I Beg Your Pardon!

A Little
In today's earlier post I mentioned how an idiot general like "Black Adder"'s Melchett would have been "Stellenbosched", without explaining what the word meant.  I do so hate it when authors try to prove themselves clever by including quotes in Latin or Greek WITHOUT TRANSLATING THEM, which is unforgivable nowadays.  You could have gotten away with it a century ago, since all the public schoolboys had Latin and Greek beaten into them all over the country.  Art?

Stellenbosch

     The name comes from the (now) university town and centre of the Cape wine-growing industry, Stellenbosch.  Over a century ago, Perdifious Albion was fighting one of the Boer Unpleasantnesses in South Africa, and was suffering the consequences of inexperienced or incompetent buffoons in positions of command (Melchett's dad comes to mind).  Unlike legend would have you believe, these pikers were turfed out of their positions and, as a sop to appearances, sent to the distant and very rear-line town of Stellenbosch rather than being sent home in disgrace.

HMS Disgrace

     Similar happened in the First Unpleasantness: if you weren't good enough, they got rid of you.  General Grierson, actually, got rid of himself, by eating his way to the bottom of a food hamper en route to the battlefield and having a heart attack - but don't tell anyone I told you.
     Now, let us put the motley aloft in a balloon and take aim with our fire-arrows!

Weening, Overweening And Overthinking
If you're not sure what these words mean, go back and read today's earlier post.  Besides, if you don't know what they mean, then that means you DIDN'T read today's earlier post, and you will pay dearly when I take over.
     Okay, an example for you of "Overweening":  Mister Darcy in "Pride And Prejudice" and also in "Pride And Prejudice And Zombies".

Overweening pride writ large: Jane Austen takes aim

     Here an aside.  PAPAZ, I found, was long and quite dull when it was attempting to pastiche PAP, falling between two stools, and I only finished it because I'm an anorak completist.  There are serious gaps in the plot about the zombie plague, too, because after 55 years of infestation one would expect the nation to know how to deal with the walking dead.  Nor are we given any information about how it came to the Allotment of Eden, or if there are outbreaks anywhere else in the world, nor how it continues to ravage the land despite the dead being decapitated before burial.  Plot holes one can drive a coach and horses through!

Overweening prejudice, but fetchingly decollette , so gets a pass.  From me, not Miss Austen.

     Okay, that's "Overweening" dealt with.  I did define it earlier today as coming from the Old English, literally, as "Overthinking", which I have been guilty of on BOOJUM! once or twice.*  My latest interation concerns that thriller I have but recently finished, "Where Eagles Dare".
     "What?  You have found more of interest about said subject?" I hear you query.  "Surely not!"
     Why yes, and this overthinking concerns another "Over-", because deadly British agents John Smith and Mary Ellison both rattle and prattle on about "Overlord", this being Operation Overlord, the impending amphibious invasion of Europe, and how it will be prejudiced or delayed if their mission fails to - etcetera, etcetera.

It certainly will be prejudiced IF YOU DON'T STOP SNOGGING!

     Conrad sits uneasily with their bandying this word around.  How many people in the Allied camp were aware of this code-name?  Your Humble Scribe doubts it had percolated down to the level of a lowly major and his Love Interest, never mind them being intimately aware of what it involved and in some detail.  And if Smithy had been brought up to speed about Overlord prior to the mission, how did Mary find out?
     Which, I believe, is a classic case of - 'Perhaps I'm overthinking this ...'

A poster picture that is overweeningly ambitious!
(this scene never happens)

     Okay, I think we've ruthlessly squeezed the very last scintilla of entertainment from 'ween' in all it's forms.  Next!

The Austen
I just have to squeeze this one in here - I say, we do seem to be having rather a martial-themed post tonight, don't we? - because I'm perverse and manipulative like that.
     Okay, hearkening back to the very end of WED, there's a scene with a Sten Gun.  Art?

The item in question

     This bare-bones, dirt-cheap, mass-produced weapon came with absolutely no frills, which is why it was cheap and made in the millions.  It didn't come soon enough for the Ockers, who feared going into battle against the Japanese without enough sub-machine guns, so - they made their own version.  Art?

Called the - waitforitwaitforit - AUSTEN!

     This is the AUStralian STEN, which was a more polished and sophisticated version of the original, made to the number of 20,000, and which copied the Teuton's MP40 folding stock.  20,000 sounds like a lot, but is a lot less than the Ocker's Owen gun production figures.  The Austen's side-mounted magazine was awkward in the jungle, and it wasn't completely reliable.  Also, it's name called up effete British aristocrats and minor gentry who were overweening.
     And now I can pun when I post this on Facebook!

Finally -
I have just started watching the first season of something called "Parks and Recreation", which is a satirical television series from South Canada.  It came out to begin with in 2009, so I don't think I'll bother giving you any spoilers, because - as mentioned above - I am perverse like that, and you've had 10 years to get up to speed on the thing.

The irritatingly chirpy Leslie

     On first viewing, I am verrrrry impressed with Chris Pratt's ability to flick a peanut into his mouth, using a stick and hitting it in from a table at least a yard away from his mouth.  I don't know if he's just naturally gifted or it took them twenty-five takes, but - impressed.  And that chap Ron - he appears to have a default setting of Glowering Suspicion, which won me over instantly.
     A nice counterbalance to the scurrilous happenings in "Justified".

Pip pip!



*  Okay, okay, several hundred times.  There.  Happy now?