I Thought So

Your Humble Scribe Does Not Like To Be Proven Wrong
Which does not altogether matter, when the matter in hand is merely  a scatter O' datta.*
     Anyway!  I refer, of course, to that grammatical construct the "Zeugma", which cropped up yesteryon.  It refers to a figure of speech which - oh go look it up.
     Not to harp on about it too much, but your humble scribe works with an impressive array of people at the Dark Tower.

<Sighs>  No, Art, no <continues sighing and charging up Tazer>

     Pausing only to allow the tormented screams of Art to die away in the distance, I shall continue.  One of my colleagues atop the 17th floor of said Tower is C.J. -
     - Stay your imagination! for no, she is not a lanky Texan in a Stetson, gnawing upon a plug of chawin' baccy (that is what Texans do, right?).
     She IS, however, and entirely to the point, a graduate in English Literature.  So -
     "C.J.!  C.J.!" I began.** "Have you ever heard of -"
     A)  Thomas Pynchon?
     "No."
     Not, I have to say, entirely unexpected.  After all, he is a South Canadian author, so English As She Is Wrote would be his second language.

What O'l Tom may look like now.

     B)  A Zeugma?
     "No."
     YOU SEE!  YOU SEE HOW INCREDIBLY OBSCURE - excuse me, I'll stop shouting now - is this word that the M.E.N. Codeword was trying to pass off as real and proper?
     <long pause until the red mist lifts and the blood pressure drops>
     Bah!

The Dark Tower.  Being all - dark.

"Quatermass And The Pit" - At The Forefront Of Technology!
Of course I refer to the white heat of technology as of 61 years ago, when this sterling television series came out.  Which is 1958 for those of you not good at maths.
     Er - again, I have to confess that this is one of those words that popped up in my head strolling into the pavement entrance of the Dark Tower, after another word had popped up - we'll get to that in a minute.
     Anyway, to set the scene.  First, let me cattle-prod Art into action -


     Our heroes have to get into the alien spaceship, you see, which is where Professor Quatermass proposes they use a drill with " - a borazon bit ... many times harder than diamond."      Borazon is in fact a proprietary name, being a compound formed by roasting boron and nitrogen at several thousand degrees to form boron nitride.  And it is indeed one of the hardest things known to man, harder even than a taxman's heart.

A bit of borazon

     The thing is, it was only invented in 1957, so Nigel Kneale, who wrote the Quatermass script, was certainly up on his 'New Scientist' subscription.
     Now, the question is, why would the inventor ever think to himself "I'm bored - what can I do today?  I know - I'll heat nitrogen and boron together at 20000C - that'll make the morning pass all the quicker!"
Chimborazo
This is the word that popped into my head seconds earlier than "Borazon", and I think you can see where the latter originates.
     I wasn't even sure it was a real word, and strolling along the damp and chilly streets of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell is not the place to check.***      However, it is indeed real.  Art?  O stop whinging and put salve on it!

Behold Chimborazo!

     Yes, it does look like the practice version of Mount Fuji, and yes, it is also a volcano, though it hasn't done anything for about 1,500 years.  It lives in Ecuador, which is significant thanks to the equatorial bulge of Planet Earth.
     "What's that?  Anything akin to your middle-aged spread, Conrad?" I hear you chortle.
     Pausing only to hire a band of desperate assassins to cure you of your outsolence (which is like insolence except worse), I shall explicate.      Planet Earth - where you live, for those unsure - has a bulge at the equator thanks to the speed at which it spins.  Art?

The Fat Earth

     This means that if you measure the height of a volcano, or mountain, from the very centre of the planet, those geographical features located on the equator will acquire a substantial increase, making Chimborazo the tallest mountain on the planet.      BOOJUM! - educating you one factoid at a time.  Whenever they pop up in my head.                        The inner landscape of your humble scribe's mind.  Possibly.
Let The Spirit Of Ceske Budejovice Move You
That, in case you were unaware, is the Czech and original name which you are better acquainted with in the Teuton form of "Budweiser".  It's in Czechia, the language "Czech" giving you a great big fat clue.
     Okay, going back to

Eh?

     WILL YOU B****Y LOCOMOTIVES STOP BARGING IN AS IF YOU OWNED THE BLOG!
     <pauses for the vein in his temple to stop throbbing>
     Okay, going back to <lays hold of a club and looks around wildly> back to our theme of People Who Seem Incredibly British But Who Aren't Really, let us look at Tom Stoppard.  For those who are not cultured like what I am,^ he is a playwright, and a very prominent one at that.  Art?

Tom.  In need of a haircut

     He's also written for film, television and radio, and has won an Oscar, so he's doing something right.
     Anyway, he's originally from Czechoslovakia.  His family fled abroad when the Teuton hordes came jack-booting into the country, first to Darjeeling, India.
     I realise Darjeeling is not Britain, yet it's just about the next best thing, most especially because it's where that nectar of the gods DARJEELING TEA comes from.
     Then, after the Second Unpleasantness was over, his family promptly arrived on the shores of the Pond of Eden, where he now resides.

Darjeeling.  Bow down in awed wonder!

* No, it isn't spelled correctly, but it does scan.
**  That girl will regret ever telling me what her degree was in.
***  If you even think of mentioning the devil's digital device YOU WILL SURELY DIE!  Just so we're clear.
^  "Morecambe and Wise" reference there.