I Apologise

You Don't Often Hear Me Say Those Words
Mostly because I am right all the time.  The burden of being so perfect so consistently is a heavy one, yet - I continue to bear up under the weight.  Broad shoulders, don't you know.
     Anyway, one of my (few) failings is an inability to moderate my behaviour without significant input from outside observers.  

Like these chaps.

     Oh, and being sarcastic.  Two of my failings.  Oh, and also schadenfreude, which I was indulging in this afternoon.
     Here an aside.  If you aren't interested in the ballfoot game, don't worry: neither am I.  My horrible pleasure is to go and read the Have Your Say Comments over on the BBC's webpages, since these are full of bilious invective whenever a major ballfoot game results in one side's losing.  Conrad believes it is the Premier Inn Cup League, or something.  As a neutral who doesn't even watch ballfoot, it is an hilariously diverting wallow in other people's misfortune - the very definition of schadenfreude.

"He kicked the ball so hard it disintegrated!"

     What I am getting round to is to <ahem> say sorry for posting this scrivel so late in the evening.  The thing is, you see, I sat down to finish off that Dog Buns! 1,500 piece jigsaw at about 17:15.  The next thing I know there are, indeed, only 24 pieces left to fit - HOORAY! - but it has somehow managed to become 19:15.  Hence Conrad bethought he'd better act like a Scribe and get onto creating BOOJUM! rather than finishing those last 24 pieces, or I'd not have started this until 20:00 post meridian.
     I still have to have tea, sort out the laundry into the tumbledryer and make lunch for tomorrow, in addition to watching "Forbidden Planet" with Polish subtitles.*
     There isn't time to think up an interesting torment for the motley, so we shall merely chase it through the streets, whipping it with a perch pole.

A short perch pole.

Tell Us More Of Canning, Conrad!
I never thought you'd ask.  Thank you for your polite enthusiasm.
     Of course, BOOJUM! cannot simply answer your question, as that would be both logical <spits> and sensible <spits and stamps foot>, two qualities anathema to us here.  So, rather than inform about how food is put into cans in a process similar to that for beer, let us instead venture to London, England, and the Borough of Newham.**  Art?
                    
                                  Canning Town: before                                  After
     This is Canning Town, named after the chap who put down the Indian Mutiny***.  Nothing to do with putting things in tins, I'm afraid.  It was always a very, very low rent area, positively bursting with infectious diseases, and it stayed that way until about 2012, when it got gentrified a bit.
     One notable thing about Canning Town is that their local ironworks ballfoot team, Thames Ironworks F.C., went on to turn professional and become West Ham F.C.
     There.  Enough of being a travel and trip advisor.  Oh - yes, a lack of patience, another of my failings.

Bridge House - a notable live music venue in the Town.
(The dirty curs knocked it down)

Back To Stafford -
- and the Staffordshire Regimental Museum.  What, did you think you could escape you ineluctable destiny?  No fear!
     Okay, we've done the outside tour of the mocked-up trench system, then gone back inside and done a whistle-stop tour of the pre-First Unpleasantness exhibits, and now it's time to go all out on the Western Front.  Art?

You are looking at a lot of V.C.'s

     The Victoria Cross, lest you be unaware, is about the most prestigious award in Perfidious Albion, and they do not hand them out lightly.  The recipients are frequently posthumous, i.e. they are dead.  In common with other Regimental museums, the Staffs are worryingly trusting about security; Conrad hopes they have lots of hidden sensors and alarms and tripwires and perhaps one of those AFVs out the front is imbued with the spirit of Talos, a la "Jason and the Argonauts"?

We meet again, Herr Maschinen-gewehr

     This particular bit of kit is the Teuton machine gun MG08/15, which I kept my hands off as instructed.  You may recall last summer's visit to another military museum, where I was allowed to try and lift one of these, solo.  Not possible.  Hernia-inducing!
     You can tell it is an early war model, as the water-jacket lacks the small shield added to protect the gunners later on.  Art?

O where to start

     That giant rifle over to port is a captured Teuton anti-tank rifle, firing a 13 mm - or 0.50" calibre - round.  It is about 5' long and was horrid to fire; one could easily break a shoulder if inexperienced.  Your Humble Scribe believes that the Browning Heavy Machine Gun was designed around the ammunition used for this rifle.
  Not everything here is readily visible, apart from the Vickers gun taking centre stage.  I did leave a written query with the museum staff, because this gun has the smooth water jacket of a pre-war Vickers-Maxim, yet it also has the muzzle-booster of later war years.  You can compare it to the MG08/15 as they were about comparable in performance, although you could break a Vickers down into gun and tripod for more convenient hauling about.

Exactly

     That thing in the background that looks like the world's smallest bazooka, proudly displayed on a stand?  Actually stereoscopic sights used to range targets.  Not sure what it's doing here, as the Royal Artillery would normally be using it a considerable distance behind the front lines, it being delicate and needing to be shown above the parapet and all. 

     There, I think that's enough military museum for one evening.  And - Ooops! - we have gone over the ton.  Toodle pip!

*  Because - why not?
**  If it was Old Ham, you might kept it in the larder too long.
*** A rebellion against the enlightened rule of Perfidious Albion?  Unthinkable!