When "Stick-In-The-Mud" Is A Good Thing

Generally, This Phrase Is An Insult
It implies you are mentally static, unable to either adapt or evolve, cannot move forward and are at best a fuddy-duddy, if not positively antediluvian.
     However - and you knew that was coming, didn't you? - in some situations being a stick-in-the-mud is not only acceptable, it is relied upon.
     I refer - obviously! - to the Kedge Anchor, that staple secondary anchor as found aboard yachts.  Art?

A Kedge in action

     Don't complain about our abstruse subject matter here at BOOJUM! because one day it may save your life.
     A kedge anchor is smaller, lighter and both easier and quicker to deploy than a yacht's main anchor, given partly that it's length is composed mainly of fibre cable, with only a short length of chain.  They are usually kept close to hand, ready for rapid use.
     So what use can be made of this secondary anchor?
     I thought you'd never ask!
     For one thing, if you're only going to be on station for a short while, and sea conditions are mild, then you'd be a fool not to use the kedge instead of the main anchor.  Quicker to deploy and recover, see.
     Secondly, if there is foul weather afoot, a kedge can help secure your hull.  Art?

Thus

     The main anchor, when in place, might very well hold your ship in one location - approximately - but won't stop it gyrating around at the mercy of wind and tide: you might get blown round in a complete circle, to the peril of yourself and any other nearby moored vessels.  If a kedge anchor is added, as per above, hacked ruthlessly into the coral reef/ocean floor/whales stomach, then your hull will wobble around only very slightly, and that's it; upright position maintained, bottom of ocean not encountered, everyone gets to go home.
     So there we have it, the humble yet necessary kedge anchor, and you're welcome.

A kedge

Back To BookBub
I noticed earlier this afternoon that BB has now imported a warning dialogue box over what, previously, you could view without having to log in.  

Conrad, out of spiteful perversity, is not going to log in or register and will instead attempt to read what's blurred and indistinct behind a fixed dialogue window.  Ha!
     Thus we have -

How to Strangle Cats The Robert Heinlein Way!

     This is all about some dude who gets raised by Martians, on Mars, and who then comes back to Earth and all the cultural dissonance that occurs thuswise, with emphasis on religion and water and a bit of cannibalism, too, from what I could make out.  Ol' Bob said he wrote it to make people think, not believe, as he definitely didn't promote the novel's religion himself - which hasn't stopped other folks from taking the concept and running with it wholeheartedly.  One presumes that the Mars of this novel is just the teensiest bit different from that pitched in Andy Weir's "The Martian".
     Oh, for the record: I have not read this, and, despite liking a lot of Ol' Bob's stuff, I don't think I'm going to.
     And  not to mention -

Another nope

    A lot of chicanery on Mars, seven hundred years hence.  Lots of intrigue and backstabbery. Revolution in the air.  Politics.  And - a third version of Mars? Not to my taste.  Next!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch -

Because "Kedge" and "Butter" go together so well!

"Sacerdotal"
Yet another of those words that pop up in my head.  I mean, where else do you think "kedge" came from?  Conrad does not possess a yacht; no, it suddenly jumped up and said "Hello!" as I ambled to the bathroom in the small hours.
     Today's Dredged From The Depths word hopped into my consciousness on Wednesday at work, so I sighed, rolled my eyes and wrote it down.
     What does it mean?  "To do with the assignment of powers or functions to priests."  The root is of course Latin, "Sacer" for sacred.

Two for the price of one

     Again, it's a mystery why Sacerdotal so desperately wanted to make my acquaintance.  Conrad steers clear of religion, does not know any priests and is not reading any religious texts.  The mind: it's a mysterious thing, especially when it's your own.
     Excuse me, I just have to check out today's free copy of the M.E.N. and see if they have a Cryptic Crossword therein.

     AND THEY DON'T!  YOU HAVE TO BUY ONE TO GET THE CROSSWORDS!

     <goes off muttering darkly about what will happen to the MEN staff when I take over>
More Of Matania
We've not had any of Fortunino's paintings for a while, have we?  So I think it's about time we put one up.  I should say that Ol' Fort was extremely diligent in terms of accuracy, and he had a warehouse full of uniforms and weapons and props in order to get things right.  Art?

"Taking the wounded aboard a British ambulance train"

     Here we see a horsed ambulance unloading the wounded on stretchers, which are then carried into the train, whose compartments will have been stripped down and altered so that multiple stretchers can be carried in each.  Note the lack of steel helmets and gas-mask cases, which implies this is early in the war, or a long long way behind the front lines.  The wounded here are the more severe cases who could not be treated at the Casualty Clearing Station or Regimental Aid Post, and are likely to end up at a major hospital in France, a very long way from the front, or sent to England for treatment.  The nurses might be the Queen Alexandra Royal Amy Nursing Corps, as I think the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry* dealt only with French and Belgian wounded.
     Ol' Fort couldn't depict ghastly wounds and buckets of blood, in case you were wondering, as the censor most certainly wouldn't have allowed same, even if it got past the editors.


Regimental Aid Post: First Unpleasantness Iteration
(Note folded stretchers to starboard)

    
The Rim Of Kim
Where, actually, "Rim" means "Border", and "Kim" is a reference to the Only Fat Man In North Korea.
     I was reading a list of questions and answers on Youtube's r/AskReddit, where the "Ask Me Anything" person was a Nork defector.  He explained that in the Nork heartland, the starving peasantry believe everything they're told about how they live in a Nork paradise and everything bad is because of the South Canadians.
     At the border, however ...

I should say "the border with South Korea"

     They have eyes, and they can see what a starving pithole Norkland is, and apparently 90% of Nork defectors come from border towns.  What a surprise!

And with that, we are done.  Done done done.


*  Yes really.