VodKAPOW!

There Isn't Really Any KAPOW!
I just couldn't resist it.
     One Youtube channel that Your Humble Scribe has been watching with considerable interest over the past couple of weeks is "Ushanka Show", created and occasionally presented by one Sergei Sputnikoff, which may not be his real name.  It would work as a pseudonym, mind you, as he now lives in South Canada, and "Sputnik" is Russian for "Traveller", which he would have had to be in order to get there from here.

The original traveller

     Sergei maintains a charming Russian accent and, whilst his grasp of English is good, it's not perfect, which I wouldn't want it to be - his struggling to translate idiom is part of the appeal.
     Anyway, Sergei was born in 1971, so he was 20 when the Sinister Empire (okay, okay, The Soviet Union.  There.  Happy now?) collapsed.  This event is now 28 years old, so a whole generation has grown up who never knew Soviet rule or culture or practices; what Sergei attempts to do is develop a picture of what life was like as a Soviet citizen.
     Inevitably, one of his Youtube presentations is about Vodka, which is something people have always associated with Russia, whatever era we are talking about.  Art?

Stolichnaya

     This is one of the three major brands that were available to Soviet citizens, normally coming in a 500ml. bottle, which we here in the Allotment of Eden would call "A pint".  Sergei explains that people would club together in threes to purchase a bottle; this gave the ambient amount of vodka per person.  Two people - they'd make themselves ill.  Four or more - not enough going round to get a buzz from.  Thus you would sometimes find two people accosting perfect strangers with the request "Will you be our third?"
     Here an aside.  In Eric Newby's "The Big Red Train Ride", about his journey on the Trans-Siberian Express, he mentions that bottles of vodka he encountered had horribly flimsy foil caps that couldn't be put back on after they'd been removed.  So - you had to drink the whole bottle straight away.

Both hilarious and educational

     Sergei further explains that you drank vodka with a standard 100 millilitre glass, which we here in the Allotment of Eden* would call "A four ounce glass", that you didn't mix it with anything else, and you certainly didn't waste precious fridge space by putting bottles of vodka in there.  It's vodka - what's it going to do at room temperature?
     There is a lot more to be said about alcohol in Russia Through The Ages, so for the moment I will say - To Be Continued ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBQDqp9RtoY

     That's a link to Ushanka's take on that other drug addiction in the Sinister Empire - smoking!
     Motley!  So glad you could join us - please, take a seat.  I've ordered tea and hot buttered crumpets for you, I hope that's okay?**

Er - No, Art, not like that.

To Create A Crater
Yes, we are back to the 12th Division's historical record, and I will be banging on about the Hohenzollern Redoubt in a minute.  First of all, the text mentions "Smoke Candles" and "Threlfallite Grenades".  A smoke candle would ruin any birthday celebration it was brought to, as it's purpose was to emit large volumes of smoke, the better to obscure the enemy's vision.  As for the Threlfallite grenade, I'd never heard of it before.  It appeared to be a grenade with a filling of white phosphorus and petrol, two things you should never bring together if you wish to live even medium.  Again, used to create a smoke screen.  
     Okay, Art?

     Take note of the puny human included for scale in the lower picture there.  The 12th Division had the misfortune to be allotted to fight in the Hohenzollern Redoubt, one of the nastiest bits of front line on the Western Front, in a front line that didn't lack for nasty bits.  It was the focus for continual mine warfare, where each side sought to tunnel vertically, then horizontally, in order to place tons of explosives under the opposition's front line trenches.  You can see the result above; craters big enough to lay a block of flats inside.  The HR ended up being an overlapping array of mine craters, which would be furiously fought over to either include in a defensive trench system, or to overlook the opposition.  As the 12th's historian writes, two lines in an official dispatch about the fighting at the Redoubt in early 1916 were all that people knew of it.  The division suffered nearly 4,000 casualties in those two lines, however.

The Redoubt from the air.
(Like the surface of the Moon, with trenches)

     Wow.  Grim stuff, eh?  Let us move on to sunnier subjects -

Cake!
I haven't baked for a good few weeks now, because Your Humble Scribe is an idle rascal at times, especially when his time is eaten up by doing a jigsaw puzzle.  What can I say?  My Inner Compulsive gets the better of me and I spend 3 hours shuffling little bits of coloured cardboard around.
     Anyway, I deliberately made a vow in front of Wonder Wifey yesterday, that I would bake a cake, because that way I have to stick to it - or else there would be endless "Is it done yet?  Is it done yet?  Is it done yet?  Is it done yet?  Is it done yet?" until one of us cracked and the Secure Psychiatric Facility had to find bed space -
     Ooops.  "Sunnier" is obviously a bit of a stretch for Conrad.  Quick, Art, change the subject!

Gluten-free Soured Cream and Blueberry Loaf

     I would post a caution that this is straight out of the oven, when retained heat and expansion of steam keeps it bouyed and risen.  The question is, how risen will it remain when thoroughly cooled?

Well.  There you go.  I've just seen a bus go by with a poster for "Spiderman: Far From Home" on the side, which is an Automatic Spoiler for "Avengers: Eternity War".
     THANK YOU SO MUCH, BUS COMPANY!
     Ah - I might have guessed.  First Bus.  I shall go away and ponder upon a terrible revenge, something along the lines of Snapping My Fingers And Transforming All First Buses Into Horses-and-carts.




*  It's been dry lately.
**  Mindgames.  Let the motley fret about what horrible surprise is about to be sprung!