A Dirty Grey December Day

Well It Is!
It's a shame you cannot experience directly what your humble scribe does, as twenty minutes ago you wouldn't have been able to feel your hands.  No!  Not because I'd detached them to clean out the phalange joints (I only do that on a Sunday); because I'd just taken Madame for a walk, and it's raw weather out there.  Wet, cold, windy and raining.  Art?

Disgustrous!

      Predictably, Edna loved it - but then she comes equipped with a fur coat, whereas your modest artisan needs to put one on.  Rashly I didn't wear gloves.  Do you feel at all guilty, Madam Edna?

Princess Piddlepands purloins posterior platform
(I had very briefly left the room)

     Obviously not.  One thing about bad weather - nobody else is walking their hounds, so there's no opportunity for Madam to start barking at other dogs, every one of which is bigger than her.  
     No dogwalkers - but there were an unusual number of cars parked up, and plenty of people.  Normally you only get this many cars when it's a bright sunny day, and I refer you to the first picture.  I can't illustrate, I didn't take my phone.
     I did come across a registration point, and being nosy - how out of character! - asked what was going on.
     "The South East Lancashire Cross Country Run," I was told.
     !

The fools!  The mad impetuous fools!

     Crikey.  They choose to go out in weather like this?  Truly, you us humans are a peculiar lot.  Here's me sitting next to the radiator, cuddling a hot water bottle.
     O motley!  I've just filled the swimming pool with molten rubidium, get in and do a couple of lengths, will you?*

Off The Beaten Track
Did you see what - O you do.  The Beeb, that font of all that's fit to be writ, had an article about the world's most remote island.  Conrad wondered if it were to be Kerguelen Island (actually an archipelago), which is a pretty bleak, isolated place.
     No, it wasn't.  It turns out that Bouvet Island is the most isolated island on planet Earth, which Art can illustrate -

It's not that isolated - look at that island shaped like a white hand not so - oh.  Ah.

     Scientists want to get onto Bouvet in order to do core sampling, which, given the island's untarnished splendour, will give them a bigger picture of ice-cap melting.  There are a couple of problems getting there. As you can see from above, it is literally the middle of nowhere.  Then, you can only get onto Bouvet via helicopter.  Lastly, the island's weather is extremely changeable and can blanket it with cloud in a matter of minutes.  Art?

Beautiful and picturesque but a long commute

     You could probably build your own igloo house and live there undisturbed, as I doubt whoever owns it will ever visit.  Bit of a trek if you did get evicted, however.

Tsushima!
No, not a variety of sushi.  I refer to the Tsushima Straits and the Battle of Tsushima, which was a naval battle fought between the Japanese and the Ruffian's Baltic Fleet.

The scene

     As Conrad has remarked, the Ruffians are not a naval people, although the Baltic Fleet's admiral had done well to nurse his motley of ships halfway across the world.
     However, and a "However" in neon letters ten feet tall, Rozhestvensky's ships were old, ill-maintained and their crews were poorly trained.  The Japanese fleet - nearly all built at Glasgow, on the Clyde - were better-armed, better quality and had much better crews.  The Baltic Fleet was shattered, two-thirds of it's ships going to the bottom of the Straits.
     It shouldn't even have been there, as it's purpose was to help defend the Ruffian base at Port Arthur - which the sons of Nippon had already captured.
     Ooops.
     It was the first clash of battleship fleets, an event that happened precisely twice, and it was a wake-up call to the world that Japan had arrived on the world stage in a big way. 

Probably not a battle much celebrated by the Ruffians ...

     I might also point out that the Russo-Japanese War was fought over territory in China and Korea, neither of which belonged to the combatants, which is pretty cheeky in my opinion.

A Touch Of Gloasting
For the unfamiliar, this is a Conradism that combines "Gloating" and "Boasting", and I indulge myself in this unhealthy behaviour on a frequent basis.  Heh.  Yes, I'm a terrible person, but we knew that already.
     Anyway - Art?

A blue book

     This is the original, 1922 edition of "The History of the Eighteenth Division", an infantry division out of Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness, which some fool on Abebooks wanted £150 for, when there was exactly the same edition going for £35.  You can guess which one Conrad (penny-pinching proto-miser) purchased.
     The reason I wanted this specific volume is because of "Defiance!", the re-titled memoir by G.F.H. Nichols about an artillery brigade in 1918.  He tried to keep everything anonymous, but the dust jacket gave away which artillery brigade he was in - the 82nd - and that allowed me to work out which division.
     Now, what I shall have to do is read the Eighteenth's history, then go back and re-read "Defiance!" and annotate it with the correct names and unit titles.  I realise this constitutes Cruel And Unusual Punishment to most people, but then again I am me.**

Ribollita soup.  Just because.

Finally -
I only needed to add a short bit in here in order to hit 1000 words.
     I first encountered the music of Pink Floyd in 1975, whilst listening to Radio One during daytime, which was a bit of a quality desert.  Someone wrote into Paul Burnett, saying that a particular pop hit featuring pan pipes greatly resembled <didn't catch what they said>, so he played part of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and luckily for me announced the title and the band afterwards.
     That track came out of the radio speakers and hit me between the eyes with considerable force.
     "I don't know anything about it but I LIKE IT!" 

"It is," I decided, "An engine, made of glass."
(Yes, I was peculiar back then, too)

*  I am carrying a gun.
**  Usually.