That's The Spirit

For Yes, We Are Back In Normandy
With George Blackburn and his Canuckistanian chums of 4th Field Regiment.  One feels listening in to this lot when they were having a break would be an odd experience, since they sound like Americans but by golly! They all drink tea.  Sound chaps.
     They also drank Calvados, which is a Normandy speciality.  Art?

CAUTION! Do NOT fill that glass up

     Now, the thing is, the Normandy farmers who distil this stuff had hidden all the properly-matured bottles of Calvados, usually well buried, so that the much-loathed Teutons couldn't lay their scrofulitic hands upon it.  Thus when the Canuckistanians (is that a better appellation that "British Americans"?) found any, it was usually above ground, it was not matured and, more importantly, had not been reduced in proof.  This point is important because, unmatured, it's 70% proof and necking even a small amount of it was like drinking paint thinner and being hit on the back of the neck with a sledgehammer.

CAUTION! Do not stop to build sandcastles

     Ol' Geo also describes a couple of interesting things, the first being what he called a "murder shoot".  This was a very intense bombardment fired at considerable speed for thirty minutes, on a target village occupied by the Teutons.  Ol' Geo helpfully calculated the tonnage of shells fired, probably because he knows I like to know that kind of detail, and it came to 59 tons of HE.  The Teutons did not like this at all, and retaliated in kind.
     The second thing is new to me, despite reading oodles of books about Normandy 1944 and onwards, and concerns body armour.  Ol' Geo describes it, but we can do better and have Art illustrate it.  Art, o beloved troglodyte?

Thus

     This was made of a hard plastic substance that was designed to deform under impact, and was intended to be worn under the battledress; the chap above is wearing it outside for clarity.  If the wearer was hit by small arms fire or shrapnel then the plastic would yield, bruising the wearer but not killing them.  And it worked - Ol' Geo details the exploits of a fellow officer hit by a burst of bullets that, indeed, bruised the heck out of him yet left him very much on this mortal coil.  Art?

For more clarity

     I am now going to offer the motley one of the remaindered sandwiches, but it's only out of date by a couple of days*.

And Now To Offend Our Ruffian Friends!
Tee-hee!  O I feel the spirit of mischief moving within me!
     For we are back to the saga of the "Admiral Kuznetsov", the elderly Ruffian aircraft carrier, whose refit seems like the script out of a "Carry On" film.  To recap - it was due to be refitted from the keel upwards in an enormous floating dock at Murmansk, prefatory to which they took the propellers off. 
     The floating dock promptly ceased to float.  In fact you could say it sank, because it did, and one of the floating cranes on it fell off and damaged the AK.  The Ruffians don't have the ability to refloat the dock.  There's nowhere else able to fit the AK except a port in the Ruffian's far east, and it can't get there because - no propellers.  Remember?

Even with propellers, it's barely mobile

     I checked up on the AK, and she's still sitting in Murmansk, or whatever the nautical term is for loitering at the dockside looking rusty.  A Ruffian admiral declared, with an air of gloom, that the ship will be refitted in Maintenance Dock 35 in Murmansk, if they have the facilities and if they increase their capabilities, which sounds a lot like "It's not going to get done but we don't dare tell Tsar Putin that" because TSAR PUTIN WANTS HIS AIRCRAFT CARRIER!
     Lest this be too offensive to our Ruffian chums, I have to say they were rockingly ruthless when dealing with Somali pirates, who found that being dead is bad for business.

A Ruffian ship
(Just so we're clear)

     Make that "exceedingly dead."

"Bernie Gunther"
This is a central narrating character invented by Philip Kerr in a series of 14 novels, which are all of the noir detective school, set in Weimar and Nazi Germany.  There aren't going to be any more, as the author died last year <sad face>.  As I have already said, if you made up a tick-list of things that put a grimace close to a smile on Your Humble Scribe's hideous visage, you'd probably come up with the Bernie Gunther novels <happy face>.
     The thing is - I'm using this rather too often, aren't I?  I know you're shaking your heads but you're nodding on the inside, I can tell.  Anyway, Conrad can't remember which ones he's read, and didn't realise before checking that there were so many novels in the series.  Thanks here to the chap who runs the Books In Series website, Graham, is it?  Whatever, thanks a lot.


