a happy hello today.**

Quite possibly a motley getting the good news

More "You WHAT?" Moments
It is a matter of little interest to you puling wretches out there what I do to prepare for the morrow's work on the evening before, and I have to say even though it's me doing it, there really isn't much to get excited about.  I prep the breakfast dishes, get out clean clothes and write down all the necessary headings on my notebook; the whole process probably takes five minutes at most.
     Then there was the evening of the 12th November.  This one made me sit up and pay attention.  There I was, earphones in, busy listening and half-watching "Clouds of Witness", a BBC adaptation of the Dorothy Sayers work.  Art?

      Note the date on my notepad, because what does that character on screen say whilst I was writing?
     "You tell Lord Peter what happened, Wednesday last - November 13th."
     Dog Buns!  
     Unlike most of these coincidences I can tell you the odds of this happening precisely - 365 to 1.  

Another "W.o.E." Moment
We here at BOOJUM! of course treasure our SFW status, so we only ever post "What on Earth" and never the crude "W.T.F.", because we do have a little class.  I suppose "Whisky Tango Foxtrot" might be an acceptable substitute, yet I bet few of you out there are familiar with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.

Tsar Putin's least-favourite thing ever.

     On to the meat of the matter: Official Histories of the War, the war in question being the First Unpleasantness.  Art?

Stunt doubles

     There was 1 volume on the war in East Africa from 1914 - 1916, published in 1941, and good luck ever finding a copy, because they seem rarer than hen's teeth, where the hens in question can speak Swedish, carry out first aid and mow your lawn.  The Battery Press did a reprint in 1990 - those above are TBP reprints of the 'France & Belgium" volumes - and their volumes were snapped up instantly and are now long out-of-print.
     "Is this going to take long?" I hear you query.  "It's just I need to nip to MacDonald's for a meal."
     Apart from pausing to condemn you for DESTROYING THE PLANET, I shall explicate.

Note the note:"This is not the actual book cover"

     The seller on Abebooks wanted £3,165 for this reprint, which is going some, especially since someone else is offering exactly the same edition just below for only (!) £70.  You'd think for that price you'd get a picture!
     Conrad refuses to pay more than £40 a volume, which is why he still has the odd gap in his collection.

     Okay, the boring stuff is over, you can come out now.  What do mean "How can you tell?" - aroint thee, thou rump-faced runyon!***

Ha!  Take That, World
Just to show that we here on the blog can mystify, defy and render obloquy (which I'm not going to define, so you'll just have to look it up, Ha! again), here's an obscure album cover from the prehistoric days of 1977 Anno Domini.  Art?

Not very practical apparel for seafaring, chaps.

     Note how this cover art is intended as a pastiche - or is it a parody? - of that weekly Boy's Comic (we were allowed to call them such back in the day) 'Victor', which our fuel-rod fed fool Art will illustrate -

I recognise the top three

     For your information - hey, we seem to be doing an unacknowledged "Here an aside -", don't we? - FYI, "Morgyn" was a fairly generic Big Strong Guy, along the lines of Tarzan On A Diet Of Steroids.  'Alf Tupper' was a rarity in comics, a very blue-collar working-class chap who ran a scrap-metal business and ran races.  'Braddock' was a laconic, if not outright surly, pilot who flew bombers for the RAF.  Here he seems to be flying that aerial death-trap the "Fairy Battle", whose designer must have been awarded an Iron Cross First Class -

A rubbish aircraft!
(We probably sent lots to the Sinisters)

     And there, as the motley is chased into the sunset by a pack of ravening capybaras, it is time to end ...

*  This offence may not exist yet but they'll get working on it soonest, believe you me.
**  Of course, my hand is wired up to the local electricity transformer.
***   I copied this from Shakespeare, so I'm a little hazy about exactly what it means, but it ain't no compliment.