The Press Of Words

As You Know By Now -
Conrad is very much a creature of habit.  He likes his routine, and does not feel happy if there is a micromillim - excuse me - a fraction of an inch's deviation from the norm.  If you open up his insides when he is dead and gone (sometime about summer A.D. 2196) you will find "He was regular" graven on the bits lying there.
     There.  I think we've established the mise en scene sufficiently <short pause to see if that miscreant Mister Hand adds in a horrid aphorism or two>.

Conrad's inners: a subtle metaphor.

     Okay, the treacherous appendage is keeping quiet. "What brings about this agitation in The Force?" I hear you quibble.  "Ooops!  Sorry, no, in your mind.  Easily confused."
     The wise words of one Jason, at work, is why.  Ol' Jase is aware of BOOJUM! and to his eternal credit is still willing to talk to Conrad (Shelli perhaps not after me putting up her birthday Pome here yesterday).  Today he made mention of another blogging platform called "Wordpress", which I have just had a quick peruse of.

Sic

     They claim to drive 30% of the internet, which is impressive if they're telling the truth.  And they have a slew of different options, starting with FREE! that word which everyone likes.  Having a gander at the registration process means 7 steps to creating a domain, which I might do if I can re-use some staples from Blogger.*  Why take a look?  Well, because Ol' Jase designs websites for £££, and at the very least it's polite to express an interest in his recommendation. I foresee some mucking about on websites this weekend ...
     Motley, keep climbing up that steel ladder with randomly electrified rungs till we tell you to stop!

Climb, motley, climb!

You What, Winnie?
If you have been paying attention, then you ought to be aware that not only is Conrad a creature of habit, he's also been going on about the amphibious assault and landings at Gallipoli back in 1915.
     Let us trace the somewhat tortuous logic and happenstance of another of Winston Churchill's schemes, to whit: how to knock Turkey out of the war after she'd only just gotten into it, and supply the eager Ruffian armies with lots of British weapons and ammunition.**Art?

The Dardanelles

     The plan was to send a squadron of rather antediluvian battleships steaming up the Dardanelles, where they would irrupt into the Black Sea, make a demonstration in front of Constantinople, Ottoman Empire faints in coils, run up the Red Duster and a tot of rum all round - job done!
     It is a moot point whether this would have happened, since the shiftless, treacherous, unco-operative and in fact downright resisting Turks did not follow this plan.  The dirty curs!  Those landings at Gallipoli were intended to secure the commanding heights and allow the Navy to sail forth (free from gunfire) neither of which happened.  At this point the whole scheme was <ahem> dead in the water and ought to have been abandoned, regardless of how sad a face Winnie put on.

No, Art.  Just no.

    There seems to have been a touch of rose-tinted glasses about the whole scheme.  Of course, the peninsula was evacuated in early 1916, which is quite another story in itself.  And, yes, you are going to hear about it.  O yes indeed!

I think this is Art's idea of "Dead in the water"

 
The Proliferation Of A Super-nation
For why yes indeed, we are back on the subject of "Top 10" again, that futuristic policier as drawn by Mr Ha and imagined by Mr Moore.  Art? <shudders in anticipation of what will be produced>

I am pleasantly surprised

     In the introduction, Mr Moore produces a whole rationale about how and why there is a proliferation of super-heroes, which dates from the Thirties.  His concept is that you get a "science-hero", as they dub themselves, whom we shall name "Captain Tardigrade", with a costume and cape and mask and - er - <thinks> the incredible survival abilities of the tardigrade.

Ol' Tardy

     Anyway, Captain Tardigrade is discovered suiting-up by a neighbourhood kid, who immediately wants to become Kid Tardigrade, whose brothers then want to become Junior Tardigrade and Lieutenant Tardigrade, and that weird chap down the street thinks he'd like a super-hero costume, too, and his son wants a science-hero identity to impress the girls with, and - you get the idea.  It's a logarithmic progression and you rapidly end up with a city crammed to bursting with people in brightly-coloured spandex.
     "Top 10" deals with the long-term consequences of Neopolis, where everyone has a secret identity or super-powers.  This, of course, led Your Humble Scribe's thoughts to wander - always a dangerous thing - and they wandered off to dwell on -

MARSHAL LAW!

     This is even more violent and gory, not to mention borderline smutty, than "Top 10", although their DNA is similar.  Marshal Law is a ruthless lawman of the San Futuro conurbation, which is plagued by extensive gang warfare and criminal violence, his job being to keep it in check. 
     Not everybody in San Futuro has super-powers, just enough to make life interesting/awkward/terrifying (delete where applicable).  These are mostly veterans of a long and destroying war fought over Central and South America; the question being, what do you do with living weapons like this when the war ends?

Hmmm ...

     Well, that was a bit of a buzz-kill, wasn't it?  Let us end with a topic of a slightly less grim nature  <thinks>


Aha!


Why Are Arkansas And Kansas Pronounced Differently?
Well, they are.  "Ark-an-saw" versus "Kanzass".  Art?

Sic

     It seems that the two words have a common root, the Indian word "Kansa".  However, be it noted that at the time of getting named, the French adopted "Arkansas", where the final letter "s" is silent, leading to the "-saw" ending.
     In sensibly-named Kansas, it was the mighty and noble*** English naming that got in there first, leading to a word where every letter is pronounced, instead of some bizarre Continental farrago.
     Just to show that them South Canadians can be perculier, the Arkansas state legislation has stated in law that you cannot muck about with that ending, it's fixed in place permanently and you can't remove it by using a file, plane, chisel, hammer or -

Sic

*  For FREE!  Did I mention that part?
**  Not for FREE.  Capitalism at work, brother.
***  Yep, "Forbidden Planet" reference again.  And no, I'm not apologising.