Possibly Bernie

     So, last night I sat with pen and notebook and wrote down the publication date of each novel, and the year they were set in, and ticked those I remembered reading, which would count as cruel and unusual punishment for some, and a jolly good time for me.
     Interestingly, the first three volumes came out in 1989, 1990 and 1991, and constitute what's called the "Berlin Trilogy", with a long pause of fifteen years until the next one.  Ol' Phil took care to mix in real people amongst the fictional ones, which makes for an interesting game of trying to decide if minor characters are real or created by Phil.

Heinrich Chicken-farmer - he was real enough
(Unfortunately)

Finally -
I am rather cross with my own mind.  This is a regular occurrence and shouldn't bother me too much, but I have forgotten only just enough of an idea to remember that there is a hole in my memory, and it niggles.  NIGGLES, I TELL YOU!
     You see, I had realised there was a major plot hole in a film we'd been discussing in the office, and consequently felt quite smug about it.
     However, I didn't write it down and cannot now remember the film.
     Bah!

Conrad, busy being furiously angry

*  So it's just - er - matured a bit.

A Bit Of A Bang

Actually A Lot Of A Bang
You know we British, we like to understate whenever possible.
     If you have any degree of recall, then you will remember that Your Humble Scribe is reading "The Guns Of War" by George Blackburn (we know where his ancestors came from!), about a Canadian artillery regiment in the 2nd Canadian Division, beginning several days after D-Day.  He warns folk in the Introduction not to expect adventure, because he anticipates some ferociously intense fighting against the best the Teutons had, and the word he uses in the text is "brutish".

Canuckistanians about to spoil someone's day in a major way

     At one point he describes the artillery preparations in support of Operation Goodwood, an enormous armour-heavy attack out of the Orne bridgehead, which was only partly successful.  Ol' Geo mentions the artillery units involved: fifteen regiments of field artillery (25 pounder guns), twelve regiments of mediums (5.5" guns firing an 80 or 100 pound shell); three heavy regiments (7.2" guns firing a 200 pound shell) and three regiments of heavy anti-aircraft guns (I think these will be the 3.7" firing a 28 pound shell, possibly with a proximity fuse).

A 7.2 inch howitzer
(Spike Milligan crewed one of these)

     That's an awful lot of guns.  In fact, although not every regiment would be fully up to strength with guns out of action for maintenance or repairs, at 24 guns per regiment that's nearly 800 guns.  Art?

     This is a shot near the beginning of "A Bridge Too Far", and the only film I have seen that recreates an British (and Commonwealth) artillery barrage with any degree of realism.  It's called a "creeping" barrage because it moves forward at a set pace, allowing the armies of Perfidious Albion to advance behind it, and it's the kind of thing that Ol' Geo and his gunner pals would be firing, though they'd have added airburst shrapnel as well.  It is terrifying to watch, and much much worse to be under, and it typifies what Ol' Geo warned about in his Introduction.
     My, that was grim!  Let us now move onto something radically different in tone and content - 

Vietnamese Cooking
It being Degsy's birthday, the clan all assembled in Northenden, for a meal at Mi & Pho, which describes itself as a cafe, though a restaurant would be nearer the truth.  Oh, I paid for the meal by force of will, though still with money, as I am now a permanent employee at the Dark Tower and I'd forgotten to get Degsy anything.
     Moving swiftly on to avoid conscience pangs, I shall show you the interior.  Art?

     There is a small room in the back.  As you can see, it's not large and it's best to book ahead or you are likely to be disappointed.  Bring on the shots of starters!

