Your Four-Footed Fiend

NO!  How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You - 
Conrad does not make spelling mistakes. NOT NOT NOT!!  I - I know I should apologise for having a whole TWO exclamation marks there, it's just that I feel strongly about the subject matter.
     <brief pause to allow blood pressure to settle again>
     Consider the horse.  There it is, circa 15,000 BC, being used to carry around lazy Hom. Sap. and to make it's burden worse, some bright spark has the idea of attaching a vehicle to the rear, in order to maximise the amount of kit it can tow.

Equines everywhere shudder

     For millenia, the humble horse is used to both tow things and dash against the enemy, whilst their riders get all the glory and the horses get all the death.  Hmmm - that sounds familiar.

Succinct, at least.

     Now, Your Humble Scribe has very little understanding about horses: you put hay in one end and it clatters along as a consequence, is about my technical competency on matters equine. Which is why my latest non-fiction book, "Four Years On The Western Front" (by Aubrey Smith) is such a revelation.  Ol' Aub had volunteered to become a driver in his battalion's transport team, which meant he was assigned to a water cart.

Yes, horses can sit down

     Here we meet his twin nemeses, the two horses "Jack" and "Tar" who were assigned to tow him and the water cart.  With the important proviso " - if they felt like it," since both were wilful, naughty and stubborn.  Art?

     This is the difference between a car or truck and a horse-drawn cart; horses have a mind of their own, and can be peculiarly stubborn when they put their minds to it.  Jack, or Tar, would often refuse to move.  No amount of spurs, whipping, sugar lumps or appeals to better nature would work, meaning the water cart would have to be unharnessed, then attached to a more willing pair of draught animals.  Caution had to be taken at night, since if approached from the rear, these animals would KICK.  They would also take great big bites out of any tunic that came near.
     Jack, in particular, had a knack for pushing the water cart backwards - I never knew that horses came with a Reverse Gear - and into the deep, muddy ditches that bordered French and Belgian roads.  This required at least eight men, a length of rope, a hefty pair of horses and an inordinate amount of swearing to put right.

The carty party

     Given that these are the consequences of working with a draught vehicle that can think, one is surprised to learn that the cavalry regiments of Perfidious Albion were upset to say goodbye to their horses in the Thirties.*
     Okay, motley, there you are in the snake-pit!  Of those five hundred snakes, four hundred and ninety-eight are harmless grass snakes - the other two are Mambas.

sssssss!

The Breaking Of The Bridge
This came about as of a while ago, when I was holding forth on matters architectural, and considering adding an item or two on modern Finnish architecture, for there is an influential school of same.  Now, I did post a photograph of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, as an example of what wind oscillation can do to a structure; in this case, completely destroy it.  Art?

Galloping Gertie's gusset goes

     So, bearing this in mind, you might think this item will be more of the above.
     Not a bit of it!  I am referring, of course, to the destruction of the land bridge that once linked England to the Continent the Continent to England.  This structure, it has been discovered, was gradually overthrown by rising sea levels, which both overtopped it, and undermined it.  Art?

Sic

     A series of huge pools have been located on the floor of the English Channel, where the torrents poured over the top of the land bridge and excavated where they hit.  This process helped to weaken the bridge, which was eventually breached, the waters rushed in and - This Sceptred Isle Is!  <insert weak Brexit joke here>.
     Conrad, of course, cannot help but wonder what the world would look like if this land bridge had not fallen, and the benighted unfortunates of the Continent were able to be <ahem> guided by the wise and beneficent island race - well, almost island race.  A thought to conjure with ...


The Words Make Me Cross ...
I'm typing this at work, so I cannot load a picture, which would otherwise assuage my seething anger - my Frothing Nitric Ire,** in fact - so you'll just have to be happy with the word picture I paint, which ought -


     Quickly!  I must know!  Is Donald Fagen still alive and healthy?  <pauses to check on things Fagen-related> well he's getting on a bit and is still a cumudgeonly old dog, so it must have been a false positive on the heart-monitor.


                    
                                        Grumpy, then                               Grumpy, again***           -  where were we?  O yes, the Cryptic Crossword clue last night was "It shoots eight backwards (4)" and the last letter was "N".  O boy did that baffle me for an age. 

?

Until I looked at answer 8, which was "NETS".  And if you run it in reverse, why it becomes "STEN", which is a variety of submachine gun used to slay the enemies of Perfidious Albion in the Second Unpleasantness, and which has graced these electronic pages more than once.
     "How impressively sneaky is that!" I hear you chortle.  "Why, these crossword compilers are worthy of becoming lawyers or politicians!"

Steady on - they're not that good.

     Then there was the other clue, "These species are almost common (6)" and I could tell it would be something along the lines of PHYLA or ONTOGENY and couldn't be bothered to work it out.  I need to be qualified in Latin Taxonomy now?


Well, that's us up to the ton.  I shall now go read the BBC website, since they did that thing AGAIN, which they do every time I have to dash for the bus, and posted lots of interesting articles.




*  Exhaust fumes less beneficial to the garden that the organic equivalent, one presumes.
**  I've not used this expression for a while.  Welcome back, old friend!
***  Sorry about the sizing, I can't format picture size at work.  DAMN YOU, WORK!