A Successful Skeleton

I Know What You're Thinking
(and at some point I shall send their prototype telepathy helmet back to DARPA*) - what does a skeleton need to do in order to be a success?  Surely all it has to do is remain upright and provide structural support?
     Well, yes, if we're talking about one of these - Art?

CAUTION!  Diet responsibly

     But we're not.  O no.  As you may be aware, Conrad regularly purchases the Oldham Times or Reporter or Witness or whatever it's called, certainly not for the news, only for the Skeleton Crossword.  With these you get a set of clues - without being told how many letters they have - and a mere handful of blocked-off squares and numbers.  They're tricky things to solve, especially because of the lack of info about how many letters.  
     So!  I was heartily chuffed to have got one completely correct for the first time.  Art?

 

The evidence

      The trick was not bothering about filling in all the squares and instead going for the answers, then filling in the blanks.

     So, when people ask me what I did on the Bank Holiday, I have something definite to show for it.  Hah!
     I say, motley, these borogroves are really mimsy - would you like one with spoon and a bamboo skewer?

The Joys Of Ginger Jam
I like saying that because of the alliteration (checks his Collins Concise to establish this means what he thinks it does, confirms with relief, carries on).  I like eating it because I have a sweet tooth, which I have had to restrict thanks to diabetes.  A single jar has lasted four and a half months, so I've not been shovelling the stuff down at a rate of knots, you know.  Art?

The replacement

     This jar should keep me going until Christmas, that time of year when I can gaze longingly at Christmas puddings, Christmas cake and mince pies with a sense of tortured longing.

A Window On The Past
And a rather grubby one at that!  Another note I made on "The Image In The Mirror", one of Ol' Dot's Lord Peter Wimsey short stories.  The police arrive to perhaps arrest a Mister Robert Duckworth, who has fortuitously made the acquaintance of Lord Peter in the beforetime.  Lord Peter cautions the over-eager police sergeant about mis-treating or mishandling Mr. Duckworth, stating "No Savidgery".

Looks effete but punches so sweet

     Conrad, of course, assiduously wrote this down for further noseying.
     It would appear that an Irene Savidge was interrogated by the Metropolitan Police for over 5 hours about an alleged "indecency", and they were very heavy-handed in their treatment of her, so much so that a Committee of Inquiry sat upon the matter in Parliament, and pontificated on it.  The police came out of it very badly, and were much more careful about how they treated suspects.
     Thus, Lord Peter's pun.  I bet Ol' Dot was chuffed to bits when she managed to get that one in!  In the intervening 92 years it has probably been relegated to an innocuous foot-note, unless the reader happens to be a completist obsessive**.
     And, I've <counts> squeezed two hundred words out of two, which is pretty good going.

Bring On The History Guy!
With some TANK.  THG has chosen 5 British tanks, which is fair enough as we invented them; he couldn't choose an Abrams as that's one of two AFVs Bovington Tank Museum doesn't possess.  Secrecy and all that, one supposes.
     Anyway, let us see what else he has surprisingly chosen.  Art?

I say, sir, your Dalek seems to have broken

     This tank looks in very bad shape, so there's probably some sympathy issues at work here.  It appears to have been used as what they call a "Range Tank", which means a dud you stick out on a firing range so that people can shoot holes in it, testing their eyesight and ammunition.

One in rather better running order

     You might be better off thinking of it as an armoured car with tracks, since it only came with a machine-gun.  On the other hand, it was very heavily armoured for the time, and Herman the German would have seen his anti-tank gun rounds bouncing off it with a sense of dismay and a need for new underpants.
     THG says he has a soft spot for this particular item, as he considers it served it's country twice, once as a tank and again as a target.

CAUTION!  Not suitable for silks or delicates

     I think that'll do for the moment.  But do not fear, for we have more of THG and TANK!

"The Goalkeeper's Revenge" By Bill Naughton
I remember another tale from this collection about the inter-war years set in the bleak Northern towns of Lancashire.  I believe it was called "Seventeen Oranges" -

Vindicated!

     - and I think it was set in Liverpool, at the docks.  Inevitably at a time when people had very little, there was endless pilfering at the docks by the workers, which lead to guards on the exit gate who would routinely examine any bags or boxes or other containers people took out.  The narrator of our story attempted to smuggle seventeen stolen oranges, a fruit which he loved, past the exit gate, and was caught by the single guard on duty.  I mean he was on his own, not that he was unmarried, though he may have been that, too -
     Off goes the guard, having locked the thieving narrator in the guard hut, to get the foreman in order to dish out punishment.  Big mistake.  By the time he comes back, our narrator has eaten all seventeen oranges, peel, pips and all.
     "I don't believe it!" gasps the guard.  "Seventeen oranges!"
     With no evidence of theft or pilfering, our anti-hero is free to go.  But he never eats oranges again.

CAUTION!  Enjoy in moderation

     Well, we have hit the Compositional Ton, so it's time to get a bit of lunch, down some water, perhaps take Edders for a trot and then a constitutional into Royton.  Chin chin!


*  Perhaps
**  Noble personal qualities.