A Lager You Cannot Drink

Quelle Horreur!
Of course, your humble scribe is messing with the truth a little, because "Lager" is how this word is pronounced, not spelled.  So your visions of a Continental bottom-fermented beer forever beyond your grasp can recede into the mists of fiction.
     Now, I give you fair warning that this Intro is going to consist of talking about TANK, so if this is not your cup of tea SIT BACK DOWN! you're going to have to stick around anyway.  Art?

Actually from NW Europe

     It's a sad fact that I cannot find any photographs nor diagrams of a tank laager, not on the internet and not in my military history books.  Undoubtedly there is one, somewhere, yet I don't fancy looking for the next 2 hours.  So what was one?
     Simply put, at the end of the day, after the fighting had stopped for nightfall - for they did not have infra-red technology back in those days - the armoured units of Perfidious Albion would withdraw from the battlefield, and park up.  The tanks would form a circle facing outwards, and all the softskins (trucks et al) would be at the centre, for protection.  Listening posts would be established, supplies and petrol and ammo would be delivered by the Royal Army Service Corps, an Orders Group on what to do tomorrow would be convened, and vehicles would get re-armed and refuelled.  People would snatch a bit of scran (a.k.a. "food"), service their vehicles and get a bit of kip.

The M3 Honey

     Now, this habit the British had was quite invidious, because it surrendered the battlefield to the Teutons, who made full play of it, since they salvaged their own tanks that had fallen victim to mechanical failure, which was just as common as being knocked out by gunfire.  Thus the British might report knocking out 26 Teuton panzers, whereas their opponents had really only lost 3 in total after recovery and repair.
     There is an alternate spelling, "Leaguer", which seems to have been taken up in order to confuse people.
     Okay, time to give the motley some Gunpowder Green Tea!  Made with real gunpowder - watch that gas hob -

More Of Taffy Holden
If you recall last night, Wing Commander Taffy Holden, a mechanical engineer by training and profession, was taxiing a Lightning interceptor jet up and down a runway in order to try and determine the solution to a persistent electrical problem.
     Taffy Was Not Meant To Fly.  We shall come back to this.

"A cockpit strapped to two jet engines"

     Taffy, however, pushed the throttle too far forward, and accidentally engaged the afterburners, causing his Lightning to literally rocket down the auxiliary runway he was using.  Not being too technical, afterburners cause your aircraft to accelerate like spit off a shiny shovel.
     Oh, and what's this?  A petrol bowser had been given clearance to move onto the runway and refuel a Hercules C130, because, let's all chorus at once -

 Taffy Was Not Meant To Fly

A fuel bowser
(No, I don't know why they call it that either)

     Taffy recalled his brief cockpit guide had mentioned that there were blocks that you needed to press in order to pull the throttle back out of afterburner.  He didn't have time to worry about this, since his first priority was not hitting the bowser or C130.  He managed to jink out of the way with inches to spare.  If he had hit the bowser, his Lightning, the bowser and the C130 would all have been destroyed in a colossal explosion.
     Oh, and what's this moving down the main runway?  Why, none other than an RAF Transport Command Comet jet, given clearance by the control tower to take off because -
                                                Taffy Was Not Meant To Fly

RAF Comet.  A rather substantial bit of kit, and not something you want to run into

     There might not have been that much fuel in Taffy's Lightning, but that Comet would have been fully-fuelled for take off, and a collision would probably mean both aircraft being destroyed in a colossal explosion.*
     They missed each other by seconds, at which point Taffy realised he was running out of auxiliary runway, so he pulled back on the stick and the Lightning did what it was designed to do - wazz into the skies at silly speed.
     Taffy's problems, though, had just begun, because -
                                                Taffy Was Not Meant To Fly

XM135, Taffy's steed.
(So yes, there is a happy ending)

The Wits Of The Chuzzle
We are back to the slow-moving yet undeniably amusing Dickens novel,** and I am now at 520 pages, where that utter blaggard and cur Montague Tigg has somehow managed to con his way into money and power.
     As you may already know, Dickens published all his novels serially, in newspapers, rather than all at once when complete.  This meant he was able to keep his audience strung along, true, as the cynical amongst you will accuse, for ages and ages.  It also allowed him to tinker with the plot, as when Martin Chuzzlewit the Younger is sent to America; this was done as readers were not buying enough copies of the paper.

Martin, the Misses Pecksniff, Mr Pecksniff and honest Tom Pinch.

     Conrad loves the flowery language, though I do not know if it accurately reflects early Victorian prose sensibilities.  Here's an example that struck me as hilarious when reading it (it's Martin Chuzzlewith the Elder, prognosticating about his dead brother's wealth): "It made of his own child a greedy expectant, who measured every day and hour the lessening distance between his father and the grave, and cursed his tardy progress on that dismal road."
     Let me sum that up for you in 21st Century language: "Covetous son wants Dad dead."

The covetous son in question.

     Wowsers, another 1,000 word screed.  Better go get some food and bake that cake the ganterpies at work are expecting.

Later!


*  Are you sensing a theme here?
*  "Martin Chuzzlewit" for those slow on the uptake.