Continental Drift

Or, Conrad Is Still A Horrible Person
O my goodness, yes!  Not that you can tell by looking at me, since my stony visage gives no clues as to what sinister and malicious imaginings are going on upstairs:  "Oooh, Betty, don't he look evil, like he's planning to blow up the orphanage!" or "That, my boy, is the face of a man who drowns puppies by the sackful for money," are two things never said about me.*

The proof

     Anyway, last night I was laughing myself into a state of helplessness at the interminable, acerbic and aggrieved Comments on the Beeb's ballfoot pages (yes, again) about the <thinks> Champing Lager (sp?) finals.  
     Here an aside, where I explain the complex technical details behind the Champing Leaguer.  It's a competition played between ballfoot teams from all over Europe, possibly also including Scandinavia (which is code for I Don't Care And Can't Be Bothered Enough To Check).  That bit about Europe is important.  Eventually two teams from Europe end up playing each other in the "Final", winning the Campion Slugger.

Europe.  Where history comes from.

     Why the reason for all the hatred on HYS?  Because the final game between the last two ballfoot clubs is going to be held in Baku.  In Azerbaijan.  Art?

Not notably European

     The thing is, these last two ballfoot clubs are both from Perfidious Albion and are no more than a couple of hundred miles apart.  The commentators were almost uniformly of the opinion that this final is being held in Asia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, because someone has been handing out bribes.  Hotel accommodation prices have also shot up in Baku, as have air fares; tickets that were originally sold to <coughcough> 'corporate sponsors' for £150 are now showing up being resold by touts at £5,500.
     It's all fascinating stuff, and as someone with absolutely no interest in the game itself, a non-stop stream of hilarity.

Baku

     And there you have tonight's title: how Asia suddenly became European, powered not so much by plate tectonics but rather more by £££.
     Right, motley, you are going to have to get out of the maze barefoot, in total darkness, and over one hundred thousand pieces of Lego scattered at random!**

The Mind Of Your Humble Scribe Hard At Work
Much to my surprise, said mind can be focussed on distinct topics and generate - well, if not entirely sensible results, at least ones where disbelief can be suspended.
     Here an aside.  Quite some time ago, I detailed that variant of the Mosquito aircraft which mounted a 57mm anti-tank gun, for going after Teuton shipping and U-boats; it was known, with considerably drollery, as the "Tsetse".  The gun was equipped with a 21-round feed mechanism that enabled it to fire one round per second, so of course Conrad immediately speculated "Why not mount some on trucks and biff the bally Boche badly?"

Less of a bite, more of a frickin' Great White's gobful

     Now, let us flash back to the Flying Tin Openers of No. 6 Squadron DAF, whose Hurricanes mounted two Vicker's "S" Cannon.  These things fired a 2 lb armour-piercing shell, from a 15 round drum, at a rate of nearly 2 per second.  Art?

Thus

     Here an aside.  6 Squadron, at full strength, would be attacking any Axis target with a total of up to 480 shells, and an apparent hit rate of 1 in 4, meaning 120 hits.  Sorry to say the other info on Wiki is drivel - the Tin Opener squadrons didn't suffer heavy losses because they adopted and adapted tactics to minimise same.  As for " - seldom effective against vehicles as heavily armoured as the Tiger Tank" - there were only 6 Tiger tanks ever present in North Africa, so hardly relevant.

The rara avis.  Or, rara felis.
(This is one that was knocked out and hauled off to Bovington Tank Museum)

     Anyway, what I meant to say was - and I have taken a typically long time to get here - wouldn't the Vickers "S" gun make a fantastic anti-tank weapon if mounted on a truck?  You'd engage your opponents tanks and just keep firing until they were Swiss cheese; one truck could put out the firepower of a squadron of tanks, and if you lost a few trucks, then that was an acceptable exchange rate.  Of course, if you deployed your patent S Gun-Truck Mark I (officially named the "Stoat") by the dozen on a wargaming table, your opponents might not be very happy.

"Conrad's cheating again!"

Hmmm.  Only 2 topics so far.  I think we need to add in a little sweetener to all this bile and nastiness.  O what could it be?

Cheese!
As you know, Your Modest Artisan possesses a fusion-powered induction furnace where you humans have a stomach, meaning that "Best Before" or "Sell By Date" on food packaging is merely a challenge, not a warning.  And so we come to some remaindered cheese, which, if Art can stop mooning about Mara Corday -

Best before - a week earlier?  Something like that.

     Conrad had no idea what it would taste like, except it was cheap, which always makes things taste better.  Wonder Wifey had dug it out of the fridge and insisted it be removed so I could eat it at work, where the smell would not bother her,*** as it was long past the Best By date.
     Naughty Conrad!  Bad Conrad!  I deferred opening it at work and brought it home again, to make a cheese and salami sandwich from it, and despite that being out of the fridge all day long, I am still here.

     Of course, whether this is a good thing or not is open to question.  Next out of the fridge - some burgers that were sold as being on their expiry date, purchased last week sometime or other.
     Food safety - the challenge of today!



*  Yet.
**  Every parent knows the joys of standing, barefoot, on their infant's discarded Lego.
***  My work colleagues, on the other hand ...