How Positively Vertiginous

No!  Nothing Rude, You Dirty-Minded Rascals
This word popped into my head this morning as I went to release Edna from durance vile in the kitchen; which is to say, I had finished all my toast and there was no prospect of hanging around hopefully for stray bits, so she was whimpering at the door in order to get out.  Shallow, Edna, very shallow.
     "Thank you, brain," I muttered to myself.  Then: "Is it even a real word?"
     It certainly is.  My Collins Concise defines it as "Vertiginous: of, or causing vertigo"  Art?

Definitely vertiginous.  Not to mention dangerous

     That picture wasn't chosen by accident, as it's set in the Asiago Plateau of Italy, a region we last encountered when going over the deeds of the 23rd Division.  You recall they'd been sent from the level brown wastes of Flanders in late 1917 to this relatively unspoiled corner of Italy, which was mountainous where it wasn't hilly, and all wooded.
     Now, the Italian military engineers were hot stuff, and they came up with a method of sending supplies up to near the front lines in a straight line, rather than having to traverse a much longer route following the roads.  Art?

Gentlemen, say hello to the "Teleferica"

     It wasn't a new method, it just involved daredevil digging on the slopes of mountains, to be used for the movement of supplies, and I think we have another illustration -

Excuse the stock over-writing

     The narrator of the 23rd's history, however, says that it wasn't unknown to see Italian soldiers hitching a ride on the teleferica, because it saved all that marching; though there was always a risk of being stranded over some vertiginous drop when the teleferica came to a sudden halt.  I think that anecdote alone disproves any slurs about the bravery of Italian soldiers.
     So, that may have been the fruitful source of the adjective.  Or not -

Farewell To Lord Peter
After a fashion.  What I mean is that I've finished the Lord Peter Wimsey Complete Short Stories, and had only already read a handful, so a worthy purchase.  Also, in "The Incredible Elopement Of Lord Peter Wimsey", the tale is set in a remote part of the Basque country, which is pretty mountainous in it's own right.  Art?

I bet you were expecting the lingerie instead, weren't you?

     So this may be where the Word For Today came from.
     Or not.  Anyway, as with many literary works written over 80 years ago, there are some references that would have been obvious then but which are obscure now.  For example, in "In The Teeth Of The Evidence" we hear mention of the "Rouse and Furnace" cases, which Your Humble Scribe had never heard of.
     They were a pair of murders back in the Thirties, where the killer tried to use fire to destroy the body and prevent detection of a murder having been committed.  In the case of Rouse, his payments to support all the illegitimate offspring he sired were so burdensome he decided to fake his own death; he killed a person unknown, put them in his own car and set it alight.

The scene of the crime

     I haven't read extensively about the case, so I'm not sure what tipped the police off that this was neither suicide or accident, but Mr. Rouse got collared the next day in London, and after his trial he got hung - no mucking about in those days.
     Ghastly but interesting, hmmm?  
     As for the aptly-named Furnace case - I think we'll leave that until later today.  Or even tomorrow, to heighten the sense of suspense.

     (Oh yes, the motley.  It's off on a healthy walk in the park with a packed lunch and a thermos of cocoa)*.

More Talk Of TANK
For yes, we are back onto the topic of the Jagdtiger, that semi-mobile steel pillbox of 70 tons that the Wehraboos all wet themselves about.  Let us set the tone with a picture.  Art?

With puny humans for scale

     There are a couple of occasions when it was deployed in an ambush position, and encountered Allied tanks and other vehicles at a considerable distance, and wrought enormous execution as a result, but it's combat record was actually pretty poor.  There are technical reasons for this: one being the enormous 128 mm gun, which was so heavy it had to be locked down, externally, whilst moving and then unlocked, by a crewman getting out and doing so, before action.  If you happened to just encounter the enemy by accident - then good luck, crewman on the outside looking in.

Someone shout "BANG!" and make him jump!

     The gun could only traverse 100 and thus to aim it the whole vehicle had to be slewed about, putting a lot of extra strain on the tracks and drive train, which risked immobilising the beast.  They also had a very low rate of fire as the rounds were so large that they had to be put into the breech in two separate parts, nor could they carry that many of them.
     As important as the technical problems were the doleful panzer crews allotted to man the Jagdtiger units, frequently being inexperienced and of low morale.  If they ran out of fuel or the beast broke down then they simply abandoned them, occasionally remembering to set them alight to avoid the Allies getting undamaged trophies.


     Like this one.  The starboard track is missing, as you can see, and some incredible optimist has uncoiled the towing cable and then given up when reality set in.
     So - once again, Bigger Is Not Always Better.

Enough of TANK - let us instead venture into lighter and frothier matters!

I Taste The Tea
Another new experience for Conrad's taste-buds.  Art?

You can never have too much tea

     I did have a go at translating the Cyrillic on the bottom of the packet, and got "Indigo" before realising that was already on the front in English.  And as to what flavour it might be, I sighed, anticipating a long struggle with Cyrillic, which I am not brilliant at - and O my, there's a little picture in the upper port "Blueberry and Blackcurrant".
     Not overall as fruity as the "Rainbow" brand, yet a nice morning cuppa.

     I know I didn't put "Finally -" as the title for that last, but it is the last for this afternoon and I just hope you can learn to forgive me.

Pip pip!


*  NON-POISONOUS cocoa.  Can't stand the stuff myself, ghastly chocolate concoction.