My Gaster Was Flabbed

Yes, We Are Talking About A Crossword Solution
"FLABBERGASTED", meaning to utterly amaze and astonish.  Conrad, of course, couldn't just leave it at that, and wanted to know where the word came from.
     Nowhere.
     That is, it emerged in the 18th Century, but neither my Collins Concise, nor Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable nor even the internet can suggest the origin of this word.  If you are a lexicographer who specialises in the Age of Reason and have an insight, please leave it in the Comments section.

An example using cute kitties
(anything to drive traffic)

     Here I find myself confounded by my laptop's inability to recognise any photograph taken after the 17th inst., since otherwise I could flabbergast you with a picture of my nice, neat, new haircut.  The old hedge was getting quite straggly and expansive, so it was off to Peppi's this afternoon, the hairdressers I have been using for Lo! these past 22 years*.
     Motley?  Come out of hiding, these shears are for pruning some of your branches.  Hairs!  I meant hairs.

"Panzer Ace" By Richard Von Rosen
This is one of the haul I got from The Works in the Dark Tower's retail section, and if Art can put down his bowl of coal -

Top starboard

     It's an interesting tale.  He first takes part in Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941, when his troop of tanks all get knocked out trying to seize a bridge behind enemy lines; he and some other crewmen managed to escape and hide, taking days to get back to their own lines.  Then, in August, his tank exceeds the structural loading on a Ruffian bridge, it falls into the gulley below and he injures his left hand, badly.  This takes him out of the fighting until the summer of 1943, when he commands a Tiger tank in the battle of Kursk.  On the 11th July he is seriously injured when a large-calibre Ruffian shell hits his Tiger and dismounts the main gun, crushing his right arm.  Once again - out of action until June 1944, when he goes to Normandy post-6th June, which is another story.  Perhaps later on.
     What's striking is that his injuries prevent him from getting involved in the meat-grinder battles of attrition on the Eastern Front, so getting seriously whacked about actually worked out well for him.

The two faces of the Wehrmacht: mechanised and animal.
(Note the unditching log on the Tiger's side, used for when it got bogged down)

Fortunino - He's My Hero!
Or at least an artist I hold in some regard.  For yes, we are back to the martial stipplings of Mister Matania, who was an officially accredited war artist for Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness.  A lot of his work was for "The Sphere" and was in various shades of grey; he only occasionally had stuff presented in colour.  Anyway, enough waffle, on with a randomly-selected picture.  Art?

"Goodbye Old Man"

     Here you see one of the unsung heroes of all armies on the Western Front: the horse.  Although the Allies gradually increased their mechanised transport over time, the horse was the prime mover for most transport uses.  As evinced in "Four Years On The Western Front", horses were not mere four-footed drones: they had personalities and drivers could get very attached to them, which made for some heartbreak if their charges were killed, as above.  In "Defiance" a retreating British artillery brigade gets away in good shape over several days-worth of travel, because their colonel takes care to have water and oats waiting for their horses at every stop.
     Next!

10 Ways Science Fiction Predicted The Future
Ah, yes, and in this entry we have The Internet.  Teh Interwebz are so intertwined with current society that it's hard to imagine a world where one cannot instantly Google the answer to a pub quiz question, yet once upon a time this was so.  Until -


     William Gibson's "Neuromancer", which is one of the most influential sci-ci novels of the past 40 years.  It came out in 1984 and featured WWW, computer hackers, virtual reality and a world dominated by gigantic zaibatsu corporations.  Er - that last one was a bit of a bust after 2008 and the global recession.  But - we still have the internet.
Thank You, Brain
As ever, Conrad's mind continues to be a source of blog content as random words and phrases keep on popping up there.  Today, as I was idly toasting some bread, it was "Batticaloa".
     This, it turns out, is a major city in Sri Lanka (which used to be Ceylon), about half-way along the eastern seaboard.  In times past it was the Sri Lankan capital, and remains an important commercial centre.  Art?

Bits of Batti

     The question is, why did this Asian city pop up in my head?
     There may be a connection with SIR Arthur C. Clarke, since I've seen his "2001: A Space Odyssey" title on that list of 51 sci-fi novels to read before you die, and as is well-known, Ol' Art left the cold, wet, grey shores of This Sceptred Isle to go live in Sri Lanka.  Where did he reside once he got there?  <Googles and thanks William Gibson> ah, Unawatuna and Colombo.  O well, it was a thought.

Finally -
I only need a hundred words and then I can go get some lunch, walk Edna and plot to take over the world in a little more detail: a list that amounts to "1) Surprise everyone 2)Then take over" needs a bit of padding-out.  I do have a long list of people who are going to the uranium mines (if I'm feeling merciful) or the organ banks (for when I got out of bed on the wrong side), so Alan Carr and Russell Brand had better watch themselves.  I'll allow Graham Norton a pass as he looks much better in a beard and I quite enjoyed his interview with Elton John.

And with that, we are done!

*  You did know I am a creature of habit?