Free! Free!

I Know What You're Thinking -
No!  This is nothing to do with the rock band, whose seminal hit "All Right Now" is about the only thing most people know about them.  They were a rock colossus that came out of nowhere, and to give them credit, they disbanded when they were still able and relevant, rather than being transformed into cyborg zombies*.  Lead guitar player Paul Kossof's dad was about as far from a drug-addict musician as you can get, being a dapper and urbane actor.

Paul and David having some scran

     I beg your pardon - I do tend to go on about what the Intro isn't about, don't I?  But I know you love me all the more for it.
     Nor is it a recollection about one of 'Doctor Who's more ambiguous moments, in the recounting of "Pyramids of Mars".  If you recall properly, Marcus Scarman had been taken over by the eeeevil Sutekh, an immensely powerful alien from the Osiran race, condemned to spend eternity immobilised in a pyramid.  The unfortunate Scarman, an archaeologist, happened to open the tomb our eeeevil Osiran was trapped within.  Art?

                    Scarman                                            Sutekh.  Not a pleasant fellow.
                                                                                  (In fact not even a fellow)
     Having been taken over, Scarman is required to get to Mars, and there to destroy a jewel that is the cause of Sutekh's immobility.  When he does so, he crows "Free!  Free!" - and then disintegrates.
     Conrad's question is this: is this exclamation at being freed Scarman's realisation that Sutekh no longer controls him; or is it the eeeevil one gloating about no longer being held in stasis?
     I suppose it's a moot point.  Being rendered unto a pile of dust means Scarman can no longer enjoy his freedom from alien mind-control.

Proficiency with small arms not one of Sarah's strong points

     Ooops!  Did it again.  What the Intro isn't about.  Also, take a look at SJS above - one feels that Sarah and guns were not often associated.  Ace would be a much better fit for the role of a gun-wielding gal with guts, don't you know.
     Oh yes, the reason for today's title.  Boringly mundane, I'm afraid - I don't have a dog on my lap so I am Free!  Free! to type this scrivel at a rate of knots, unlike earlier this afternoon, when my ten-fingered typing was cruelly hampered.
     Okay, motley, how high can you get in this hot air balloon whilst we shoot arrows at it?

     You wouldn't have known it, but there was a long pause there whilst your humble scribe ate his tea.  Don't worry, I shan't bow to convention and post a picture of it.

Russian Versus Prussian In A Bit Of Brit Kit
Hopefully that's not too arcane for you to translate.  It may come as a surprise to you that the Sinisters, during the Second Unpleasantness, used lots of tanks from Perfidious Albion and South Canada.  After the war the Sinisters, if asked about this, would say "O!  Yes - er - we used them as doorstops, or - er - paperweights.  O look, a flying saucer!"
     In fact they used them extensively in battle, the armoured fighting vehicles in question being sent over in the perilous Arctic convoys to Archangelsk, or to Vladivostok.  Art?

Just visible - Cyrillic writing on the turret.

     That above is a Churchill Mk. III, with the 6 pounder gun, knocked out in the fighting at Kursk in summer 1943.  The Sinisters, unable to look a gift horse in the mouth, found fault with many of the tanks sent to them; this was actually quite reasonable, because they hadn't been designed with the Ruffian winter in mind, and the Churchill, especially, went into service with a ton of faults.  Apparently Sinister tank crews loved the Sherman because of it's reliability; their own tanks were not expected to last beyond 6 months, or 14 hours when in combat.  Crewing a tank built to (relatively) luxurious (or decadent!) Western standards, with proper finishing and quality components was an experience for them.
     The jolly excellent "Tank Archive" blog has a ton more information on the subject, besides oodles of other facts about TANK.  Because you can never have too much TANK.

Lots of TANK!  All the TANK!

     Due to the parlous state of things on the Eastern Front, there was no reciprocal traffic of Sinister tanks provided to the South Canadians or Perfidious Albion, or one can only wonder what regiments of T34s and KV1s would have done in North Africa.
     Oh - that's not quite true.  There is a KV1 at Bovvie (or Bovington Tank Museum if we're being formal) that was sent over by the Sinisters as a sample tank.  Art?

With puny humans for scale

     I also wonder if the tanks we sent to the Sinisters included that British Secret Weapon which helped with the Second Unpleasantness - the Boiling Vessel.  It would have come in handy in wintry conditions, no question about it.

Finally -
This is a case of another strange ship and what it's cargo was, which also concerns other ships.  Let us start with a picture.  Art?

Can you tell what it is yet?

     The big blue structure is actually the cargo, not part of the vessel carrying it, whose freeboard looks dangerously low to me.  Perhaps it's able to adjust that freeboard for flexibility in loading and unloading cargoes?
     Okay, you can't really tell what the Big Blue Structure is, because it's been partially dismantled for ease of transport.  I can tell you that it's destination is Rosyth shipyard on the Clyde.  Art?

A crane

     This is the Pond of Eden's largest crane, specially brought in to help build that aircraft carrier sitting in the background.
     There you go, we are all better informed about the world, and aren't you grateful for it?



*  Cough coughlling Stonecough cough