It Moves On Hooves

For Yes, We Are Back With Aubrey Smith
 - and the transport company of the London Rifle Brigade, all horse-drawn vehicles at this point in the century, hence today's title.  Being horse-drawn does not mean the armies of Perfidious Albion were being backward: everyone used horses in large amounts during the First Unpleasantness (and well into the Second, too).  Art?

A general service wagon

     If you are not familiar with the usage of a vehicle that is moved forward thanks to the unstinting devotion of a pair of horses, then there is a lot more to it than merely moving from left to right.  Horses, after all, are clever amimals with their own personalities, as Ol' Aub proves when describing the antics of his own two rebellious creatures, Jack and Tar.  Ol' Aubs once unwisely left the two on their own, strapped in to a transport section cart, as he went to deliver a valise.

A valise

     O foolish Aub! O naive Aub!  When he came back the cart and Jack and Tar were long gone, and all he could do was follow the diminishing noise of said cart's wheels along the roads of France.   The two rascals had bolted the instant he was out of sight.  He learned from this, however: better to hurl an officer's valise into bottomless mud at the camp gates, than risk leaving the cart and it's two harnessed desperadoes alone.  Another speciality these two reprobates had was literally lying down on the job.  If they were too cold or wet or muddy, then they went on strike.

One cannot really blame them!

     They well understood the importance of their leather harnesses being in a clean condition, because they took great delight in waiting until Ol' Aubs had laid all his harness gear out, minty fresh, then rolling in mud and rolling upon the harnesses.
     Horses - a mind of their own.
     Okay, motley - you're going to be in the middle of the pool, whilst we stand at the side and throw chunks of sodium into it.

Sodium + Water = Chemical explosion!

    Enough of horses!  BOOJUM! will now -

- Review Films
According to our charter, which means Horribly Literally, with no nonsense about research or background.  That is, unless we think a few laughs can be squeezed out of it, in which case Beware Mark Kermode!

How to scare cats the Mark Kermode way!

How to crack walnuts the Josef Stalin way!*

"The Book Of Mormon": Your Humble Scribe nearly mistook this for, yes, you guessed it, Cheap Joke Alert, "The Book Of Moron".  Which sounds like it would be vastly more entertaining that whatever this farrago is.  It would seem to be a religious documentary, which also incidentally means that it breaches the terms of our Charter.  So we will instead have a photo of the Spring missile -

Wheeeee!

"Late Night": What's this?  No sign of David Letterman on the promotional posters here, just Emma Thompson (who now greatly resembles her mother, Phyllida Law) appearing to be having a great time.  I take it that this supposed 'entertainment' is the television studio's way of announcing Letterman is gone? 
                          
                                         Yes                                           NO!
     Incidentally, DL appears to have gone the way of Mark Oliver Everett (Mr E of Eels) in deciding that a great straggly beard is an essential fashion accessory.  In this he is as mistaken as the aspiring hipsters who bless the streets of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, featuring beards that look like doormats stapled to their chins.*

One is Emma.  One is not.

"Good Omens":  This might be a television series rather than a film.  Well, I don't care.  And, once again, whose blog is it?  Besides, I only got a quick glimpse at an angle, as the bus mounting the relevant poster was turning into the bus station.**
     I would be interested to know what these good omens are.  At present the skies are a muggy grey reminiscent of used cotton wool.  It's still not the weekend, I have not won the Lottery (this would indeed be an achievement as I never play it), Thomas Pynchon has not written another novel and both Russell Brand and Alan Carr are still alive and breathing.  What's good about any of that?

The clock is ticking, matey.  Ticking.

How Very - British
<thinks about what epitomises British> - aha! that old saw - "As British as a bowler-hatted badger on a bicycle, biting a brown-sauced bacon butty, in Bicester".
     This island race are definitely odd.  It comes of being an island, and thus on the borderline of inbred.  Take "Springwatch" as an example.  Art?

A British Badger.

     The badgers, again.  "Springwatch" allows you to watch badgers frolicking nocturnally as they emerge from their cryogenic storage chambers/winter sleep/land of the fairies (delete where applicable) with a pair of new cubs to boot.  Badger cubs are probably disgustingly cute.  Dare we check?

Made up of 1005 Awwww!

     Seriously?  Hours and hours of watching infra-red camera work of badgers going about their lives?
     Actually, make the most of it whilst you can - doubtless in a few years time some banner-waving bumbletuck will try to get this removed because " - it's intrusive and voyeuristic and the badgers were never consulted -" but their case will be thrown out of court because - BRITISH!

Wheee!

Finally -
I did blather on yesteryon about the landbridge that used to connect the Continent to England, and how it got swept away, finally being destroyed about 6,000 years ago.  This area of land has of recent years been christened "Doggerland", and if Art will put down his plate of coal for a moment -

Doggerland well before 6,000 BC

     Rising sea levels got rid of most of this low-lying land, leaving only the landbridge itself.  Naturally, whilst waiting at the bus stop, Your Humble Scribe's fertile imagination goes to work on anything that happens to pop up in his mental landscape, and this time it was - what if said landbridge did not get washed away? 

I.e. this did not happen

     It's an interesting concept, and one that requires a lot more work than a fillip at the end of today's blog, so rest assured we will return to this theme.  I may call it A.L.B.A. (A Land Bridge Apparent), even though "Alba" is Gaelic for "Scotland".*


     Or I may not.  I'm fickle like that <sniggers>
*  You're quite right, this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything.
**  Lest you imagine a First Bus metamorphosing into a large transport building a la Hong Kong Phooey's car -