This Sceptered, Yet Perfidious, Isle

I Had A Quick Cast Of The Eyes
 - over "A Passionate Prodigality" by Guy Chapman, as it is near to hand.  Ben returned it as he wouldn't have had time to complete it before finishing at Our Still Coyly Anonymous Employer, and I am curious about the exact description of something I may go into at a later date.  What struck me was Guy's telling of how a Teuton prisoner was treated immediately after capture, because - well, let me elaborate.  Art?

Stop smiling!  You're supposed to look all grim and truculent!
(And that "officer" looks as if he nicked his coat)

     This particular Teuton was large, sullen and slow, refusing to give anything away beyond his name, rank and individual number - which is all you were compelled to give in those days, nothing about blood group.  Even when yelled at in German by a British officer of Alsatian descent, this hulking brute only admitted he was an officer's batman and knew less than nothing about military plans or the state of his regiment.  Art?

Note Alsace and Lorraine

     These two provinces had been annexed when Prussia won the Franco-Prussian War, and the locals were not to be trusted, as they saw themselves as a whole lot more French than they did Prussian, frequently deserting at the drop of a hat-band, never mind a hat.
     Anyway, my point is that the Allies had Alsatian troops at their behest.  Guy relates that the Corps headquarters he was attached to were suspicious about the Poor Ignorant German, and thus put him into a prison cell with a camel.  Or, a "Camel", which was an Alsatian pretending to be a captured Teuton, and whom would subtly call forth everything that the recalcitrant Teuton knew.

An Alsatian

     This coincidentally echoes the practice of MI19 during the Second Unpleasantness, where they would stick a GermanPoW whose tongue was not loose enough in a cell with another prisoner.  Except the other prisoner was really working for the British, HAH! take that Schickelgruber, you wheelbarrow-wanging weasel!  Or they might be a perfectly genuine prisoner; it's just that their cell was bugged so everything that they discussed went straight to eager ears.  You see?  Perfidious.
     In both cases everyone realised it was Good Practice to interrogate or "debrief" their prisoners as soon as possible, whilst they were still off-balance and uncertain.  Which is what the motley looked like on a snowmobile this afternoon; I said grass was no substitute for the piste slopes.

Motleys: not naturally talented on snow

Real Life Being An Alternate Reality All By Itself, Really
Is there an expression where someone emerges from a rabbit hole?
     Yesterday Your Humble Scribe was having a listen to The Grateful Dead playing "Dark Star", which predates the John Carpenter film in case you were wondering.  TGD have completely passed me by as a band, much in the way Santana have, even The Desperate Bicycles*.  Art?

Live Dead.  Which it is.

     Now, you do not normally associate acid-rock bands out of California with the nascent freedom of countries long-suffering under the Sinister heel, but that is the case here.  Post 1991 and the dissolution of the Sinister Union, the Lithuanian national basketball team were gazing longingly at the 1992 Olympics, which they could not afford to attend <sad fave>, money being tight at the time.  Lo and behold, the Dead come to hear of this wicked injustice and agree to pay for the team to travel to Barcelona <bemused yet happy face>.  Art?

The chaps in question

     They did have to wear a tie-dye tee-shirt with a Grateful Dead design upon it, as a kind of public recompense, which look to fit in pretty well with the sunny and cosmopolitan city of Barca.  And you know what?  They didn't defeat the mighty South Canadian basketball team, but they did grind out a win against a team assembled from the rest of the Sinister Union <satisfied face>.
     Josef Stalin was unavailable for comment.

     Well, so far that's Perfidious Albion, the Sinister Union, South Canada, Lithuania and Germany.  Which nation are we going to annoy next?  <rolls dice> -
     Bhutan!  Okay, Booties, BOOJUM! has you in it's sights.  Prepare to be mildly discomfited, ha har!

What squalid urban dystopia is this?!

A Ship Lift, Just Not How You Expected It
And fie! upon those whose guilty, criminal eyes read that as "Shop  Lift".  Shame upon you.  Have you not been reading and taking in the deathless prose we inflict upon you each day**? 
     For Lo! are not back on enormous Lego builds?  Yes we are, that was a rhetorical question.  SIT BACK DOWN!  Really, some people have no commitment. Art?

I wanted a shot with a puny human for scale

     It took a team of people six months and 300,000 bricks to construct this monster, which is down as the largest unsupported ship ever built in Lego; Your Humble Scribe suspects that it's got a large void in the middle, whereas the supported version would have very thin walls and a lot of props and struts in the vast interior void - thought that's just my intelligent guesswork***.

Still under construction

     That above gives you some sense of scale that this thing comes in at.  It isn't clear if all those cardboard boxes are full, empty or are just used to keep the brick-geeks hidden from view of the cruel, unappreciative world.

Completed 3 months later!

     Conrad is not sure what comes after this.  It's not as if you can take it round to your mate's house to a chorus of approving "Ahhs!" is it?

Finally - 
As you may be aware if you've been reading the blog for ages, we have in the past paid a brief visit to some of the most distant and remote islands on the planet, amongst which were the Kerguelen Islands.  This archipelago belongs to France - as if anyone else would dispute their claim! - and although there is no native population, the M8s do mount a scientific staff there.  Art?

The bustling metropolitan cut-and-thrust of daily life on Kerguelen

     These islands are some of the most awkward places to get to on the globe.  Pretty obviously there's no road there, and there aren't any airfields, so anyone wanting to experience the "Isles of Desolation" as they are also known, has to travel there by ship.  It's a long journey.  Art?

The Middle Of Nowhere Welcomes Careful Sailors!

     So, my question is - how are the Kerguelen's population bearing up under the strain of strict isolation measures intended to keep them distant from other humans?



*  I'm not making these up.  John Peel played them.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+desperate+bicycles
     There's a Youtube link.
**  The answer to this had better be a long, loud "YES"
***  So doubtless correct in every detail.