An Eminently Sensible Fruit

This Came About Thanks To -
My merry morning meander to gainful paid employment in the Dark Tower, during which stroll I pass a couple of greengrocers or fruit and veg stalls, depending on how formal we are being.  I noticed a big cardboard box with the legend "Bananas" upon it, and my mind instantly wondered why we in the West pronounce anything unusual or askance as "Bananas".
                                         

     And do you know, there doesn't seem to be much of an explanation.  Certainly not on the interwebz, where the Urban Dictionary entry has expired and the Slang Dictionary has suspended their entry for legal reasons (?).  It may be due to the curved nature of this fruit, which can be taken as being "bent" - although this, in the Allotment of Eden at least, means "Criminal" rather than crazy. 
     As I said, the banana is an eminently sensible fruit; it has a dense protective cover that protects it from harm, it's only ripe when it's yellow otherwise it's a plantain, and it lacks any jaw-breaking seeds or pits or stones within it's body.
     I don't know if he was cashing in on this or blazing a trail, but back in the day when you could say "Woody Allen" without flinching, he did do a film with the same name.  Art?

Hmmmm.  No bendy yellow fruit in sight.

     Perhaps this is an allusion to the term "Banana Republic", which is fringing on Politics, or, in other words, waters we will not sail upon.
     Motley, got any nice ripe nectarines?

A Little Musical Critique
This title usually has people like Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon cringing and ducking for cover - not today, chaps, because we're taking aim at a tune my colleague Jason was merrily tootling away at.  It is by <hastily Googles> Bart Howard, and you can forgive some of the lyrics as it was composed in 1954 - you know, before Sputnik.
     So, let us focus the jaundiced yellow eyes of BOOJUM! upon "Fly Me To The Moon".

Just to be clear*.

"Fly me to the Moon,

Okay, this was an ambitious yet reasonably realistic request in 1954.  I think we'll let this one stand, if only to point out that you have to work for NASA and be very astronaut-y to manage this in real life.  The Ruffians can get in the queue.

And let me play among the stars.

NO!  Said very loudly.  There is no prospect of Hom. Sap. ever getting out amongst the stars, plural, let alone even Proxima Centauri, given the distances involved and the limitations of velocity and reaction mass.

THIS IS NOT REAL.

Let me know what Spring is like

On Jupiter and Mars"

<facepalm>  NO! Just as loud.  We are not aware that Jupiter has seasons, although I can tell you it would be toxic, freezing and crushing and you'd not last longer than a second there.  You could manage longer on Mars, maybe 30 seconds before you asphyxiated and froze into a human ice-cube.  "Spring" on either planet would most definitely not be romanic, no matter who croons about it.

No Santa Claus at this North Pole.

      That's quite enough of that <said with a lip-curling sneer>.

      Alright, you don't need to hide behind the sofa - no wargaming pictures today as I am typing this at work and didn't load any up yesteryon in preparation.  So you have a day off.  Make the most of it.
     Next!

All Hail The Mighty Baluchitherium!
Named, I believe, after the region of Baluchistan, over in the Indian subcontinent, and yet it sounds like the kind of thing Lewis Carroll would come up with.  This word popping up in my brain is explicable, for once: a couple of them featured in "Ice Age", the beginning of which I witnessed at Christmas, as I happened to be in the same room as it.  Art?

With puny human for scale

     You can see that it is indeed a mighty monster of a mammal, and there doesn't appear to be anything bigger in terms of mammals since then.  You don't often see an elephant looking quite humble and compact, do you?  Since it was a herbivore it must have gobbled one heck of a lot of greenery on a daily basis.
     Well, there you have (or had) the Baluchitherium, which is so extreme a beast that Lewis Carroll might well have invented it.  Did he take out a patent?

Forgotten And Resurrected By Accident
I refer, obviously - of course! - to an entry in Listy's "Forgotten Tanks and Guns", about a British beast called the "Alecto".  I only remembered about this peculiar object as I'd forgotten what the name of that hosepipe puncturing device was and typed in "Alecto" by mistake.  Of course it was "Antelco", which is close enough that I ought to be let off.
     They (Antelco, do keep up!) also do a double action hosepipe holer and chopper, which looks to be quite useful as a makeshift torture implement cigar cutter.  Art?

Draw a pair of eyes and Hay Pesto!  A monster.

     Where was I?
     Oh yes, the Alecto.  This was apparently based on the chassis of the Harry Hopkins tank.  Art?

The mighty Harry Hopkins, with puny humans for scale

     The HH was a singularly rubbish bit of kit; so bad, in fact, that the original order for 2,100 was cancelled when only 100 had been made, and none of them ever went to war, for which their potential crews can be grateful.
     Since they were lying around not being useful, some bright spark took the opportunity to remove the turret and stick a much bigger gun in the hull, hence the Alecto.  Art?

An Alecto

     This never fired a shot in anger, either, and there weren't many made.  It does have a nice low profile, however, which is probably the best thing to be said about it, and which cannot be said of BOOJUM!  I think we've already mentioned the ones that got gifted to the Royal Engineers (Who said "thanks" in a very sullen tone) and turned into bulldozers.  There's a joke in there somewhere - except I can't be bothered for -

     - we are done!


*  And to answer a very, very stupid question, Dear Swivel Eyed Loonwaffles, NO the Moon is not an artificial satellite.  Go stand in the corner until you stop being stupid**.
**  Yes, this may take a very long time.  I am very patient.