A Well-Risen Loaf

If You Recall -
Last night, for the first time in a long while, Your Humble Scribe, who is also a Modest Artisan, made a gluten-free Sour Cream and Blueberry Loaf.  I took a picture and posted it directly it came out of the tin, and then warned you all that the real proof would be when it cooled down.  Gluten-free flour, you see, lacks the elasticity and hence expansion characteristics of normal flour.
     Well, it held up well when cooled off, except I'm now creating this at work, so I can't upload a photograph of Cakey The Morning After.  Why, yes, now that you mention it, I could re-post the original photograph and pretend it was a later photo, EXCEPT THAT WOULD BE INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!

Not quite this dangerous, but, still -

     If you do that, then the cursor picks up the picture format and automatically imposes that format wherever it lands in the Blogger document, distorting the whole thing, often to the point of irrevocability.  I than have to copy to a Word document, save that, close down Blogger, reopen Blogger, take away the number first thought of, and cross fingers.
     So you will have to crank up your imagination and picture that cake in your mind's eye.
     I say, motley, we're testing if the power's back on.  Put this lightbulb in your mouth and your finger in this socket, will you?

CAUTION!  Do not try this at home

    
You What?
This would also come under the title of INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS, not to mention INCREDIBLY STUPID, and also DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, as well as SERIOUSLY DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.  I rashly Googled for "Lightbulb in mouth", fondly imagining that there'd be tons of photos similar to the above.
     Not at all.  O no.  It appears that there is a slice of Hom. Sap. whose ancestors somehow managed to survive long enough to pass on their Stupid Genes, because putting a whole lightbulb in your mouth is a surprisingly common activity.  Art?

A question I do not want to hear you mumbling at me

     The rounded end of the bulb permits it to slip behind the teeth with relative ease, after which it cannot be removed without shattering, which would at least discourage the victim from trying the stunt again.  Normally anyone daft enough to do this needs to seek medical attention.
     It cannot be said too often:  DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
     Sheeesh.

INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS As Lifestyle Choice
I am referring back to that history of the Hood battalion of the Royal Naval Division, and specifically to one of the battalion's Officers Commanding, one Arthur Asquith.  Art?

The boy in question

     Ol' Art joined up as a Sub-Lieutenant in 1914 and was fortunate enough to survive the quite ghastly campaign at Gallipoli.  He then went to the Western Front as a Captain in 1916, which is when the family name got in the way, rather.  His father, you see, was the Prime Minister, which is where you might have seen the name previously.  Arthur's brother Raymond, who had volunteered the instant war broke out, was killed in action in late 1916.
     So, as one scathing critic put it, the "Old Women" back home (a combination of politicians and senior soldiers) sought to get Art out of the dangerous front lines and back to a cushy job at Corps headquarters, a job they went at with grim determination.

More of the boy

     Unfortunately for the Old Women, they were up against a chap who was even more grimly determined than they were to put himself in harm's way.  He was up with the Hood battalion at the slightest hint of an opportunity, whether he was supposed to be or not.  This was actually a good thing, as not only did he have to look up the word "Fear" in the dictionary, he was also an especially acute tactician who could read the battlefield like a book.

Asquith's mate Freyberg

     Eventually he wangled the position of the Hood's OC, before he got promoted to Brigadier-General.  He wasn't long in that post, as he was invalided by a shell, which entailed amputating half a leg.  If that hadn't happened, one doubts he would have made it alive to 11/11/1918.

The BBC Factor
This is as much a thing when I'm not all of a mad dash first thing in the morning.

The Jezebel temptress herself!

  Today, for example, the temptation to dawdle came from a hasty glance at articles about ice in Mexico, Danny Boyle's iconic film moments, film mistakes "that you may not have spotted" (I don't think so!), various acts at Glastonbury, a non-event in Belgium and sundry others.  Including one about a couple of Scottish rappers putting one over on the music business.*
    Should I bother checking on these? 
     Actually, one sidebar did strike a chord: parents being banned from a primary school's sports days due to their bad behaviour.

The school in question

     In a previous life my old manager, Gavin, for some bizarre reason, ran a children's ballfoot team in his own time.  Remarkable!  And a source of much concern, as the parents of children playing would turn up at matches and behave as if they were refereeing a major international tournament, complete with cursing, threats of violence and unseemly gestures.  The kids were fine; their adult counterparts not so much.

"THAT WAS NOT OFFSIDE!"

     One wonders just why Gavin put himself through such torment.  For a leisure activity is does seem <ahem> INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS.

Well, that's pretty much the whole of today's blog done and none of it is what I intended to talk about in the first place.  Arthur Asquith was only going to mention his leg.  And that thing about a lightbulb in the mouth?  Truly, some people abuse the right to be stupid.  Now we only need the veriest sliver of scrivel to hit the Composition Ton, and it will be about an iconic scene from a Danny Boyle film.  Art?

Finally -
Conrad went to see "28 Days Later" a the cinema, twice even, so he didn't jump out of his skin when Our Hero taps a car window and the alarm blares into life second time around, though I did get a malicious sense of enjoyment from seeing everyone else flinch violently.

Ol' Dan goes on about this

     This is the iconic scene, where Jim wanders about on London Bridge, yelling "Hello!" loudly, tempting a horrid fate -
     It was shot at 4 ante meridian on a summer's morning, when there were no pedestrians and little traffic, and where film crew were standing at street corners begging drivers to wait just a little bit longer so they could get the shot.  Since it was done digitally, it took very little preparation or shooting time, which is a good thing since the police showed up and warned them that, next time, they'd better have a permit.

     And with that, we are done!


*  Tee Hee!