Weighty Matters

Or, Logistics
This is by way of an aside and an idea generated as I was walking through the Arndale Centre, for only by diverting myself with such strange and exotic matters can I resist the siren call of the phone and clothes shops*.
     Okay, let us cast our minds back to the dim, distant and dangerous days of the Teuton's "Kaiserschlacht" offensive of March 1918, when the Fifth Army of Perfidious Albion had to "fall back elastically in pre-planned manouevres" that the unkind would call "running away".  I am referring to my re-reading the history of the 18th Division in the Great War, whose divisional sign (all British divisions had an emblem) was the punning collection of three capital letters - "ATN".  Say it aloud and it makes more sense.  Art?

Same edition as mine!

     Let us look to "A" Battery of the 82nd RFA Brigade, who were overwhelmed by the Teutons on the late afternoon of 21st March, simply because the battery had run out of ammunition.  When you realise that they had stockpiled 2,400 18 pounder shells  as preparation for the expected attack, you get an idea of how hard they had been fighting for 12 hours.  Art?

18 pounder shell

     Enough of deeds of derring-do.  Back to mass.  An 18 pounder shell weighed in at 23 pounds each, because the casing with the cordite propellant was a lot less dense than the business bit that blasted bally Boches.  18 pdr. shells came in boxes of 4, so we shall fudge things and say that a whole wooden box came in at 100 pounds (or lbs - don't you just love love love Imperial measurements?) as this makes calculations easier.  
     So, Major Deedes and his battery had gotten through 107 tons of supplied artillery ammunition.  In one day.  Granted, this was an unusual situation, yet it does give you some idea of the scale of logistics needed to supply modern artillery.  Art?

The supplier: a General Service Wagon

     One of these wagons could carry about 2 tons of supplies, so A Battery had run through over 50 wagons-worth in their big bang splurge.  Recall, if you will, that A Battery was merely one of six in the 18th Division - and two of those were 4.5" howitzer batteries with a much heavier shell - and that the armies of Perfidious Albion numbered about forty active divisions on the Western Front.  Conrad may sit down and do some maths about further logistical analysis, but that above is enough to give you an impression of the sheer tonnage of ammunition needed and the supply organisation required to keep it running.     Okay <grits teeth> motley, would you like to sit on the comfy chair with a cup of tea and a knife to the eye** biscuit?

I don't just make this stuff up, you know***

"Sephiroth"
Ah yes, I remember this word bubbling up to the top of my conscious mind as I stalked - or perhaps stomped, I am fairly large and move with a heavy footfall - back to my desk on the Seventeenth Floor of the Dark Tower.     "Oh, thank you, Steve!" I snorted, internally, as otherwise I would have scared people.  "What have you landed me with now?"
     Steve is my unconscious mind.  I can blame everything on him, and do.
     I had the feeling that this was a Biblical name, as in "Sephiroth begat Hapshebat who begat Gargalblasta who led the tribes of the Holbytlan against the Voltarol".
     Not a bit of it.  Art?

Let the Freudian jokes commence

     He is, I am told, one of the bad guys from a computer game called "Final Fantasy 7", which is a classic oxymoron if you ask me.  I know, you didn't, but I like to hold forth.  Ol' Sef is apparently a SOLDIER, or one of an elite, who are employed by - this might be a typo - the Shinra Electric Power Company.  Failure to pay bills on time = being turned into a human kebab makes no sense to me.  How would you pay the bill then?
     Oh, I see.  SEPC would reanimate you as a zombie and force you to work for them until you fell apart from necrosis.
     Capitalism at it's worst, comrades!
     Of course, I could be over-thinking this a bit ...

Shinra - always looking for undead hires!

About That Light-bulb Moment
I had one earlier today, in the middle of creating the earlier BOOJUM! which I have to elucidate about, since I get many of these things on a daily basis and don't want to confuse you with my brilliance.
     Okay, Quiet Tom, who is Darling Daughter's partner (that step beyond 'boyfriend') has to be clean-shaven in order to be able to don a respirator, as he works in a lab with many, many dangerous chemicals knocking about, the lucky swine.  I shan't gift you a photo of Tom, as he is shy and spurns the camera.

Another Tom, neither shy nor camera-spurning in the least

     Then it dawned on me that I'd just read about the very same phenomenon in Peter Hart's "The Last Battle", where a South Canadian infantryman bemoaned having to have a shave every morning - because his commanding officer wanted all his men to be able to wear gas masks that fitted snugly.
     This thus makes more sense when reading about the officers of Perfidious Albion wanting their men to shave every day; you can understand this about the Guards division, whom every single one were expected to be exemplars of smartness from private to general, less expectedly of shire divisions like the 55th (East Lancashire) division - unless it's a preventive measure about gas.

Peter Hart in the check shirt
(Yes, seriously)

Finally - 
I did the Good Thing this afternoon and took Edna for a walk, whilst it was not completely burning hot, and the CEASELESS EVER-POUNDING RAINS had quieted for a while - we shall see how long that remains the case.  
     Edna managed to demean the doggie race with her undignified disporting on a piece of grass that - smelled good?

Edna, letting down all of dog-kind

     What ho, chaps!

*  This is one of the biggest lies Conrad has ever stated <the wicked truth courtesy Mister Hand!>
**  Sorry.  Channelling my inner "The Goon" where it is Frankie's battle-cry
***  Well, actually I do.  Let's admit that before the loathsome Mister Hand intervenes.