     There you see Salt And Pepper Ribs, which Degsy always gets, Salt And Pepper Chicken, which Darling Daughter always gets, and Tom's Veggie Spring Rolls with tamarind dipping sauce.  Next!

     Salt and Pepper Prawns, times two.  I even had some Mam Nuoc (fish sauce) on mine, just so I could say I did.  Very, very fishy.  Next!

     That's Degsy with Pork Belly and Rice, DD and Tom with Special Noodles with Beef, and me with Bun Sai Gon with Duck and that's Wonder Wifey with the same, except chicken.

     The remains.  Just to be clear, I've finished mine and Tom's, as he couldn't end it (lightweight!) and wasn't taking the remains home for tomorrow's breakfast, as DD did.
     I don't think any of us are going to be interested in tea, not until 22:30 at the very earliest.  Conrad even did his constitutional into Royton in order to help his digestion, which has helped a little.

Hello Moscow!
Now, I was going to carry on here with a little gentle mockery directed at the Ruffians and their aged aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, but instead I have decided to sugar the pill and instead mention how brave and gallant the Sinister soldiers of the Brest-Litovsk garrison were back in the Second Unpleasantness.
     BL was where the Teutons of the First Unpleasantness had negotiated imposed swingeing peace terms on the Bolsheviks.  It was a strategic border fortress that the Teutons anticipated taking on the first day.

No, that is not water damage

     Despite the element of surprise, and an annihilating opening artillery barrage, the Teutons were still fighting against organised defenders on the 29th of June, and it took two bombing raids by the Luftwaffe on this last position to force it's surrender.  It wasn't a quick victory for the Teutons, nor was it cheap, and the General in charge had to explain what was what in an after-action report that showed how bloody-minded and stubborn the Sinister defenders had been*.
     After that, there is graffiti evidence that individual Sinister soldiers were still skulking around in tunnels and hidey-holes within the fortress, having to be hunted down with the last such individual being captured on the 23rd of July - a month after the assault began.  Again, these were soldiers with absolutely no hope of escape or survival, yet who continued to stay alive, just to annoy the Teutons.

CAUTION!  Russia is easy to get into, extraordinarily hard to get out of
(Napoleon discovered this, too)

     Also, vodka.  Another good thing to come out of Ruffia as it's the only spirit I like, and you can use it to clean metal.
     There you go, I think we've mended bridges with any readers who live on the other side of the Bug River**.  Of course, said bridges may get blown up or knocked down tomorrow ...

Finally -
Okay, I am now 21 minutes into "Redcon-1" the recent zombie movie, and they are making a couple of mistakes from Your Humble Scribe's point of view.
     I presume in this alternative universe nobody has ever heard of either zombies nor "Night Of The Living Dead"?  Because they are walking into a block of flats with very little room to manoeuvre, and are currently getting rather swamped.  Very nice stunt work with knives, axes and sledgehammers, though.  Oh, and having your whole itinerary on a single tablet?  Not very clever, chaps.  Still, I suppose from tension comes drama.

Nor do you have infinite ammo

*  At this point, we are cheering the Ruffians.
**  Pronounced more like "Book" than "Bug"

Thanks, Brain

I Have Remarked Before -
I know my brain works, because here I am typing this, and it works well enough that I can manage complicated, bitty, constantly-changing input onto our staff database in the office, and interpret what confused people who think maximizing and minimizing a window is a complicated technical operation are trying to explain.
     That said, exactly how it works is another question.
     Case in point: Alcibiades.  Art?

Al with mum and dad
(Perhaps)

     That's the only picture I could find without naked people, thus it may be a little ambiguous, yet still SFW.
     His name popped into my septic stew (or strew) of a mind as I came back from a trip to the bathroom in the small hours.
     "Alcibiades; great, thanks very much brain.  Really.  No, I'm not going to go look him up at 04:10."
     At first I thought he might be something associated with medicine, like Asclepius.  In fact I checked that I hadn't already posted anything about him already in BOOJUM! as I know you wouldn't like repetition.

