I Harp - About LARP

I Kind Of Apologise
For keeping you in suspense after today's earlier post, when I mentioned LARP and explained what it wasn't, without saying what it is.
     It stands for "Live Action Role-Playing", wherein - and I shall have to be careful here, since Darling Daughter and her ardent swain Tom are both LARPers - a bunch of people show up in a field, get dressed up as something they're not (trolls, demons, valiant warrirors) and play out varying scenarios.

CAUTION!  Can bring mockery to bear

     Now, if that sounds like your idea of fun, please bear in mind that most of this activity is done out of doors.  In the Pond Of Eden.  "Outdoors" and "Pond of Eden" are usually universally associated with "Rain", which brings "Mud" into the equation, too, and normally you can add "Cold" to that as well.  If it's a whole weekend event, then you too can share the enormous fun of "Sleeping In A Tent", "No Showers" and "Car Stuck In Mud" as well.

Here's where you pitch your tent.

     I hate to disappoint the psychopathically and insanely violent amongst you, because you people aren't going to let mud or cold prevent your native homicidal impulses from running free, but those weapons?  Non-lethal.  Made of rubber and foam.  Which is only sensible, as otherwise the LARP community would be either dead or in prison for a very long time.

"I swear, officer, I thought it was my rubber replica -"

     Conrad thoroughly approves of LARP, as it gets this nations young people out in the open with plenty of fresh air, exercises them and has them interacting with people instead of mobile phone screens.  Plus, it is useful training for if when the Zombie Apocalypse occurs.
     Now, time to give the motley a bowl of ice-cream, which it has to finish at gunpoint OR ELSE.

Get scoffing, motley!

Conrad's Good Taste Revealed
Hmmmm.  Perhaps not.  Conrad, as you ought to know by now, has no internal censor and generally says the first thing that comes into his head - along the lines of "No your bum doesn't look big in that but your thighs do appear to have been transplanted from a hippo", and then wonders why he sends women away crying.
     Should we say "Good Tastes" instead?  I think that's closer to the mark.  Art?

Presents!

      The Marmite I shall consume most slowly, as it is actually 10% salt by mass; in that humble squeezy jar you're looking at probably two tablespoons of salt.
     Oh, and those pastel packets are sugar-free sweets, which look delicious and surely cannot taste as repellent as those Swiss ones that claim to be "mouth-watering" yet which have all the wonderful presence on the palate of medicinal cough syrup.

      There you have it, I finally succumbed and posted pictures of My Christmas Presents.

     Coming up next - What I Had For Lunch!

I lied, I'm not going to post a picture of mozarella sticks and spring rolls.

Actually, About That Good Taste -
I got my hot sweaty hands on the latest edition of "Empire" today, and, as is my wont, I made sure to read the Kim Newman page of film reviews first.  Kim performs an invaluable service going through all the cheap and nasty horror films released every month, pointing out the occasional gem to be found in the ocean of ordure.  What does he review in some detail today?  Art!

Yay!

     Yes, that minor classic "Horror Express", which we here at BOOJUM! have also made mention of in the past.  I know you won't believe me without a reference, so here it is -

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-thermonuclear-train-of-terror.html

     Of course Kim, being a perceptive chap, also quotes the line that your humble scribe quoted.  He also came up with a suggestion that there ought to have been a series of films about the Lee and Cushing characters, which is actually a train of thought - do you see what I O you do - your humble scribe likes a lot <brain churns furiously with ideas>.

A bald Cossack?  Must be chilly when riding the endless winter steppes.

The Soul Of The Plot
After Edgar Allen Poe, who memorably summed up his oeuvre as being composed of "Much madness and horror the soul of the plot".  Also, 'plot' in colloquial English means 'a small parcel of land', and the small piece of land we're going to talk about here had enough madness and horror associated with it for a whole library.
     For yes! we are back on the First Unpleasantness again, and specifically the history of the 18th Division.  This is, as I'm sure you recall, one of the best-trained divisions that Perfidious Albion had in the European Theatre of Operations; it was notably gung-ho and aggressive and tended to get the job done where other divisions would have failed miserably.  Art?

Their GOC, Ivor Maxse

     Maxse was nothing short of an inspiration, and the division's successes can be traced back to how he had it train; every man, down to the most recently-arrived private, knew what to do, how to do it, and when to do it when in action.
     Thus we come to the Schwaben Redoubt.  This was a Teuton strongpoint several hectares in area, a nest and network of trenches, dugouts, underground bunkers, barbed wire by the mile and doughty defenders.  It was a key defensive work in the Teuton lines, and they would not give it up lightly.

Schwaben from the air

     The 18th went in and captured nearly the whole thing in prolonged and ferocious fighting that went on for days and days.  One statistic might help picture the intensity of fighting; during a 90 minute combat, one bombing party of the 55th Brigade went through 250 Mills Bombs (hand grenades to you and I).  That's one combat in one formation on one day.
      By the time the valiant Teuton defenders stopped counter-attacking, General Maxse estimated they had suffered 2,500 casualties (as against 2,000 for the British).  They had lost one of their key strongpoints on the Somme battlefield, which hastened their 1917 withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line.

Schwaben in a painting, which is probably the nicest it has ever looked.

     That old canard of "Lions led by donkeys" re. the war effort of Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness has long been in abeyance in academic and military circles, but if betimes you encounter it in public - less likely now that the centenary is nearly over - you only need mention General Maxse.

Wowsers.  That was especially grim.  Don't worry, tomorrow we will be looking at how the Mordor Tourist Board aims to get Battlefield Tours a going concern!