Norse Horse Morse

Well, A Code, Anyway
For Lo! are we not back onto discussing the lifestyle and games of the Vikings, who were probably as far as you can get from "Health and Safety" and still be on the same planet.  When they played sports, they played rough: exceedingly rough, to the point of killing people.   Which brings us to horse fights.  Anybody here present from the RSPCA had better move along smartly.  Art?

Summat like this

     Anyway, in a horse fight two stallions would be goaded to fight each other, with the owners of said horses putting some lady horses nearby, to ensure extra goading-ness applied.  According to that most enlightening website Hurstwic, trouble and fights amongst spectators were more frequent than not, and the whole thing carries a very seedy air about it.
     About that code.  Viking men were verrrrrry touchy about their good name, so much so that, were you rash enough to call one of them camp scamp or a hairy fairy, they were perfectly entitled under law to KILL YOU ON THE SPOT.  So using the Norwegian phrase for "I see you're having a gay old time" would best be avoided.

Someone had been very rude.

     You would probably need witnesses to the insult, however, as killing a defenceless person would immediately make you an outlaw, meaning you had no protection in law.  Indeed, apart from having all your property seized and being banished from all human contact, it was perfectly legal under 'Skoggangur' to kill an outlaw the moment you saw them.
     O motley, what do you think of the Viking's honour code?

Do Cyborgs Dream Of Mechanical Rams?
I don't know any cyborgs so I can't ask the question.  Anyway, this is my somewhat arch way of getting back into that bucket list of sci-fi books, because the next one is titled "Blade Runner" which as we all know is actually "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?"  Art?

That's a yes

     I have indeed read it, and enjoyed it, and would happily read it again, if only I knew where it was in my Book Mountain.  It deals with one of PKD's recurring themes, that of what it means to be human, and what happens when we create artificial beings that are practically identical to humans.  There's no ambiguity in the novel: central protagonist Rick Deckard is entirely human, though there is one plot twist that had me startled for a while, until it works itself out.  I won't say anything more in case you haven't read it yet.
     Next!

Nope

     From the Wiki description, this is about the last barbaric survivors of the human race stumbling across a planet that has been sufficiently terraformed that they can survive there unaided, except that it's already inhabited by a society of intelligent spiders, which is enough to give Your Humble Scribe the screaming wim-wams, as he is both a massive coward and terrified of spiders to boot.
     So, probably not, even if it did win an Arthur C. Clarke award.
     Next!

More Of Matania
Ah yes old Fortunato, who had the common sense to move to This Sceptred Isle from Italy, because who wants lots of sunshine and good cooking?  Allow me to put up another of his paintings from "The Sphere".  Art?

"In a British advanced observation post"

     The information that went with this one stated that it's set in 1916, and I would guess is between Spring of that year and June, as the men and officers present do not wear the Brodie pattern helmet - the "battle bowler" - as evinced by one soldier (looking rather browned off) having his cap with the flaps over the top.
     At lower starboard you can see an officer taking a peek at the Teuton lines with a periscope, for two reasons: one, he doesn't want to give away his (and the OP's) position, and two, he would rather not be shot dead or shelled into oblivion.
     The officers in the shattered house's first floor room are looking at the Teuton lines, and are connected to an artillery formation many miles to the rear.  The man closest to our viewpoint is operating what I would take to be a telephone set, as radios of this period were enormous and unwieldy, and he sports a bandage around his head.  He will be relaying instructions to the gunners about how to correct their fall of shot, which instruction he will be given by the officers with binoculars looking to the Teuton lines.  You can see one shell has exploded in the Teuton barbed wire, destroying a certain portion of it.  The artillery's purpose may be to indeed destroy the Teuton wire in preparation for a forthcoming attack, or they may be 'walking' their shells into the Teuton trenches.
     Being in a forward OP like this was dangerous work, as the Teutons would realise eventually that someone was deliberately directing shellfire, and would then look to see where they might be spying from.  In which case the shattered house would get a good dose of HE.

Ol' Fort

     Ol' Fort was able to produce realistic pictures of situations that would never have been able to be photographed; for the one above to have been taken by a photographer would mean him standing completely exposed and thus giving away the position, and he would be unlikely to survive the inevitable testy Teuton response.

Finally -
I thought I'd bring you up to speed on some of the traffic conditions currently being experienced in the centre of Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell (it's been really really wet of late).  There are roadworks at the top of Oldham Street where lanes have been coned off and barriers put up, all of which is adding ages to travel time.  Art?

     That's the view from the upper deck, and it took us about seven minutes to get half a mile from the bus stop, thanks to that third lane (as seen on the yellow traffic warning sign) being coned off.  All the traffic from that lane has to merge into the second one, which take ages and snarls things up big time.
     This is why Your Humble Scribe gets home late, cold, wet and in a distinctly unappreciative mood*.  


*  That last is pretty much permanent, though <more horrid truths courtesy Mister Hand>