Morse And Lewis

No!  This Is Nothing To Do With Detectives
I know you lot - ever ready to jump to a conclusion, and be wrong about it.  You were thinking "Ah, Middle-aged Man Syndrome - that is, acquiring a fascination with murder mysteries", and you immediately joined the dots and imagined 'Inspector Morse'.
     WRONG!
     I was actually referring to "The History of the 12th (Eastern) Division In The Great War", thank you very much.  Art?

Tah-dah!

     Okay, what you have to realise is that signalling in the First Unpleasantness was considerably less sophisticated than today.  You used pigeons, or signal rockets, or flags, or runners, or telephones, or power buzzers or even <gasp!> the height of sophistication, wireless radiography.  Radio to you.

An sophisticated wireless apparatus

     One of the first notes I fed back to you about this history was when both the 12th Division and the Teutons opposite were using earth lines to try and pick up each other's telephone or telegraph conversations; and what do you transmit telegraphic messages in?  Why none other than Morse code, of course.  You know, the dit dit dah dah stuff composed of long and short buzzes.  
     Well, the 12th Div. had an eavesdropping device in their own trenches by 1916 that could pick up Teuton telephone messages; and also British ones, which showed that their telephone security could be shockingly lax.  This kit was Top Secret and nobody beyond the users and Intelligence Officers at battalion level or higher were allowed to know anything about it.  Thus, the troops created a master-spy dubbed "IT", who was always mysteriously clued-up about what the Hun was going to do next.

Not quite, Art, but we'll let it stand.

     As for "Lewis", why, this refers to none other than the "Belgian Rattlesnake", Mister Lewis' engine of destruction, which Art -

Sic

     This is frequently mentioned in the text, as by mid- to late war it was found in every platoon.  The Teutons had mixed feelings about it - that crack about the snake came about when they first encountered it in the hands of the Belgian Army - as it was capable of single-handedly stopping a company-sized attack; they did re-bore captured versions in order to use them with Teuton ammunition, however, so they did kind of like it.
     And there we have today's title.
     Motley!  There's something outside in the bushes making a lot of slavering noises and the neighbour's dogs are howling - be a dear and see what it is, won't you?

For the motley's sake, we hope not.*

     Damn it, brain - for some reason I was looking up "The Count of Monte Cristo", then I got to reading the plot in detail and now I've forgotten why I was looking it up.  Minds!  Who can fathom them, eh?

As Proof Of That
The phrase "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin" popped up in the septic swamp of my memory, again, for reasons best known to Oscar.** It's Hebrew, which is not a language I am fluent in, and still less can I read it, and it comes from Biblical literature, which is once again not my chosen reading material.  So - why?
     Anyway, it means "Weighed, weighed, measured, divided", and was written upon a wall during a drunken debauch that Nebuchadnezzar was throwing, which took the buzz off his evening, all the more so since the only person who could translate it was a Jewish captive (Daniel by name).  This is the source of that well-known phrase "The writing on the wall", which nowadays we would call "graffiti".  Back then it was a supernatural warning, as Ol' Dan interpreted it as meaning "You have been weighed, found wanting and your kingdom is going to be divided up by others."

The spectre at the feast

     Whether he was psychic, or just really well-informed is a moot point, as Ol' Neb's kingdom was promptly over-run by Darius the Persian, who wasted no time in croaking Neb.  At which point Danny boy was probably rubbing his hands and chuckling.
     Still - why on earth did I recall the phrase?  O thou treacherous brain!

Breaking Festival News
No, nothing to do with either Glastonbury or Not A Cult, this is about a festival over the water in Ireland, called Longitude.  Yes, we are dabbling in the waters of Current Affairs, where we rarely venture, but - we have been going on about festivals a lot of late, and it is vaguely amusing, so -


     As you can see, the sinister and weighty arm of the Irish law is busy - er - well, yes, having their photographs taken with young ladies.  Dangerous young ladies!  Dangerous young ladies who could explode into Rage Virus-like fury at any moment - any moment at all  - any moment now - perhaps this very moment -
     Perhaps not.
     The US Embassy in Ireland, you see, has issued a warning to South Canadian citizens to steer clear of Longitude because of the risk of violence, and not to make eye contact, and in fact to stay indoors for the rest of the summer because of Festivals.
     ???
     At a guess, Conrad reckons that, since the weather over there looks good, there will be legendary amounts of beer being drunk, and possibly some funny cigarettes smoked.  Which is a TERRIFYING prospect.  Or something.

Finally -
"Legal Eagle" - AHA!  I REMEMBER NOW! - over on Youtube has been poking fun at lawyers by inviting people to send in jokes about lawyers, and there's one I especially liked. 
     
     Two science technicians are chatting at a convention, when one reveals to the other that they've stopped using rats in their laboratory experiments.
     "Really?  Why is that?" asks the other technician.
     "Three reasons," explains the other.  "First of all, lawyers are plentiful.  Secondly, the lab staff don't get so attached to them.  And thirdly, there are some things even a rat won't do."

     Devin (Legal Eagle's real name) liked that one, but did point out that a lawyer costs a lot more than a rat.
           
                                   Cute                                                                                Evil



*  Still, motley's are cheap and plentiful.
**  The bloke in charge of memory.