Free Beer!

Except Not How Your Shallow Minds Are Imagining It
Just for your information, when those stalwart chaps of the Special Air Service were off duty and away from barracks and an emergency arose, a special codeword was issued to personal contacts, so they might be recalled in order to go out and biff the enemies of This Sceptred Isle.  The code-word was, as you may have guessed, "Free Beer".  It told the recipient nothing, but those it got passed on to would head back to Bredbury Lines in a hurry.

Look away - look away quickly!

     The code-word had to be changed, however, since the mother of one of the regiment's younger troopers, allegedly, would have nothing to do with her son being plied with free beer.
     Which has nothing to do with what I really wanted to talk about.
     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  Hey, I did wait for one paragraph.  My typing speed from "The codeword" has suddenly markedly increased, as I am no longer hampered by Dog On Lap.  Art?

Edna, in what she considers her rightful place

     As you can see, I had to contort awkwardly to one side in order to compose these words of wit, wisdom and wonder.*  Oh, and yes, I am still watching "Nowhere Boys".  In a nice continuity touch, all four of our heroes clothes are getting progressively grubbier and grubbier as time goes on, for they have no access to any new ones nor methods of cleaning their originals.  Before you chime in with "A laundromat" let me inform you that they are also penniless.  Art?

The boys in question, looking a tad glum.

     Where were we?  Oh, that's right: beer.  Noble stuff, beer, and NO! I shan't be giving it away to you pikers.  Normally we free beer from a can by pulling the tab on top and swilling it down our pieholes in an instant pouring into a glass.
     That's how it gets out.  Have you ever wondered how it gets in?  Probably not, as your minds run along more conventional lines.  Conrad did wonder, and has now found out.  
     First we start with cans, made out of aluminium, topless and empty.  Art?

Thus.

     These are whizzed along a conveyor belt at high speed, getting rinsed out with water and then CO2, which purges the air from the can.
     Then comes the filling process, where the all-important content is poured into the empty can.  Art?

Careful there.  Don't spill my pint!

     They then get a lid loosely placed atop the can, with another squirt of CO2 in order to remove any ullage.**  Then it's off to the seamer, where the lid is squeezed into permanent position by the seaming machine.  Art?

Thus

     After being filled they then get rinsed and weighed and date-stamped, before being freighted out to us, the customers, where we release the wickedly-entrapped noble brew, leading to our battle cry for today and this afternoon's title.
     Now, what happens to a motley on a long, complexly-curved waterslide when the water has been replaced by petrol?

Hmmmm.

    
"Fortress Malta" By James Holland
Yes, I have finished this.  I did offer to lend it to Jo (who is half-Maltese) but she already has it.
     You probably know that the story has an eventual happy ending.  This stems from two things: 1)  The arrival of an enormous number of the latest Spitfires on Malta, and 2) The arrival of five supply ships and a petrol tanker thanks to Operation Pedestal.

The barely-afloat SS Ohio enters Valetta

     The Maltese, who are very, very Catholic, called the Pedestal convoy's surviving ships the "Santa Marija" convoy, coming in as it did on a holy day dedicated to that lady.
     To put the state of the island into perspective, the amount of ordnance dropped on it totalled the same yield as the Hiroshima bomb: 15,000 tons.  Which gives you both an idea of the amount of destruction inflicted, and food for thought.

It's called "The George Cross Island" for a reason.

     I have another of James Holland's works, "Italy's Sorrow", which I think I've only skimmed so far.  One for later this weekend?

Phew.  Heavy-duty stuff.  Shall we have something entirely different?  Ah - I know - LITHIUM WAFER BATT - except no.  We need an item of light and uplifting news, an article that will make the world feel a better place, and certainly nothing to do with Thermonuclear Warhead Design Specs <thinks> nope, sorry, don't have anything like that.  Instead you can have the following!

Progress To Date
As you may have realised by now, Conrad Your Humble Scribe*** is one of those people whose idea of moderation is "What's that?" as he swills down his third litre-teapot of the day when it's only four in the afternoon.  A tad compulsive, in other words.
     Hence the below.  Art?

Tah-dah!

     What you might call a jiggery-pokerysaw puzzle, because Dearie Me! has it not hoovered up time like nothing else.  Still, after a couple of weeks dedicated bingeing I am now down to 216 pieces left to place, and a good push this afternoon might complete it.        Because - there is absolutely no prospect of me either walking the dog or walking to Royton given the weather at present - it has been raining heavily non-stop for at least the last six hours and looks set to continue for at least another six.  My hilarious nickname for Manchester, "Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell" looks to become obsolete, since the city looks to be actually in the river rather than merely besides it.

Somewhere in Manchester.  Actually, at present, it could be anywhere in Manchester.

     So, what else is there to do but drink tea, do a crossword and finish off a jigsaw puzzle?



*  Well, two of these three.
**  Remember this?
***  Except where cryptic crosswords are concerned.