Cargo Go Cog

This Will Probably Be News To You
Unless you happen to specialise in Medieval shipbuilding, and I'm willing to bet not many of you are.  Earlier today I put a throw-away picture in here of a set of cogs and gears, in order to be able to bloviate on Facebook.  However, a phrase about "cogs" in relation to ships has always stuck in my mind, probably to do with Medieval European History when I was reading a relevant textbook.
     Anyway, there was indeed a variety of small merchant vessel known as a "Cog".  These were principally used in the Baltic, by the Hanseatic League amongst others, with their use spreading westwards over several centuries.  Art?

Be agog at cog

     They were round-hulled, with a single square sail, and had castles at both stern and bow, upon which one could mount weaponry if feeling particularly liverish; initially they didn't have a deck, which only arrived in the 13th century.  They could carry between 100 to 200 tons of cargo, which was an enormous amount by comparison with road haulage methods of the time, and they were quicker.  Art!

Assail of the sail

     Ships such as these were able to make it out of the Baltic and across the seas to Western Europe, creating a level of trade that grew constantly over time, until the cogs became obsolete - victims of their own success.
     Well, this isn't what I'd planned to lead with today, but hopefully all of us are better informed thanks to BOOJUM!'s didactic impulse.
     Motley, how many bits do you think a wind-up clock has, and shall we see by smashing one with a hammer?

Strike one!

Up The Rabbit Hole
For yes, we are back to "How To Cook That"'s forensic analysis of the very sketchy The Soul Publishing, the people behind all those fake 'life-hacks' on Youtube that don't work and which will merely result in you wasting money if you try to copy them - at best; some of these things are positively dangerous.
     Here an aside into what a different Youtube channel, First Media did.  Their video was "How to remove wine stains with beer".  

Before

    Ann tried their method.  It didn't work.

   Then one of their ex-producers said that they couldn't get it to work, either, so they just dampened another bit of carpet, filmed that and said it worked.

After

     First Media stated that they would put up different results to the original because they thought that was acceptable*.
     Back to TSP!  They operate what is known as a "Content Farm" on Cyprus that churns out videos by the thousand on Youtube, all well-produced, well-shot, well-edited, and all complete drivel.  Dave Reardon got involved because they made a few test videos about political issue; as he put it, a very small number when compared with their normal metrics.  Almost as if they were experimenting with the media and format ...

Proof.

     Lately, TSP has admitted that they got a few things wrong, possibly because their content is now coming under scrutiny and they needed a bit of damage-limitation.  They remain one of the biggest content-creators in the world, regardless of what they put out, so Dave reached out to an old friend who runs a cyber-security business in Silicon Valley, and asked if we (you, me and the Western world, plus Mauretania) ought to be concerned, lest they move into murkier business practices?
     "Cause for alterness," clarified his friend.
     So -  if YOU have ever watched one of these videos, you are DIRECTLY BRINGING ABOUT THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILISATION!!
     Just so you know.

You!  You did this!

     Blimey.  Time for something a little less real-world and wicked.

I Know - "Detroit's Abandoned Jewel"
This was a featured page over on the BBC's website, and it struck a chord as I've seen the building in a long series of Creepy Abandoned Buildings listed on some clickbait site ages ago.  Art?

Back in it's heyday

     This place opened in 1913 and was a bustling hub of industry, commerce and travel up until the late Eighties, by which time poverty, riots, an exodus of population, car manufacturers going bust and lack of bran in wholemeal bread caused the station to close down.  Art?

Stark and dark

     It looks forbiddingly grim, which is why it was on that clickbait list I mentioned.
     Somewhat unexpectedly, it has recently been bought up by the Ford motor company, who are looking to renovate it, which is going to be a lengthy - and expensive! - process.  Still, if and when it comes to fruition, a splendid old building will not have been replaced by some hideous concrete barnacle.

Oh, And By The Way -
This will all make sense once it gets posted on Facebook, honestly.   Art?

Quite

"An Englishman At War" By Stanley Christopherson
I did warn you that you'd be getting feedback about this edited version of his diaries.  
     Okay, at this point Stanley's regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, are still a horsed cavalry unit, which is fair enough as this is what they were at the outbreak of war.  In fact they had barely changed since the First Unpleasantness; a lot of the officers were landed gentry who were independently wealthy and who 'rode to hounds'.  In fact there were three Masters Of Hounds amongst the officers and the Colonel in charge was Lord Yarborough.

First Unpleasantness iteration, but not a lot different

     After travelling across France in early 1940, the SRY ended up in Palestine, performing colonial police duties, in a throwback to their earlier version as in the picture above.  They were closer in comparison than they liked; as Stanley bemoaned, all the regiment's Bren guns had been taken from them and given to the infantry, and in their place came ancient Hotchkiss guns that had equipped their fathers in the First Unpleasantness.  A real step backward.  Art?

State of the art.  In 1914

     And with that, we are done!


*  Stretching the elastic limit of this definition a bit, aren't we, boys?