I Should Apologise -

BUT I'M NOT GOING TO!
     Heh.  
     Yes, this is about using a Shakespeare <hack spit> quote as a blog title, namely "Something Wicked This Way Comes".  As you should surely know by now - an honourable exception made for my work colleague Frances, who may be reading this for the first time, and who is probably wondering "Should I sit further away from him?" - Conrad cordially detests poetry, and considers himself lucky not to have needed to study Shakespeare's sonnets and rhymes for English A level, or Brain Explosion.

Only a special effect.  Do not worry.  Or read Shakespeare sonnets.

     I don't think I can milk any more content out of so slight a beginning, so we shall close this unusually short Intro right here.

Except for this bit.

How Absurd The Word
Of course about 50% of BOOJUM! concerns Your Humble Scribe whinging about crossword clues, because I AM PERFECTLY ENTITLED TO.  Seriously, how else do you think these people are going to get relevant feedback, but through the pages of an obscure online blog?
     Don't answer that.

I'm warning you.  DO NOT answer that.

     Okay, today we are considering the M.E.N.'s Codeword for yesteryon <flexes fingers> and O boy! is it a fruitful source of content*.  Conrad managed to guess correctly about the letter "A", hooray for me, though the success was tinged with a tad of What On Earth? because some letter combinations did not make sense.  One answer that was puzzling to begin with was "ALUMNI", because it's from South Canada.  Art?

There they are, the dirty curs.

     It's meaning is "Graduates of a higher education establishment such as an university", and it bothered me because I had the partial solution "A _ _ _ NI", which did not seem to fit anything.  That's ten minutes of my lunchtime I won't get back.
     Of course, on my way out of the Dark Tower, I did wonder about the etymology of "ALUMNI", as this is how my mind works ("works" as in "does things in an inexplicably weird way").  It comes from the Latin "Alere", meaning "To nourish" as in the sense of a baby getting milk from - and there we shall cease, remaining SFW.

Yeah, yeah; the charm wears off after thirteen years, pal.  Have you got a job yet?

This Will Make Sense On Facebook, Honestly
Let us take a look at that region which has been variously contested between Hungary and Romania for a couple of centuries.  Art?

Romanian - for the moment

     Yes, this is the far, fabled land of Transylvania, as immortalised in "Dracula".
Have You Ever Wondered
Why the Teutons of the nineteenth and twentieth century were such assiduously aggressive land-grabbers and people-skewerers?
     At last it can be told!  Conrad sees all, knows quite a bit and is happy to let you, gentle reader, into the swim of things.

The culprit

     Yes, by Jove Michael Gove.  First of all you have the lying, deceitful and contradictory title page, which states "Merry Stories and Funny Pictures".  One can imagine generation upon generation of Prussian children sitting down to read, expecting, as they might, merry stories with funny pictures.
     THEY COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG!
     WRONG!
     Take, for example, Harriet and the matches.  Be strong.

It almost makes me cry to tell
What foolish Harriet befell.
Mamma and Nurse went out one day
And left her all alone at play.
Now, on the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand;
And kind Mamma and Nurse had told her,
That, if she touched them, they would scold her.
But Harriet said: "Oh, what a pity!
For, when they burn, it is so pretty;
They crackle so, and spit, and flame:
Mamma, too, often does the same."

     Well now, what do you think happened?  By the law of Chekhov's Gun, she is of course disintegrated by fire.  Art?

How is this funny?  HOW!

      At this point the young reader is recoiling in horror, thinking "O my God!  The world is a terrible and wicked place and in order to make sense of it in future, I shall have to invade Russia!"
      This explains so much about modern Europe.

Speaking Of Which
Your Humble Scribe has just finished reading his Signed First Edition of "The Odin Mission", the first in a series of novels by James Holland, who is clearly out to take over the world, or at least the military history bit of it, alongside his brother Tom.
     The protagonist is Sergeant Jack Tanner, whom is a southron career soldier, if we can forgive him where he hails from.  The novel concerns the ill-fated campaign waged by Perfidious Albion in Norway, and is full of blood and thunder.  Art?

Mine is a signed first edition!

        He (Jack, not Jim.  Or Tom) isn't exactly a super-soldier, but he seems to have a knack for sniping and creating explosive devices.  Oh, and punching people.  There are several more novels in the series, so some of you out there are still human, because otherwise - Ooops!  No, sorry, that was "The Thing" documentary, wasn't it?  So some of you out there are buying these, which means Jim will continue writing them.  There**. 
     Did I mention that mine is a Signed First Edition?
More Of Matania
You remember, from yesteryon, the talented artist who got accreditation as an official war artist during the First Unpleasantness.  You DID read yesteryon's blog, didn't you?  Believe me, doing that is the only way your distant offspring are going to avoid either the uranium mines or the organ donation banks.
     Anyway, Art?

Going potty with paint

     You can tell this is before mid-1916 because the gunners don't have Brodie-pattern helmets, and is probably set during 1915 because those houses in the background are still relatively intact.  I think the gun is a 6", but remain open to correction.  The gunners haven't been at the rum ration: they are improvising with paint in order to break up the gun's outline.  You can see two other men with camouflage netting, which will be put up on poles to cover the gun and conceal it from aerial observation.
Finally -
I think we need to have some people being athletic, because this will all make sense - as much as anything here does - on Facebook.  Art!

Runners.

*  Yes, it is.  This is what we call a "Rhetorical question".  Now you know.
**  Conrad has spoken.