A Lot Of Trot

For Yes!
We are back to "Four Years On The Western Front", the long and detailed saga of a transport section rider, who studiously neglects to mention anywhere in the text that he was awarded the Military Medal and bar; boasting not the done thing, don't you know.
     Anyway, one thing I was amused to read about was the tendency of horses to take afright at various objects, sometimes well-deserved, often highly baffling.  Art?

An unhappy horse

     Ol' Aubs had one horse named "The Grey" that took violent offence at bicycles, milestones and wheelbarrows and would try to avoid them by dashing off at speed.  Why this was so, Ol' Aubs never discovered.  The Grey was also spooked by tanks, which you can understand, as they were great noisy clanking things that shook the earth when moving. 
     All horses, not just The Grey, were scared by the noise made by artillery firing; I told you yesterday of the transport section moving before having to endure the noise of a nearby battery of heavy guns firing.  At another occasion they were camped out whilst surrounded on three sides by heavy guns, which were all firing as fast as they could; end result, a change of camp as the Transport Officer realised their horses were eventually going to break loose.  

CAUTION!  Can cause hearing loss. And sudden death.

     Ol' Aubs mentions one night-time trip being made in pitch darkness - no street lamps behind the front lines, matey - where he ended up merely twenty yards from a gun similar to the above, just as it fired.  His horses were quivering with fear, and he himself was deaf in one ear for several hours afterwards.
     Horses, it also transpires, can be remarkably greedy critters if given the opportunity.  On several occasions a single horse got loose, found the section's oats and hay for all the beasts of burden (47 I recall) and ate nearly all of it.

Guilty!

     This told on them when they still had to tow a wagon the next day.  Ha!
     Okay, motley, we're going to turn the cement mixer on now.  It's only water in there with you, not concrete.  Oh, and a bunch of stargazer fish, too.
         
                                         Probably quite angry Stargazer fish, too

Back To The Land-Bridge Again!
Who knew that a mundane geographical feature (the England-to-France landbridge) would yield so much scrivel!
     Well, I did, for one, because I made notes about it.
     What would really affect things is the attitude and behaviour of the English come 1793.  This, you see, was when Revolutionary France began the "levee en mass", which we of the Beautiful Language have come to know as "Conscription".

Sic

     Briefly put, with conscription you put a certain percentage of eligible males into uniform, whether they want to be in uniform or not.  This gives you a kind of Hay Pesto! enormous army, even if of rather dubious quality.  Perfidious Albion didn't ever bother with conscription until the middle of the First Unpleasantness, and no politician ever dared mention it, for 'twas certain electoral suicide.
     However, with the Continent a force on the horizon both literally and metaphorically, the fastidious British would be forced to also implement conscription, in order to be able to fend off the French.

So -

     Or, as times goes by, the Teuton hordes.  And here is where the presence of a land-bridge and conscription starts to really affect things.  You see, Wilhemine Germany had barely enough troops when mobilised to tackle both France and Russia.  If you add in a British army two million strong that can be railroaded across to France in a matter of hours, would the Teuton rulers ever dare to actually go to war?  Don't forget, the Dover-to-Over canal means the Royal Navy can concentrate it's ships from overseas and into the North Sea like that <snaps fingers>.
     There you go.  Food for thought!

"Hard To Be A God" By Boris And Arkady Strugatsky
Now about 3/4 of the way through this work and I've noticed a few things that the Brothers Strugatsky threw into the mix.  One is a drug called "Casparamid", which appears to negate the effects of alcohol, for some considerable time.  This means our Earthly hero Don Rumata can drink whole barrels of beer and cellarfuls of wine, whilst staying pretty sober.  Thus he doesn't make any slips of the tongue.

"Don Rumata felt a bit thirsty ..."

     The second is another drug called "Sporamin", which appears to be a general analgesic.  When ingested it instantly clears up hangovers, headaches, the appearance of fatigue, red eyes, etcetera.  Between casparamid and sporamin, that's ninety per cent of all medical needs catered for right there.
     There's another invention, the curiously named "metalstrom", which is spelled that way twice, so it's not a typo.  The BS don't explain about it, but wearing it allows Don Rumata to be hit in the back by a spear which doesn't even break his skin.  Some kind of lightweight armour, similar to kevlar, one suspects.

Summat like.

     I'm afraid I shall have to cut things a bit short of the usual ton, as it's already 15:08 and I want to get to the Co-Op in Royton before 16:00, the journey taking a good 20 minutes on foot.  I know you'll forgive me.