Patient Z For Zero - Or ZOMBIE?!

For We Are Back With The Caduceus Again
Yes, that thing that the ancient Greeks waggled around a lot.  A 'Herald's Staff' if you want to be a little more formal.  Art?

Hmmm.  Not very practical in real life, is it?

     Personally, Conrad feels it was more a secret assassination weapon, whereby the two snakes would be airlifted to their target destination, there to fall upon the hapless victim (or victims, as two serpents seems a touch of overkill for a single person), ensuring plausible deniability for the wicked plotters -
     Of course, I may be overthinking this a bit.  Okay, let us assume that it's not an assassination weapon.  Amongst the various attributes that a caduceus had were the ability to send the waking to sleep, and vice versa.  Great!  Er - why did Western medicine ever develop the sleeping draught and narcotics, then?

Hmmm.  Perhaps.

     Of course that bit about "waking the sleeping" is quite fallacious.  If some stranger comes up to you whilst you're counting aardvarks and beats your defenceless blanket-clad self with a big stick (which incidentally drops a pair of snakes on your mattress) do you really continue to lie there and doze?
     The really interesting and worrying thing about the caduceus is what it does to those hovering on the border of life and death, undecided about whether to remain in the land of the living or move on to other shores.

Death, please - I'm diabetic.

     Okay, according to the legend, if a dying person is touched with the caddy, then their death is painless.
     EXCUSE ME!  If I am there on the threshold of Hades (for I have considerable doubt  that Conrad would ever ascend to the Elysian Fields), I want the entire panoply of Western medicine to be there, helping me - not some bloke hitting me with a stick, ta very much.

Me, for those unsure.

     But what's this?  Not only does the caddy hasten one's exit from this mortal plane, if you touch one of the dead with it -
     They come back to life.
     Okay, I think we now know where the origin of the zombie is, and it certainly isn't in the Voudoun religion of the Caribbean, amongst slaves abducted from Africa.  O no!  It's those Dog Buns Classical Greek natural philosophers and physicians, who - we're treading the path that Frankenstein took a lot later on, aren't we? - decided to meddle with Things Best Left Alone.

You seething pillocks!  Look what you've done!

       Fortunately for the entire world, it seems that Zeus was keeping a close eye on these mad scientists, and to prevent their Violations Of The Laws Of Nature (a.k.a. "A Zombie Horde") getting out of hand, he vapourised the lot of 'em with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.  Or thunderbolts.*
     Mind you, since the concept of the zombie has survived to this day, it's quite probable that a few survived ...
     Right, motley, time to cross this rickety rope bridge across the canyon whilst being attacked by giant mutant cockchafer beetles!

A life-size cockchafer.  Blimey!  Poor old motley.

"Invincible" By Kirkman, Ottley & Rauch
You are probably wincing in anticipation of a bone-dry lecture about the sloop "HMS Invincible" and how she was launched in 1783, and her service on the West Indian Station and how many carronades -
     NO!
     I refer to the comic book character, and those names above are the writer and artists who brought the whole thing to fruition.  Art?

     I am re-reading the whole 24-volume collection from their beginning, which is going to take some time.  Great fun, though, as I've forgotten nearly all the finer points in both artwork and storyline.  There are hidden details that only become apparent on a careful second reading.
     O my woeful life!

The Renault FT17
I was watching a Youtube video last night, posted by Matsimus, in which he put up a valiant defence of the Ruffian's very latest tank, the T14 Armata -
     - yes yes yes, I know I mentioned the FT17, I'll get to that in a minute, moderate your rods -
      - which seems to be a package of cutting-edge technology of an impressive nature.  Unfortunately it's so expensive the Ruffians can only afford 7 1/2 of them.**

The Armata

     Max put people right about the T14 that allegedly "broke down" in preparation for he Red Square parades - the driver apparently put the - er - handbrake on, rendering the tank utterly immobile.  "Ha!" crowed Mat.  "Take that, haters!"  Ooookay, Mat - but it doesn't bode well for the ultra super wonder combat machine if the crew are such seething pillocks.  And the recovery crew took 45 minutes to work out the brakes were on?  Western Europe need fear nothing!
     Now the FT17!  Art?

With not-so-puny humans for scale

     Although the unwieldy British rhomboid monsters were the first into the field, this little chap above was the shape of the future.  It was small, hence light, and could be produced by the hundred, and was.  Note the outlay:  engine in rear, crew in middle and front, central hull, side-mounted tracks, fully rotating turret.  That's the classic outlay - which you can see in it's lineal descendant the T14.
     I'm only adding this article in because of the hilarious description given by a commentator on The Chieftain's Hatch Youtube about his "5 Most Important Tanks".  He said he'd no idea how small the FT17 was -
     " - it looks like a Dalek in a wheelchair", which made me burst out laughing.***
     There - happy now?

"EXTERMINATE!"

Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra - AGAIN!
This wretched chimera has left me alone of late, making your humble scribe wonder if his succulent tender nethers had lost their charm.
     Not a bit of it!
     There I was, listening to Cherry Ghost's magisterial "People Help The People", which I had to because my work task was so deadly dull I was falling asleep, with the chorus that goes "Na Na Na Na Na, Na Na Nannah Na Na".
     What pops up on screen but a person with the name "Na Na" at that very same moment!
     I swear, at times the Universe is trying to tell me something.

The Universe (Not to scale)

     Okay, on the count of three, let's all howl like werewolves -
    

AROOOOOOO!

     And goodbye.


*  I know which sounds cooler to ME!
**  I jest.  It's actually 8.
***  I'm a terrible person.  But we knew that already.