The Birthday Of The R.A.F.

For Lo! It Is April 1st
Herein you are going to get some history, matey, despite me being only just risen from my bed of sickness.  During the First Unpleasantness, the brylcreem boys who went aloft in string-and-fabric aircraft on behalf of His Majesty King George V belonged to one of two camps:  1) the Royal Flying Corps, and 2) the Royal Naval Air Service.  Art?

Being all photographcal and analytical trope.

     That's an RE8 (or "Harry Tate"), mate. 
     These two branches were combined together on April 1st 1918, a date which has never failed to amuse other branches of the services, and one wonders at The Powers That Be picking such an unauspicious date.  Perhaps they have hidden depths that include a sense of humour?*
     The RNAS tends to get a lot less attention than the RFC or the RAF, possibly because people find the concept of an air-force belonging to a navy a bit of a stretch.  Not a bit of it!  For your information, the RNAS fielded armoured cars during the retreat from Antwerp, and were the first to use aircraft launched from ships.  Barnes Wallis?  RNAS chap.  Ivor Novello?  RNAS, too.  And <mumbling a bit> Erskine Childers, though we won't go into his background very much.

Both Naval and Air simultaneously.

Okay, that's enough for this Intro, all that remains is for us to dangle the motley over the Sarlacc pit on a bungee cord!                                                                                         

 

More Miro                                                                                                                      

Don't complain, if Darling Daughter and I took the time and trouble to view art, and take photographs, and annotate their titles, then you can damn well sit down and pay             attention.   Besides which, I am ill and demand some sympathy.                                                                                                                                                          

 

     This is colourful and interesting, isn't it?  Guess what it's called - go on, guess.  GUESS NOW!  GUESS!
     Wrong.  "Man and woman in front of a pile of excrement".  I can't see it myself, but Ol' Jo is the one who painted it, so he should know.

 

     You'll never get this one's title, so I'll tell you: "Woman".  Apparently women are reducible to something you can stand on to reach the very top shelf, or to conceal gold bullion.  Or something.

There was a title on a plaque, weathered into illegibility

 

     Here you see a vista of Barcelona to the north-east from Montjuic Park, and a sample of the glorious sunny summery weather, which the locals felt was uncommonly chilly and wintery.  Ha!  Come live in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell for a week, chaps, then you'll understand chilly and wintery (said Conrad, looking out from the upper storeys of the Dark Tower at a grim grey sky sitting menacingly o'er the landscape).

 

 

"Tapestry of the Fundacio" with puny human for scale

 

     This thing is a monster, thirty feet tall and fifteen wide, and it needs large numbers of hooks to suspend it from a huge wooden beam.  If it fell on you, you'd suffocate.  As to what it is - er - representing? - probably something with birds and women.  Ol' Jo liked them as subjects.
    
     Enough of art and Barcelona!  <code for I only loaded these images onto the blog page before leaving home so cannot add any more> - let me go and clean my glasses, for they are disgustingly grubby.  Either that or my illness is causing me to see spots before my eyes.  Did I mention I was ill? 

How Do They -
Manage to create a symmetrical, smooth-faced block of masonry that fits perfectly into a wall, from a giant boulder?
     You know Your Humble Scribe - ever inquisitive (okay, okay - nosy.  There.  happy now?).  Art?

This kind of thing

     The answer is elegantly simple: hammer and chisels, plus lots of patience and a strong arm.  You also need a straight metal edge to judge when you've gotten it right.  The technique involves roughly shaping a quarried rock with various large chisels, until it reaches the approximate dimensions needed, whereupon the mason uses smaller, finer chisels, ending up by rubbing the whole thing down with sandpaper to get an extra-smooth finish.                                                        Before                                                            After      <insert dubious joke about being or getting stoned>
Your Humble Scribe Pushing The Envelope
I shall not deign to inform you of the name of my current Enormous, Anonymous Employer, merely to confirm that it's not the Co-Op any longer.  Also, Conrad is careful never to traduce his workplace or colleagues, for Lo!  There are people out there employed by the EAE whose sole job is to trawl social media for those indiscreet enough to blather on negatively.  Who then get fired.
        
        
                                   One of these pushed envelopes contains a P45!**                            
    
     What I mean to say is that, this Friday, I shall be forsaking the office and instead set off for the Babylon-Lite's establishment of the EAE, where I shall be work-shadowing a manager.
     The only downside to this is that I have to wear formal clothing - trouser, shirt, tie and black shoes, too.  Your Humble Scribe is normally a colossal scruff, so - more pushing the envelope!
     Hopefully I shall have recovered from my illness by then.

A shop.  Just so we're clear.

    
A Calabash In The Wabash
I do apologise for this, one of those words that popped into my brain again for no reason.  I was walking past Sophie's desk and saw her wicker bag lying on her desk and -
     "What is a calabash?" bobbed to the surface of my consciousness.  Art?

This is.

     You might call these versatile vegetable vine fruit, though 'calabash' is shorter and more convenient.  When they are young you can consume them as a vegetable, so they get eaten.  When they are mature they can be hollowed out - if the fancy takes you, then you might hit them with a stick to generate a rhythm, so they get beaten.
     Or you can cruelly split them open and use them as containers.  Art?

Thus

      I know what you're thinking - "Where does the Wabash come into it?"
     Wellllllll if someone owned a set of calabash bowls and was transporting them across the Wabash via bridge, storing them on top of their car, and hit a pothole, why, some calabashes might fall into the river.

The Wabash River.

     Imagine if they were in a head-on collision! "Calabash in Wabash due to Car Crash following a dash" might be the headline.


     And on that note - we are gone.  Ta ta!
*  Very, very doubtful.

**  Getting one of these in the post means - You've Been Fired!