Hot Stuff

Aaaaand Once Again -
We are faced with the problem of not knowing what on earth I intended to write last night, since I wasn't working from notes and didn't type anything but the title.  Is this about the Ass Kickin' Roast Garlic Sauce, which is zingingly hot and not just garlicky, as I found out to my surprise the first time I tried it?

More like tongue stompin' actually

     Or, is this another bid by the Mordor Tourist Board to try and push Mount Doom timeshares, in another desperate triumph of optimism over reality?

"A prime fixer-upper project"

     Then again, I was reading up extensively about the Wasp flamethrower of Second Unpleasantness vintage, this being another example of Perfidious Albion's love of terrifying flame weapons.  You can imagine the hapless Teuton stubble-hoppers seeing one of these things coming into view and, rolling their eyes, saying to each other "Now what?"

Oh.  That.

     Apparently that circus of cowboys and ne'er-do-wells, Popski's Private Army, were struck by the sudden need to reinforce their firepower*, and mounted the Wasp flame apparatus on a Jeep, which I think we can track down for you.  Art?

Flame gun under canvas mid-port

     This looks hideously dangerous at both ends.  If you were on the receiving end then there's not a lot you can do, as a Jeep can travel one heck of a lot faster than you can run; surrender? or find out what a rotisserie chicken feels like.  On the other hand, both driver and gunner are sitting in front of a fifty gallon drum of highly flammable thickened fuel, which is simply itching to either explode or burn, and one tracer round is all it takes.  Having created a giant petrol-bomb on wheels, Popski et al decided it was more trouble than it was worth, and one presumes it was only manned by crews who were on the naughty list.
     Perhaps that was it.

Some of Popski's scurvy crew

     Okay, motley, in keeping with this theme, shall we toast some crumpets over an open fire?

Extremely Dark Tourism
Conrad remembers reading Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich", including the bit where a convinced Nazi friend came to visit in early 1945, looking as if he'd been given a good slapping after being kicked repeatedly in the seat of the pants and having to drink a pint of castor oil
     "If you get an invitation to go visit a work site in southern Poland," said his friend, gratefully sipping a glass of strong spirits, "Do not go.  Not under any circumstances.  Come up with whatever excuse you have to, but do not go to Oswiecim."

Peer at Speer

     That's the Polish name for what Alan Bullock dubbed "Anus Mundi" and yes, it does mean what you think it does, since you would be more familiar with it by the Teuton appellation "Auschwitz".  Art?

     The horrid place is a major tourist destination, so perhaps the Barad-Dur Dungeons Tour (the only bits of the place left) isn't such a hopeless project after all.

Well now, here I am, typing and tapping away at lunchtime because I was, again, shockingly lax last night and didn't generate a line of prose.  Not a word.  This is because I'd spent altogether too long reading "Persepolis Rising" instead of buckling down to being witty and wordy.  Thus this may not get Published until I get home.  I hope this does not upset the loyal readers (both of them) who regularly log on and read from Blogger before I shout electronically from Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking Of Which -
All those novels in The Expanse series have grand and portentous names, of which only two strike any chords of recognition in Your Humble Scribe's mind - the very first one, "Leviathan Wakes" after the jolly large beasty Leviathan, and "Persepolis Rising", after the ancient Persian city of Persepolis.
     I think this is a nod to the intentions of the bad guys in this novel, Persepolis being an imperial complex where the Persian emperor used to receive all his grateful vassals and satraps, bringing tribute.  Art?

"Another fixer-upper opportunity"

     Not quite the heart of empire, but possibly the soul of it.  Also, according to Wiki, because I don't have my archaeology books to hand, it was only occupied seasonally rather than all-year round.  The emperor's spring palace, perhaps.  You will, of course, have noticed that the name is a Latinised version of Greek, "Perse-" meaning "Persian" and "Polis" meaning "City", but we knew that already, didn't we?
     Also FYI, the Shah of Iran, when he was still the SOI, threw a staggeringly lavish and party that redefined the word "expensive" at Persepolis, in celebration of something.  Boy, I bet that went down well with everyone, in the best possible way.  Art?

I don't think those are adoring masses at port

   
Finally -
When a 90-year old spinster can totally flatten a big bag of beef with mighty muscles.
     I see the BBC, that font of all that's fit to be writ, is (rather gloatingly, one feels) trilling about how "Downton Abbey" has bettered "Rambo: Last Blood" at the South Canadian box office.  I don't care enough to actually read the article, as I can't stand the Dog Buns genre - go Google "Upstairs Downstairs" and you'll read all about a previous iteration.  Art?

"A splendid fixer-upper opportunity with an ecclesiastical element"

     It just goes to show you how the South Canadians yearn for good old British governance even now, the pikers.  You see?  You see what you can't have because you got wild with the tea**?  Yeah, go watch "Downton Abbey" and mourn mopishly.

      And with that, we are done!



*  Do you see - O you do.
**  In Conrad's tea-snobby eyes, this is pretty close to a war crime.