Asclepius, Greek god of medicine

     I hadn't.  So, my Collins Concise reports that he was an Athenian statesman and soldier, around between 450 B.C. and 404 B.C. during the Peloponnesian War.  He defected to Sparta, yet came back to Athens and helped them win two major battles against the Spartans.
     Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian War" is a work I dust off and read every few years, so I will have read about Ol' Al there.  The question is, why did his name come up on a cold dark morning in September?
     I say, motley, let's go play lawn darts!  And no, you won't be the target, promise.

Per Ardua Ad Astra
"Through hardship to the stars" if your Latin isn't up to it, and the motto of the Brylcreem Boys a.k.a. the R.A.F.
     Of which only the last two words are relevant at all, I just thought I'd throw it in there and try to seem impressive.
     One of the things that we like to ponder here on the blog is astronomy, for who cannot fail to be interested in strange stars and distant planets?  Or distant stars and strange planets, if you want to ring the changes on that.  Every so often research throws up a result that causes astronomers to shake their heads and rethink theories from the bottom up, and - Art?

Gas giant plus parent star

     Clever astronomers have found a gas giant, GJ3512b, about half the mass of Jupiter, orbiting a very small, dim star - an M-type red dwarf, when current theories say the gas giant ought not to exist at all.  It's disproportionately huge compared to the parent star, at least several dozens of times larger than current astronomical models predict.  Not only that, it whizzes around said star closer then Mercury is to our Sun.
     This means even cleverer astronomers are going to have to come up with another theory of how planets come to be.  Science: self-correcting shizzle!
     Phil Plait would be proud of me.

Phil, astronomer
(Also not-so-closeted sci-fi nerd)

"Devil Red" By Joe R. Lansdale
Got to put the "R" in there or Ol' Joey might get annoyed.  Just finished this, and the most hilarious bit is a running gag about Leonard choosing to wear a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat, to the amazement, derision and outright disgust of his best friend Hap (and most everybody else).  Leonard, you see, being a cultured chap, is a big fan of Sherlock Holmes.  Hap, on the other hand, is big on Westerns.  They do not see eye to eye about that hat.  Not at all.

My edition

     Don't get upset if I spoil things for you by saying there are no water towers featured in the novel.  Not a one.
     Anyway, I notice that the index of Hap and Leonard novels on the inner page goes straight to "Honky Tonk Samurai" after "Devil Red", so I may move right on to order that and omit the horribly expensive trio of novellas I've mentioned before, in the hope that nothing important happens in them*.

     Excuse me, I've got to go turn the oven on.  I have a remaindered pie to heat up and eat up.  Back shortly!

Finally -
Not sure what kind of schedule the blog will be maintaining tomorrow, as all occupants of The Mansion are heading south to meet up with Darling Daughter and Tom The Cleanly-Shaven (to ensure a better gas-mask fit), and are hieing hence to the very excellent Mi & Pho restaurant, there to dine on Vietnamese cooking.  Not only is their stuff excellent, they serve boatloads of it and DD has had to ask for a doggie bag in the past.  Art?

They do gluten-free, too

     We came to know about this place as Tom visited quite frequently with his work chums.  The reason we go tomorrow is in celebration of Degsy's birthday, and he's been warned not to pay for anything.
     So, there may only be one post tomorrow, or if your Humble Scribe isn't sleeping off an enormous meal, perhaps the usual two.  We shall see!  Whatever occurs, it will have all the usual quality, which is a wildly ambiguous statement and entirely par for the course.

I'm going to call a halt here as I need to go put that pie in the oven and prep some potatoes, but we're only about 30 words off the Compositional Ton, so you've got nothing to complain about.


* "Nothing important that is mentioned in the subsequent novels" is what I meant.  Of course I expect lots of important things to happen.