The Tale Of A Screw

Any Sniggering Will Be Dealt With SEVERELY!
Rinse your dirty minds out with hydrogen peroxide, you wretched curs.  How many times do I have to insist that BOOJUM! is perfectly SFW, if a little hard to make sense of occasionally sometimes rather a lot on Mondays.
     Before that, however, let me indulge in an aside.  Art?

Behold the biscuit

     These are Hazelnut, Coconut and Chocolate Biscuits, which I can only longingly look at and never partake of, all the more bitter because I baked them myself this afternoon.  I don't think I've made them before, as otherwise I'd remember having to blend my chopped hazelnuts into ground hazelnuts, and painstakingly chop up dark chocolate into miniscule bits.  The dough rendered up 32 biscuits, which is rather a lot, meaning that it was a process of baking in batches and cleaning baking trays between batches and guessing how much longer it would take with two trays in the oven instead of only one - ah!  the travails of baking.
     The Mansion's professional guinea pigs Wonder Wifey and Degsy have had a go at them and pronounced all is well, so I shall take them into the Dark Tower tomorrow.

The Dark Tower under construction

     Okay, I now want to introduce you to the concept of a "Screw Gun", which is - ARE YOU SNIGGERING?  ARE YOU! - a conventional piece of light artillery, where the barrel has been divided into two portions, which can be screwed together to complete assembly.  Art?

Thus

     Perfidious Albion did this with one of their mountain guns, so that it could be broken down into pieces that would not cause the mule carrying same to gaze heavenwards and expire*.
     The reason this comes up now is because of the 23rd Division in Italy during the First Unpleasantness, whose official history I have just completed.  These guys were as keen as mustard, tough Yorkshiremen and Tynesiders with an esprit de corps that carried them through the very worst of the fighting in Flanders and the utterly different campaign in Italy.
     Did I mention mustard?  Hot stuff?  Permit me an aside - 
     Along with many different types of tea The Mansion bought from Cut Price Barry's, Conrad also purchased a swathe of different types of hot sauce.  There was one that I thought needed restricting to my Sekrit Layr, as it - hang on, a picture would be easier.  Art?

     Yes well.  I thought it would reek to the heavens of garlic, so only to be used at home, and I used it at home this afternoon, dabbing a bit onto my boiled potatoes 
     HOLY HECK ALOFT AND ALIVE!
     It was damned hot stuff.  Not insurmountable, just very very surprising when all you're expecting was a big fat whiff of garlic.  You could tell it was hot, it made my nose run.
     Anyway, one of the 23rd Division's mortar officers takes a look at their Newton Six Inch Mortars, and decides that, to make them more mobile, one needs to simply cut them in two.
     Hmmmm.  Art?

A 6" with puny human crew for scale

     Once halved, one could add a screw mounting to each half, thus allowing it to be brought into action what ho.   The two halves were easier to carry than a whole <cue appropriate bad joke here>, and meant that you could stick each half on a mule and not kill the poor beast with an overload.  This meant that the Newtons could keep up with the advancing infantry and provide close support when needed, instead of being stuck on wagons miles in the rear - which is where the 23rd's artillery got stuck.
     I've not heard of this being done elsewhere, and using the search term "Newton screw mortar" brought up some - shall we say "interesting" - pictures yet nary a relevant one, so it's possible none exist.  Lest you think a Newton mortar bomb was not especially worrisome, allow Art-

Egad!

     That was a bit of a journey, wasn't it?  Okay motley, do you want to helm the speedboat or go on the waterskis?

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
As we do, occasionally.  You should know the rules by now - we over-generalise hideously, make no secret of hating certain genres, directors or actors, and make it up as we go along.  As I always say - if you want a proper film review, go listen to Mark Kermode**.
"Carnival Row": I think this would fall into that category of things that are Staggeringly Obvious.  A carnival makes a row?  Whatever next - "Music Festival Noisy"?  "Water Wet"? "Metal Hammer"? - actually strike that last one.
   You get my point, though, hopefully.  Art?

You want a carnival?  I'll give you a carnival ...

       Or - can they possibly mean a carnival that merely takes it's place in a line of carnivals?  Which would be a pretty dull basis for an entire film.
     Of course, I may be over-thinking this ...
"Angel Has Fallen": I think they're trying to make a pun here - HOW DARE THEY TRESPASS ON MY TERRITORY! - about fallen angels, which, given that this seems to be made to appeal to fans of the blood-and-thunder brigade, is a pious hope indeed.
     This 'Angel' character seems to be ineffably clumsy, the poor bloke, as this is the third outing of his where there's a lot of falling involved.  Perhaps he should see a doctor about his inner-ear problems?  (which are probably not helped by all the THUNDEROUS EXPLOSIONS that march across the screen).
                       

     Proof, I tell you! "Hustlers": This sounds spectacularly seedy.  A sleazy, sordid saga of sex and shopping, doubtless.  The poster's colour palette is a bit sombre, being all dark blues and purples, which should tell you that it's going to be an unpleasant experience, like a root canal extraction, which is my answer to those of you who allege a critic should see a film before making nasty noises about it.

Rustlers.  Close enough.

    
Finally -
We're actually over the Compositional Ton, I just wanted to add in a third item so that we're not disproportionately composed of Intro and waffle.  Then, of course, I have to work out what to put in.  Steve? (my memory).

What on earth?  (or water, for that matter)

     Before you ask, no, I have no idea what it is.  I Googled "Bizarre ships" and it came up trumps.  Because I am typing this at work, and we are tremendously busy, I can't spare the time to research it for you, at least for today.      Chin chin!

*  Hillaire Belloc reference for you there.
**  Did I mention he's a fan of The Comsat Angels?  Because he is.