I Am Minded Of A Song Or Two

At Present I Am At Work -
 - on Floor Seventeen of the Dark Tower, with an unparalleled view of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell.
     I have to say, it's not great.  "Grey" just about typifies it.  I think I've posted like this once or twice before, and also probably on a Monday, feeling the depressing reality of post-weekend back to work.  Art?

     That ought to be, if technical matters run smoothly, a picture from my works window.  I can't load photos at work, you see, so it will have to be done once I get back to The Mansion.
     Anyway!  Fine words butter no parsnips, as they say - I don't know why, I hate parsnips and all they stand for, the miserable albino carrots.
     Back to the song theme.  "Itchycoo Park" is what I mean, by the Small Faces.

Thus

     Let us indulge in a little musical critique of this very same song, shall we?*

"We'll get high"

This is extraordinarily apt, since I am only two floors from the top of one of the highest buildings in the city centre.  Splendid view but a pain in the bottom come the fire drill and you need to walk down  thirty four flights of stairs.

"We'll touch the sky"

That's how it feels when the cloud-base is low.  Though in such instances it feels more as if the sky is touching you.

See what I mean?

"It's all too beautiful"  <repeat 4 times)

Hmmm.  At this point I begin to wonder what these lads have been drinking, smoking or snorting, because the centre of this grimy old town cannot be described as anything other than "Grim"

 - here we skip a few lines forward

"To rest my eyes in shades of green"

Not much in the way of green here (I refer you to my first photo).  Grey, however, we've got lots and lots of.  And it is pretty restful on the eyes, don't you think?

     And that was the first song I was minded of.

A lot of small faces.

     Hmmm.   Thanks to formatting problems I can't centre the bolded text on the page.  Another thing to try at home <sighs deeply, knowing you feel my pain>.
     The other song that bobbed to the surface of my mind was -

This!

     Ha!  I bet most of you were expecting "Shades of Grey" by The Monkees, weren't you?  ha again, as Conrad is a righteous rock 'n' rebel.  Not only that, I checked and one of the album tracks is indeed called "Aerosol Grey machine".
     Whilst on the subject of "Grey", I bet one rank that those interfering swines** at SPECTRUM don't ever fight over is that of Captain Grey.  Art?

Blends in well when it's foggy

     You can imagine the banter in their canteen, can't you?
     "Captain Grey?  That's a bit like Captain Boring, isn't it?"
     "Captain Grey?  Assign him to sick bay, he'll help send patients to sleep."
     "Captain Grey?  The unholy offspring of Colonel White and Captain Black!"
     <at this point Captain Grey bursts into tears and runs to his room sobbing>

Toys notably lacking a grey colouration

     Oh, that squealing you can hear is the motley in the lion's den, as it's bacon armour gets devoured.  Bacon is lion-proof, right?

"Passchendaele" By Nick Lloyd
This must be at least the 6th volume I have on this subject.  Notice I don't use the word "battle" since it was a campaign, or a protracted series of battles rather than a single event.  Art?

My edition

     Why Number 6?***  Well, it was going cheap.  Apart from that, whilst still being pretty Anglo-centric, it devotes a good deal of space to the Teuton side of things. 
     Currently, people who know 0% about the First Unpleasantness but who have an irresistible desire to flap their tongues and make noises usually ignore the Teuton side of things.  "Mud!  Blood!  Donkeys!" is about their level, only ever emphasising how rotten life was for Tommy Atkins.
     In truth, Third Ypres, to give it the official name, was an experience of unparalleled wretchedness for the Teuton stubble-hoppers.  Art?

Prisoners, and thus out of it.

     For one thing, they had to put up with the weather, which was vile for most of the campaign.  Wet and cold, which meant mud, and mud in almost strangling amounts.  Nor, if you were one of the Eingriff counter-attack divisions, could you simply sit in a bunker and wait things out.  No, you had to advance over open ground.
     Then there was the British artillery -
     We shall come back to this topic.  Too much dark night of the soul can cause readers to lose the will to live.

"SysKey"      
OR
The Biter Bit
Conrad has few saving graces, but a fervent dislike for one of the lower lifeforms known as the "scammer" does elevate him above Morality Zero.  Get ready for an education and entertainment, for we are back to that maverick band of technophiles who set out to make the life of the internet scammer as unpleasant as possible.

SALUTE JIM BROWNING!

     Jim's laid-back and deapan delivery belies the ability to utterly sandbag a scammer's operations.  In the Youtube clip I saw last night, he hits an Indian call-centre scammer with a "Syskey" attack.
     A little background here.  If you see the following icon -

- you are in BIG trouble.

     Because, if you have granted someone remote access to your machine, they have now locked you out of it, since they know what the password is, but you definitely do not.  This is "Syskey", short for "System Keying" and is a feature that has been discontinued due to the enormous scope for abuse that it allows.
     So - Jim gets remote access to the scammer's computer, and then locks it with Syskey (not all systems are up-to-date in having it removed or disabled).  The scammer, somewhat understandably, goes potty with shock, horror, karma and copious weeping.  He even ends up offering to pay Jim to unlock it.  Our hero remained resolutely unswayed, and the scammer discovered just how unpleasant it is to be scammed yourself.
     I doubt it will stop them, but it provides a stern corrective and an opportunity for a splendidly citric Point And Laugh.







*  That was rhetorical.  We're going to whether you want to or not.  My will is supreme!
**  Harassing innocent aliens is their stock in trade, believe me.
***  Do NOT mention "The Prisoner".