Let's Be Fruity, And Talk About Booty

First Of All - 
WASH OUT YOUR DIRTY MINDS!  As you ought to know by now, BOOJUM!'s ethos is that everything here is SFW, which means that any tawdry, seedy, squalid associations you have already made about the word "booty" are wrong.  Go to the back of the class, do not pass Go in order to get £200, and take that spoon out of the fork drawer.

Well, it was in the title.

     Okay!  In this sense "Booty" might also be described as "Looty", for it follows upon the fortunes of war.  I have already mentioned the Teuton panzer "Cuckoo", which the Guards armoured division used for a good 6 months during the Second Unpleasantness, and also conversely, a Valentine tank captured by the Teutons from the forces of Perfidious Albion during the war in North Africa.  There were more such.  Art?

Surprise!

      This is the Matilda "Dreadnought", captured by the Teutons in running order and used by them for several months.  Note the large, prominent cross on the side; one of the persistent trouble of using a captured tank - "Beutepanzer" in Teuton parlance - was that you were equally as likely to be shot at by your own side as the enemy.

 - hence the whacking bit swastika flag -

     - and strafing aircraft were notorious for being unable to tell who was who and attacking them anyway.  
     The Teutons must have got a wicked buzz from using "Dreadnought" against it's previous owners, as they both hated and feared the Matilda; it's gun would knock out anything they had until well into 1942, and it would shrug off anything less than a 50mm with impunity.
     For those who like a happy ending, the most famous photograph of "Dreadnought" is the one below -

Looking faintly sad

     It had been recaptured in December 1941 (that rings a faint bell somewhere) by the Polite Australians during Operation Crusader, as shown below -

"Here's one we took earlier"

     As you can see from the previous photo, the swastika flag has vanished, since somebody wanted a souvenir!
     The Teutons had an official classification for Matildas they captured: Panzer 748 (e), with the (e) standing for "English".  If the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards heard about this, they would have been offended.
     Conversely,* the British** had very little opportunity to operate captured Teuton panzers.  For one thing, they would have been seized upon and immediately shipped back home for the boffins at Bovington to look them over.  For another, why bother?  If employed in any number it would immensely complicate the logistics of fielding different ammunition and spare parts: supplying your own forces with their own ammunition and spare parts was difficult enough in the desert to begin with.  Then there were tactics and behaviour -

TANK!

     Which we won't talk about here, as I've already blathered on at length in what was only supposed to be two photos and a short description.
     Now to give the motley a fish supper.  A Puffer Fish supper!

How About This?
If you read this blog with any regularity AND YOU SURELY SHOULD AS IT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE when either the robots revolt or the zombies arise, then you know your humble scribe is a sucker for those Codeword puzzles.  These have the format of no clues, just a crossword grid of numbered squares, each number corresponding to a letter of the alphabet.  You are given 3 letters already, for the easy puzzles, or only  for the more demanding ones.  Art?

Now, "C" here -

     I've worked out that 17 must be a vowel, as otherwise the resulting word could only be nonsense.  So the solution could be either RICIN or MUCUS, and I would go for the latter, as the former is a tad obscure.*** I now have to go through the rest of it and see if either of these is correct.
     This answers one question I've asked myself before - can there be a Codeword with only a single clue? and yes, yes there can.

Conrad Is Angry!
Nothing new there.  As you ought to know, your modest artisan lives in a perpetual state of Frothing Nitric Ire, since it takes little more than jogging his elbow for him to vent his spleen.  This one goes back a way, but since I've taken the photo, you're going to get the article.  Art?

Do you see?  DO YOU SEE?!

     "Cheryl", it announces.  Apparently she is so well-known that her first name alone is sufficient to identify her (like Cher or that horrid old hag Madonna).
     NOT HERE!  Conrad does not recognise her.  Did I enquire within to find out?  NO!  NO I DID NOT!  My time is limited (being already 138) and I need to use what I have left efficiently, which does not include reading tabloid tat about celebritutes.
     There, I feel so much better for sharing that.

A Memorable Event
It appears that, 5 years ago, we let a Small Domesticated Wolf (a.k.a. "a dog") onto the premises as a puppy, when she was small and cute.  Art?

Edna in her first iteration

     Edna Wunderhund now acts as The Mansion's four-legged alarm system, as nothing human, animal or cyborg can approach without her noticing and barking madly.  For a small dog she makes a very loud noise.
     She is also worryingly clever.  When the doors of the Murder Mobile slam shut outside, she immediately recognises the sound and perks up.  She's recently learned how to stick her snout into a door standing ajar and work it open towards her.  Plus, she long ago learned that "Get your ball" is an invitation to play.  The rustle of a packet being opened will bring her from across the house to see exactly what is in the packet, since there is every possibility of it being edible.
     She also delights in trotting through the snow, as it only comes once a year for mere days at a time.  Her party piece is sticking her snout in it, just to check that it's real snow, not that nasty artificial stuff.

"But - but - the snow?  Where is the snow?"

*  Yes, I know I've already used this word once.  Once again, whose blog is it?
**  This is shorthand.  Writing "British and Commonwealth and Free French and Greek Sacred Brigade and Czech Legion and Poles and American Voluntary Aid Detachments" is much too much.
***  It's a toxin derived from the castor oil seed.