Greek Pique

For Yes, We Are Back To Antiquity
And the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, where Sparta came to dominate Athens, with the helping hand of Persian money being involved.  We are commensurately back to the saga of Thrasybulus, that Greek general elected to command by his fellow soldiers, with the aim of re-establishing democracy in Athens.  It had been overthrown by a conspiracy of the rich and powerful, backed by Sparta, and looked to laugh mockingly at Ol' Thras, with his pocket army.
           

     Ol' Thras ensured that Alcibiades was recalled from his exile, as he was deemed to be quids-in with Tisssphernes, the Persian emperor.  The Persians, you see, were bankrolling the Spartans, and if Alcibidades were on the side of the Athenians, it was felt that his best mate Tiss would be less interested in the Spartans.
     Back to the pocket army.  Led by Ol' Thras, this ventured onto the borders of Athens, no more than 70 strong, which the oligarchs mocked - imagine being overthrown by a large buffet party!

Possibly what Our Hero's camp looked like.

     They were about to get a rude awakening.  However, since I have had one myself (for I am typing these very words at work) I am spitefully not going to continue with this item, and you will have to wait until tomorrow for more Thrilling Thrasybulus.
     Now, come on, motley, eating a Full English Breakfast against the clock isn't that hard, surely?

Welllllllllll

Unleashed In The East
Conrad stumbled across another strange sub-sub-culture over on Youtube earlier this week, entitled "Korean-English", where some hapless South Korean commandoes (cross-training in the UK?) were treated to ration packs that the soldiers of Perfidious Albion's mighty army consume on a daily basis. 

Dig in, chaps!

     They were impressed at the amount of stuff in a one-day rat-pack (as they are known), if a bit dubious about some of the foodstuffs involved and what they tasted like. That lad on the left is translating the Major's comments into Korean, much to the amusement of the Korean (who is pretty fluent in English anyway).     Not feeling complete, the valiant Youtubers decided that they would like to invert the situation and feed the doughty warriors of Perfidious Albion with South Korean rat-packs <insert North Korean rat-pack joke here>.  These were greeted with a great deal of appreciation by the soldiers, who enthused over both the taste and temperature of their meals - heated by a chemical reaction triggered by pouring hot water into the pouch of food.  Definitely preferred over their own rat-packs.      Mirror-like -

The Major enjoying his meal

     I'm going to leave this now, as it's an hour longer until my lunch and this is making me hungry.
Less A Strip, More A Gable End
This image came from Auntie Beeb, and depicts a Who Knows What.
     In fact, I know what, because I cleverly read the article, so I am better-informed than you are <gloats briefly>.  Okay, regardez vous:

     This is the French comic legend known as "Moebius", or Jean-Giraud, who is no longer with us.  This is supposedly because he is dead, though Conrad suspects some alien collectors became interested in his Wild And Crazy Visions, and can you disprove this?
     Anyway, the above is courtesy a pseudonymous Balinese artist, who values his privacy and - those aliens, don't you know.      I've got several volumes of collected Moebius strips - do you see what I - O you do - but haven't read any of them for years.  I wonder, ought I to ascend the ladder and dig them out of their storage space?

An example sample

Conrad's Mind And Memory: Frequently Operating In Tandem
Yet not always.  That would be boring, wouldn't it?  Imagine knowing precisely how your mind operates and never being surprised by what looms up out of the depths of your psyche - like Thrasybulus above.  His name popped up in my brain as I was coming back to bed from a bathroom trip.  Why?  No idea.
     Anyway, I did have a clever little rhyme drawn up that I was going to use on Facebook yesteryon, to hopefully entice folks to have a nosy into BOOJUM! except I completely forgot to use it, even after WRITING IT DOWN*.

Conrad, looking contrite.  Or he may just have stepped in something nasty.

     With that in mind, allow me to reproduce my doggerel here.  Since I wrote it, you are so going to get it:

"Terror in the skies

A host of butterflies.

Bunnies that hop,

And a great big shop."

     Hardly deathless prose yet it reflects the blog's content precisely.  Speaking of which -

From "Dielab" Back To "Skylab"
This was the "Terror In The Skies" that I mentioned yesteryon.
     To recap briefly, Skylab had lost it's heat-shield during the ascent to orbit, and the heat-shield had completely ripped-off one set of solar panels, with assorted debris from this event jamming the other solar panel, preventing it from opening and leaving the station grossly underpowered and heating up to dangerous levels.
     However, the prospective crew, and their compatriots at NASA, were not going to be defeated by any of this.  They looked sternly at each other, set their jaws, declared in manful tones that they " - were engineers!" and set to stitching.  Art?


     You can see the resplendent orange insulation sheet that the crew deployed via an instrument hatch, which immediately brought the temperature under control.  You can also see the other solar panel, which they went EVA to physically fix.     As a certain Doctor once said - "Human beings!  Quite my favourite species!"

Finally -
I only have four minutes to crank out about a hundred words to hit the Compositional Ton, and I don't think I can manage, quite, unless I churn out a load of gibberish**.
     Oh, actually we've gone over, thanks to my self-referential wibble <thinks>
     I know!

An Archer

     No, it doesn't come with a bow and arrows.  This is the self-propelled anti-tank gun Archer, mounting the frightening 17 pounder a/t gun.  You are actually looking at the front of the vehicle, since the gun pointed aft over the engine compartment.  This meant if it was lying in ambush, as above, it could be whizzed out of the danger zone quick smart, with no need to worry about reversing or doing a three-point-turn***.


*  This usually works.  As Death Cab For Cutie sing, "For if there is no document, how can we build a monument?"
**  Cries of "How do we tell the difference!" will be met with stony silence.
***  Which risks throwing a track and immobilising your steel steed.