Conrad: Cannot Count!

Not That I Ever Claimed To Be A Maths Whiz
Because I'm not.  For me, the electronic calculator - LOOK AT THAT!  LOOK AT THAT! that's three 409's, one after the other, and I bet there was a gap of thirty minutes before they turned up, the swines - er - sorry, yes, the electronic calculator was a blessing, since it arrived at the same time we at school were instructed to purchase a slide rule for our "O" Level Mathematics.  Art?

Now only found in museums

     So, when I went blathering on about having just seen Episode Seven of "Stranger Things", I was wrong, it was actually Episode Six, and I've just seen Episode Seven.  If things looked fraught at the end of Six, how much more are they at the end of Seven!
     I can't go into detail, not without spoiling things for you; suffice it to say that the kids are all together, finally, and - well, I wouldn't be me without having noticed some plot holes, would I?

Fun.  In Hawkins?  I think not.

     You see, a whole batch of people at the fair just marched off to go see the Glop Monster, and yet their families are carrying on as if their absence was perfectly normal.  Or - is that normal for Indiana?
     Then - okay, this is a bit spoiler-y, so you might want to skip ahead - what about the enormous underground Russian base?  How much industrial plant did they need to build it?  And how long did it take?

Russians like corridors, it seems.

     Also, why is nobody looking for a flameth - an ignited-napalm propelling-device?*  Because it seems to Your Humble Scribe that you need one to take on the Glop Monster.
     Anyway, Episode Eight awaits!

The Haul
Yesteryon Your Humble Scribe betook himself to Waterstone's in the Dark Tower's commercial ancillary, known to millions as "The Arndale Centre" though I am unsure exactly why, since the concrete and tarmac inner city hub of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell cannot be described as having a "Dale" in any meaningful sense of the word.
     Semantics aside, allow Art to earn his plate of coal -

An exercise in contrasts

     I had actually gone looking for anything by Joe R. Lonsdale, only to find nothing at all by him on the shelves <sad face> except there's two novels by Jim Crumley that I haven't read, including "The Last Good Kiss", which is one of his best <happy face>.  This was an entirely unexpected bonus, as I've looked for his stuff before, only to not find any - I think these must be new editions.  For those not in the know, Ol' Jim (long dead, not the least thanks to a lifestyle of booze and drugs) wrote what is known as "hard-boiled crime", where people do horrible nasty things to each other, but in a modern lyrical prose style.  Which would make them awkward to translate into film or television.

Ol' Jim, back when.

     Lord Peter, on the other hand, is seemingly as far from hard-boiled as you can get, a mistake that several people have made to their detriment.  His manners, and tailoring, are impeccable, yet as a be-medalled veteran of the First Unpleasantness, he has a core of carbon steel.  Like Ol' Jim's heroes, he enjoys a snifter of booze, but <shudder!> would never consider drugs.
     There you go, proof positive that Conrad's diet is not exclusively military history, but also extendeth to murder mystery.**

 - and this - is a murder mystery in the middle of - military history!

The Return Of Otto
Otto Strasser, that is.  You remember, the anti-Hitler Nazi?  He had fled from Switzerland to Canada, because he was hated sufficiently by the bigwigs at the top of the Third Reich for them to be quite capable of kidnapping him and returning him to Germany for a trial (for which read "execution"), even at the risk of raising Swiss ire.
     Canada was less risky for him, though since it was an Allied nation and he arrived there during the Second Unpleasantness, he did get interned.  "Interned in Canada" is probably a lot cosier and nicer than "Everyday life in the Third Reich" as there's no fleets of bombers turning your dwellings into rubble, nor hordes of slavering Bolshevics thirsting for Teuton blood -

Notice the difference in dates of expiry ...

     - nor fellow-Nazis out to do a bit of back-stabbery.
     Come the war's end, Otto was in a bit of an odd position.  He was undeniably a Nazi, yet not one of Herr Schickelgruber's lot, and since he wouldn't renounce his version of National Socialism ("Strasserism") West Germany wasn't too keen on having him back.
    Eventually they relented, and he went back to an unsuccessful career in right-wing politics, eventually popping his clogs in 1974 - so he outlived the Third Reich by nearly three decades, and was probably cocking a snook at them when he expired.
     Nazi politics - hazardous to one's health!  (especially for said politicians).

Not good for urban upkeep, either

     Well, we've had maths, mayhem, murder and <thinks> Maybachs, so a little tangential subject is called for -

"Jus Primae Noctis"
Ah, Latin again, the zombie language: dead, but it won't lie down.  This is Latin for "The right of the first night", also extant in French as "Droit de seigneur", which means the same thing.  Essentially, that your feudal overlord could take your bride to bed ahead of you, because Feudalism.
     I do apologise for this popping up in my head at the bus stop; I made a note in my special miniature notebook and all, so we have to carry it through.  Art? - and be tasteful!

Conrad goggled - there is a genre that revolves around this?  Egad!

     It has a long pedigree in fiction, which is where it stands and stays: there is no evidence that it ever occurred in real life.  There was a bridal tax, which peasantry had to pay to church or lord, and that's as far as it went.
     People making things up?  How dare they!

<Conrad, unusually, lost for words>

    Okay, gentle readers, this is the first of two posts today, if the robots don't rise in revolt first, as Your Humble Scribe is off today and working Saturday.  Pip pip!


*  We have to be coy about this or R J Macready will show up again.
**  Plus the odd sci-fi novel