I Am About -

To Set Out
 - for Pub Quiz beckons.  When I say "Set out", what I actually mean is "Paddle upstream", as I sit in my chair adjacent to the window and listen to the traffic squishing by.  "The cars hiss by my window," sang Jim Morrison, and, do you know what?  He's absolutely correct.
     I think it's appropriate that we go back and revisit the rest of that list of words to do with wet weather here in the Pond of Eden, which was begun earlier today at work.  So!
"Plothering": Very heavy rain falling vertically, thanks to a lack of accompanying wind, or so they hold it in the North-East.  Supposedly this word sounds like the rain itself.

Plovering.  Close enough

"Stoating": No, not rain so hard it feels as if rodents with sharp teeth were biting you.  "Stoat" is a Scottish dialect word for "Bounce", and implies that the rain is coming down hard enough to bounce back up again.  I do recall a line in "Para Handy Tales" when one character mentioning being able to "Stott like a tuppeny rubber ball", which I take it is another local variation.

Bouncing Ken Stott

"Raining Upwards": See "Stoating"
"Raining cats and dogs" and "Raining Stair Rods": Extremely heavy rain coming down vertically at speed and volume, making one feel as if small domestic animals were pelting every square inch of your body, or long metal appurtenances were similarly hitting you.

Alternate version: "Rainnwilsoning cats and dogs"

"Raining forks 'tiyunsdown'ards": I know, I felt the same thing when I read  it -WoE?*  This is what the benighted denizens of rural Lincolnshire use to describe rain so impactful and drenching that it seems as if you were being hit by pitchforks.

Lincolnshire, where they talk and think funny

     Whilst Conrad has never been impaled by giant spikey hay-tossing things, he does get the analogy.
     Okay, motley, let's put on our waterproofs and dance, dance, dance in the puddles!

Thrasybulus
Another one of those words that just pop into my brain when on the way back to bed at two-thirty seven ante meridian, after visiting the bathroom.
     I haven't posted about Ol' Thras before, and shall have to keep this item short and introductory, as he did quite a bit and achieved quite a lot.
     Okay, he comes to attention as a protester against the Spartan imposition of the "Thirty Tyrants" on Athens, when the latter loses the Peloponnesian War.

Ol' Thras

     Rather short-sightedly, as this chap had been a genuine war hero whilst fighting against Sparta, they exile him from Athens, which allows him considerable scope to make mischief.  Does he take advantage?  O boy does he!

The Peloponnesian War: horribly complicated

     Which details will have to wait for a later date.
     The big question, as ever, is - why on earth did his name pop up into my mind during the small hours?

And Whilst On About Antiquity -
I did mention "Rubicon" yesteryon, since it was a rather sneaky crossword clue, and then showed you a picture of same, before bowing out.
     We come back to the word today, since there is rather more associated with it than fish and reeds.  Okay, can we have a map of classical Italy?

There we go.  I think they mean "of".  Or maybe they're just od.

     Okay, back in the days of the Roman republic the rivers Rubicon in the east and Arno in the west marked the northern limit of Italy proper.  Above that were the provinces, which were ruled by governors who commanded the armed forces allocated to that province.  Were a governor recalled to Rome, at the end of his term or for other, less salubrious, reasons, he was NOT permitted to bring any of his troops across either the Rubicon or Arno.  Doing so was an automatic death sentence for the ex-governor and all his troops, so wetting your feet in the Rubicon was more than having a paddle.

Ol' Jules avoids getting his feet wet.

     Thus when Julius Caesar crossed it with an army at his back, it was do-or-die time, and, for better or worse, he did.
     NB that painting above?  Over-dramatizing wildly, the real thing is a lot less impressive, which I suppose is what the term "Poetic licence" was invented for.  Art?


It hardly needs a whole host of Buffaloes, Alligators and Weasels, does it?

This Will Make Sense On Facebook
If you don't mind, Art, can we have some morning goods?  Thank you so much!

Thus

The Stats Of Doom Are In The Room
Yes, we are returning to George Blackburn and "The Guns Of War", and he is once again totalling the statistics as the Allies prepare to assault the Reichswald; this is what James Holland calls "Big War", and what the unhappy Teutons on the receiving end called "Materialschlacht" - the war of material, where firepower and technology took the place of manpower.
     So, for the opening of Operation Veritable, 1,034 guns have been assembled, supplied by 633,160 shells, for the opening barrages. 

One of the big boys

     In addition to these pieces, 446 additional guns are going to fire on specific targets designated "Pepperpots", all the way up from medium machine-guns to 17 pounder anti-tank guns.  There were also 12 rocket "projectors", each mounting up to 32 rockets which would be fired in a ripple pattern.

Mister Vicker's slayer of thousands
(Note the late-war pattern British helmet)

     This appalling concentration of firepower had the desired effect; after it finished only a single Teuton battery was able to fire back, and it was instantly silenced.  Several mortars also survivedand fired back, only to be tracked by Mortar Location Radar and speedily sent to oblivion.  The majority of Teuton troops were taken prisoner as they quaked, broken, in their boots.
     We may come back to this, as it's fascinatingly grim stuff.

See Below -
Go on.
                          
                                              It'll all make sense on Facebook

Finally -
Your Humble Scribe has been listening to a lot of Death Cab For Cutie of late, as he has 5 of their albums, and pretty good stuff they are too, bar the maudlin acoustic guitar dirges (if they were electric guitar dirges that would be another matter).  The titles tend to blend into one, as I don't bother reading them whilst playing.
     So, the song "16 And Punk", as I heard it, conjured up an image of your archetype punk, misbehaving even more than usual.  Art?

The Clash, looking well 'ard

     Presumably drunk because they couldn't get any amphetamines.
     Well, yes, until I read the title, which is actually "60 And Punk", conjuring up images of people desperately trying to cling on to their long-dead youth.  Art?

Yeah, looking right at you, matey

     And with that, we are done!
*  "What On Earth!"