On The Scene With A Langoustine

I Apologise In Advance
Yes, another word that happened to pop up in the purulent paddy-fields of my peculiar psyche.  Whilst I was carrying a bin full of rubbish down the stairs, actually, rather than waiting at the bus stop, which is when it usually happens.
     Anyway, what is a langoustine?  Thanks to a helpful Dutch website that retails frozen fish - Wikipedia is so last week, dahling - I can show you.  Art?

Langoustine, with puny line for scale

     These things are known by a whole raft of different names.  Here in the Desert of Eden*, we call them "Norwegian Lobsters", because - er - they look like a lobster than has pined itself thin about the fjords?  The Irish call them "Dublin Bay Prawns" as the radioactive wastes in said waters cause their prawns to mutate into human-hunting monsters Bay of Dublin is Irish. The Spanish call them "Cigala", not to be confused with a "Cicada", which is probably a lot crunchier unless done in a pressure cooker.

Delicious, nutritious and it comes from Mauritius**

     The Teutons call them "Kaisergranaten" which translates as "Emperor Grenade"; note to Teuton chefs, be less literal with your descriptions, they kill people's appetites.  The Danes, just to be different, call them "Jomfruhummers".  "Hummer" in Danish means "Lobster", but - er - "Jomfru" means "Virgin".  Ah, Danish chefs?  Go have a word with your Teuton counterparts.

Fresh out of the factory.  So it's a 

     - aaaand there we will end today's Intro.

Further To That Photo Of Books -
A couple of months ago, Your Humble Scribe joined in one of those crowd-funding exercises on teh interwebz, launched by artist extraordinaire Sajan Rai, and let me poke Art into action with the cattle prod -

Sajan, looking as if someone took the last biscuit from the tin.  His tin.

     Ol' Saj had been doing some crazy psychedelic artistic interpretations of haikus, you see, and wanted people to back him in order to get a book of same printed.  You can manage this if you've a big enough social media profile and have talent.
     Well, he got enough funding, and - Hey Pesto!  He Twittered about getting a delivery of the following -

Careful with that axe, elephant***

     I think one of those has my name on it.  Oh yes, an example of the haiku illustrations:

Not exactly chocolate-box art, no.

     Damn!  That was a new film poster on the passing 409, which was going too fast for me to pick up on it.  Definitely new, though.
     Langoustines, haiku - we are being international, aren't we?  Let us now tackle - CUNEIFORM!

I Bet The Closest You've Come To This Is Via "Forbidden Planet"
You know the scene, where Captain Adams and Doc Ostrow get into Morbius' study and find studies of Krell writings on his desk.
     "It's not cuneiform, or heiroglyphics," opines Doc.  Art?

Someone had to invent and write that, you know

     Note what looks like the future's idea of a fountain pen at upper starboard.
     Anyway, that's not what I wanted to bang on about, which was cuneiform.  This is a form of writing as invented by the Sumerians, where one inscribed marks into a clay tablet with a wedge-shaped stylus, which ends up looking thus - Art?

Definitely not Krell

     This alphabet became a proper written language about 2,500 BC, and persisted for well over two millenia, so it had staying power, and in fact is one of the most important inventions of the Sumerians.  When these tablets were translated in late Victorian times, they came like a thunderbolt amongst scholars of antiquity, radically transforming their perception of the ancient world.  Fancy that!
     Conrad, being given to pondering and suchlike, wonders exactly how you coped with making inscriptions into a clay tablet in the temperatures of what is now southern Iraq, because you have to be working to a deadline here.  If you're too verbose then your tablet will dry out, if you're too slow then your tablet will dry out, if you get interrupted then your tablet will dry out.  Do you shrug, scrap the dried-out tablet and begin again?  Or can one re-moisten a tablet and continue?  Or would you use a hammer and nail to put a full stop on the piece of what is now brick, and continue on a fresh tablet?
     Enquiring minds need to know!

"Here's one I - ooops!"

     Yes, not to mention fragility.  Drop a sheet of paper (or papyrus) and all you do is pick it up again.  If you drop a friable clay tablet, you're going to need an awful lot of glue ...

Making A Mess -
Of Loch Ness.  You won't find any langoustines there, they're a salt-water species and the loch is freshwater, so don't bother coming with your shrimping net.
     Anyway, in a more bucolic manner than our South Canadian counterparts, some bampots on social media have suggested that like-minded bampots get together in September to "Storm Loch Ness", in order to find the Loch Ness Monster.

An evocative shot of cold, dark, deep Loch Ness

     This has caused the local RNLI ("Royal National Lifeboat Institution", a life-saving charity funded and staffed by volunteers) to counsel caution to the 18,000-strong bampot legion who are going to go storming in September.  They point out that the loch is cold (no!), wet (a given, one feels), extremely deep (unlike the stormers) and can become dangerously choppy very quickly.  One might also point out that the weather in Scotland in September will not be warm either, and that access to the loch is restricted by a somewhat sketchy road net.

Loch Ness at rush hour

     If these people do turn up, equipped with, oh, flippers and inflatable sun-beds as their monster-hunting equipment, Conrad predicts few will survive.  Unkind commenters on the BBC's Have Your Say have been rubbing their hands in glee, the term "Darwin Award Winners" being bruited about frequently.

And with that, we are done!




*  It has hit 790C in the shade here.
**  You have no idea how long I've waited to type that.
***  |An obscure Pink Floyd reference for you there.