Ayo Gurkhali!

Or, "The Gurkhas Are Upon You!"

Which can be translated into the mother tongue of whichever hapless opponent they are about to belabour: "O S**t".

    I did mention those hardy warrior folk of Nepal yesterday, which gives me an in for today (although I am actually typing this up the night before).  Folks who live beyond the opalescent shores of This Sceptred Isle might not understand what I'm banging on about - a perfectly understandable situation to find yersels in, pilgrims - so I shall elucidate further.

A sunny summer's day in Nepal

     Technically, the Gurkha regiments who serve in the British Army are mercenaries, as they are foreign citizens in the pay of Perfidious Albion.

     Technically.  You would have to look hard and long to find any mercenary troops anywhere, ever, who perform with the diligence and duty of the Gurkhas.  These chaps, once they take the Queen's Shilling,* are quite willing to die in the service of Perfidious Albion - providing they can take as many of the Bad Guys with them as possible.

Gurkhas in the Falklands: a picnic stroll for them.

     I bet you expect some gory war story now, don't you?  Ha!  No, not at all.  Instead let us mention ex-soldier Bishnu Shrestha, a Gurkha - apparently you may stop being a soldier but you cannot simply stop being a Gurkha - who was fast asleep on a train in North-East India.  At which point armed bandits attacked the train and began to rob passengers.  All very Wild West.  Mr. Shrestha was prepared to render up his valuables, until the dirty curs robbing the train declared their ungentlemanly intentions towards one of Mr. - let's call him "Bish" for convenience - one of Bish's fellow female passengers.

WE SURRENDER!  WE SURRENDER! 

     At this point he goes postal on the bandits: all forty of them.  He killed three and hacked another eight into hospital, before being badly injured himself, at which point the bandits decide that being poor and alive beats being train-robbery-rich and dead, so they depart the scene.

     And this was a retired 35-year old.

     Stay tuned, more matters martial to come - not tonight, I'm going to bed.

Damn your eyes, BBC!  Damn them!  What did you suck me into doing this morning, when you know I'm on a tight schedule?  First there was that sidebar article about the foreign fighters who made up a significant proportion of Daesh, and another one about the latest impact of separatist terrorism in Kashmir.  I could have spent at least another - oh, hang on - Art?

Kashmir

     Here an aside.  One of the most interesting taxi conversations I've ever had was with a Kashmiri driver, who essentially damned both houses (India and Pakistan for those who have lost the plot) and thought the region best served by independence from both sides.
     Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I missed my direct bus by about a minute, and so here I am, ten minutes later than usual, now full of crumpet.

Transports Of Delight
That's the phrase, isn't it?  "The ecstatic postilion was in transports of delight".  Normally Conrad is sat within a transport, that being a First Bus omnibus, usually in a less than delightful state, as he's just had to battle his way aboard amidst a seething rugby scrum of people - and you pushing in at the front, matey, only got here ten seconds ago - and it's standing-room only.

Quite.

     Last night the 24 bus never turned up, so I was forced to catch the inferior 182.  Our chariot got as far as Dean Lane, and then broke down.  The engine was whining and complaining in a manner similar to Edna when she's spotted food that's not in her mouth.  Off we all trooped, to wait for 10 mniutes until another bus hove into view.
     "Har Har Har!" said the sign on the front as it whizzed past us.  Well, true, it actually read "Sorry Not In Service" but it felt like "Har Har Har".
     Then along came a 181, hooray.  Except not so much, as the intellectual giants at First had put on a single-decker, at rush hour, so it was rammed solid and it, too, went whizzing past.
     At this point your humble scribe was beginning to realise he shouldn't have drunk all that coffee shortly before leaving the office.
    
                                   What I tried really hard to not think about

     I got home without disgracing myself, so you can put your mind at rest on that score.
     We shall see what delights await us with the transport tonight, hmmm?

 

"It's" Back
I realised that there were other films - usually schlocky genre ones - that begin with the word "It", either with or without an exclamation mark.  Look no further than "It Conquered The World".

All lies!

      No exclamation marks.  This film features a giant red ice-cream cone that notedly does not conquer the world, unless you count the world population as six people.
     Then we have "It's Alive", this one being a horror film, rather than a - um - er, not entirely what genre ICTW falls into.  Never mind.  Art?

Still no exclamation mark.

     I think it's about a killer baby <checks> a mutant monster baby that merrily slaughters it's way through the cast.  It was remade in 2009, because Hollywood has officially run out of ideas.
     Ooh, ooh, I know, I know - "It Follows".  Another horror film, this one is about a Spooky Sinister Supernatural Slaughtering Something that follows - a little foreshadowing there, eh? - people after they have conjugal relations with one another.  Then it kills them.  It can only move at walking pace, though, so I refer you to my notion of how to dodge the Id Monster as of yesterday - move to the other side of the world, preferably by jet aircraft.  It will then take the SSSSS nearly six months to track you down, at which point - you fly back again.**

Poor old SSSSS - no match for 21st Century man and modern transport.***

*  A whole other story.
**  I don't know how much strength, stamina or patience an SSSSS has, but this is going to sorely try it.  Heh.
***   - of delight.