How Quintessentially British

This Island Race -
May be a bit inbred, but their physical separation from - I beg your pardon! - the Continent's separation from them has meant their path is one less trodden.  Football, cheese-rolling and bog-snorkelling, all invented here.  That last one might take a while to catch on, mind.
     One of the things that sets the denizens of This Sceptred Isle apart is their attitude towards animals, especially domestic pets.

Manchester Dogs Home, 2014

     The alleged perpetrator of this arson attack, as well as his family, had to immediately flee the area and never dared return.  The Dogs Home was inundated with offers of help and a Just Giving page rapidly acquired £2,000,000.
     Then we have Wilbur ..
     Wilbur is a ginger-and-white tomcat who lives in the village of Ruddington.  I say "lives" but perhaps "deigns to grace with his regal presence" is closer to the truth.  His 10th birthday is about to be celebrated and his feline highness will be feted in the local pub and building society.  Art?

A much cheerier image

     Wilbur abandoned his original owner when she had the temerity to introduce kittens into the household, though she still feels obliged to sort out any veterinary needs he has.  Wilbur takes the fuss and attention in his stride, as only a cat can.  Art?

Wilbur is not amused
(probably awaiting his fourth dinner)

     How like the British.  Sappy, soft sentimentalists.  There was a sidebar article on today's BBC website about how dogs eyes have evolved over time to become more appealing to humans - what do you bet that was invented here, too?

I Did Threaten This Earlier
One gets the impression, from some journalists who have been holding forth over the past few years, that an infantry attack on the Western Front was merely a shambolic human wave assault, into the teeth of massed machine guns and against uncut barbed wire, all the while deluged by shells (regardless of which side was doing the attacking) and carried out in broad daylight.

Kinda like this

     Whilst incompetent generals did carry out such botcheries, decent officers and staffs with experienced soldiers could perform prodigies, and here I refer to the Hood battalion in their battle on the Ancre in mid-November 1916.  First of all, they had an absolutely outstanding OC in Bernard Freyberg, one of that breed who is apparently immune to human weaknesses.  One can picture him with a dictionary, musing out loud "Let me see, "Fear", where is it - Oh yes 'A feeling of distress caused by impending danger'. So that's what it is!"
     Then there was the staff planning.  The Hood would be attacking in four waves, the first two of which were attack waves intended to overcome the Teuton front lines, the third and fourth of which would act to mop-up captured lines.  They were all intended to get as far as the Teuton third line trenches in their first attack.

Trophies

     Every 6th man was to carry a sack containing 12 "bombs" as they called the Mills pattern hand-grenade, and everyone was to carry 2 Mills bombs in their pockets.  They were also to carry that newly-minted engine of frightfulness, the phosphorus bomb.  Every other man carried either signal rockets or a Very flare for signalling purposes.  

Phosphorus bmob

     Selected men carried wire-cutters, and stout gloves, and wore a yellow armband.  A blue and white armband denoted one of the 56 runners, who were frequently the only way to communicate on the battlefield once an attack was under way.
     Men in the third and fourth waves carried either a pick or shovel, as they would be either digging in at a new location, or re-ordering captured Teuton lines that were designed in the wrong direction.  And everybody carried two bandoliers of ammunition.
     None of the above can be taken for granted: it all had to be worked out by the officers involved, and equipment either amassed or ordered, before being allocated.  Then they had to wait for the weather to improve slightly.
     And this is all the planning and preparation that went on before the attack even started.  Of that, more anon.

     Okay, you can come out of hiding now, all the stuff about blood and thunder is over.  For now ...

Top 10 Sci-Fi Films
I don't apologise for making a meal out of this theme, nor for tormenting, tantalising and taunting - but never titillating, that would be wrong - you about which film came in at -
Number One:"2001: A Space Odyssey".  Conrad's not going to argue with you about this one, which he regularly rewatches.  Of course, I had read the novel, so I knew exactly what happened and why and what, although obviously not when, as 2001 is long behind us.  Art?

This is still gobsmacking stuff.

     That scene of the Pan-Am shuttle docking with the Space Station was worth the price of admission alone, and "The Blue Danube" suddenly changed from being something you heard at Austrian coffee parlours to an iconic piece that raised hairs on your neck.
     It's an ambitious piece of work, summing up the evolution of Hom. Sap. from violent, aggressive hairy apes to violent, aggressive evolved apes, with the most famous jump cut ever.  Art?

From one weapon to another

     That trippy trip through the Stargate (which, unless I misremember my Pink Floyd trivia, also matches up precisely with the track "Echoes") involves astronaut Bowman growing old in an alien environment that is almost a prison, until he dies and undergoes an evolution into Hom. Saps next stage.  Hey, I've seen the film umpteen times (including a re-release on the big screen) and read the novel, ask me anything!

- except what this means.

Finally -
I mentioned before that I annoyed Greece.  This is because I loudly mentioned North MACEDONIA, which Greece has always but always felt a prickly sense of worry about.  You see, part of Greece is called Macedonia, and that part of the former Yugoslavia also called Macedonia (although written "Makedonskogo" or similar) has given rise to feelings of anxiety in Athens.  They fear that the Slavs are after the Hellene's territory.  It has taken a good twenty years to negotiate a name for Macedonia that's acceptable to the Greeks, and here's Conrad mocking them and poking malicious fun.

Look!  Look!

     It's the Skopje Clock Tower!  Built by the Turks, which will make the Greeks even more paranoid!*




*  Yes, I am a terrible person.