Gadsbudlikins!

You Know Conrad And BOOJUM!
We conscientiously maintain our SFW status here, so you may be surprised to know that today's title is in fact a swear.
     Having said that, it's not been in use for a couple of centuries, so nobody today can possibly be offended by it, except perhaps the FiveGees.  Art?

Dangerously advanced technology to the FiveGees.

     Anyway, the reason I was using such an obsolete swear word was to get in the mental frame of a seventeenth-century commander of soldiery, because we are going to get a status report on my wargame using the "Polemos" rules: The Battle Of Lower Splene.  And yes, I have changed the name for the third time, because i) I can and ii) they weren't very fussy back in 1642 about being consistent with spellings.
     Art!

     This is the overall picture, with the Royalists attacking from the bottom of the table and the Parliamentarians coming in from the top.  One persistent problem created by not having the units move out of March Column early on was having units too close together.  To show what I mean, let's have a close-up of the west side.  Art?

     Left of centre you can see a clash between the Roundhead trotters and the Royalist chargers, one base of each having recoiled.  There is a brigade of cavalry trying to wheel sufficiently to be able to charge, at middle right.  The rules say you cannot manoeuvre backwards, only forwards, and with three Royalist cavalry brigades stuck in a small space, being able to move is a problem.  Art - right flank, please!

     Less crowded over here.  The Royalists' significantly better Officers mean they have more Tempo points to use and can - usually - outflank or outpace their opponents.  I have discovered that the Charge is a bit useless as the units are too evenly matched, so instead we're seeing more Close Combat.  Art?  Centre!

     It's not going that well for Parliament on the wings, but they have given the Royalist infantry a good pounding in the centre.  The rules render any gunfire beyond Short Range as practically ineffective and the Cavalier cannon hasn't been fired because it can't see anything in range or across it's very limited arc of fire.  I mentioned spacing above, didn't I?  Well the Royalists have learned the hard way that if a brigade is too close behind a friendly one in front, they are both stuffed when the one in front has to retreat.  
     All in all, I think I'm getting the hang of the rules.  Zounds!

     I suppose I can explain away the mistakes and clumsiness of both sides because, er, it's 1642 and the very beginning of the English Civil Unpleasantness, so everyone is very inexperienced.

No, Jimi.  No, they are not.

     Motley, I'm going to set up a 1,500 watt bass speaker and I want you to stick your head in there whilst I play Motorhead.  Okay?

The Dangers Of Being A Bumbletuck: Part Two
Yesterday I related how OR, the poster, had dealt with a bully's harassment and motorised destruction of his mail box by substituting a concreted metal pipe set in a big concrete base.  Post 1 Mike's Car 0.

An artist's impression

     Mike's friend had accused the OR of being responsible for smashing up the car and he was going to sue, there would be lawyers involved, lots of money, cats and dogs living together, all that sort of thing.
     OR informed friend that destroying a mail box was a federal offence punishable by a fine of £155,000 per offence, or 3 years in jail per offence, and brought up the government website that proved same when Mike bravely came to check.  He never bothered the OR again.  Having a potential fine of £1.5 million will do that.
     However, karma still hadn't finished with Mike.  The college transferred him to another more distant one, because he had behaved like a bumbletuck.  Since he had no car and couldn't afford another, he had to catch the school bus, which he frequently missed.  Due to poor attendance, he was expelled.  With no qualifications (called a "GED" in South Canada-speak) he couldn't get a job and was reduced to living in his mother's trailer in a trailer park.  What goes around comes around, hmmm?

There's Mike, weeping into his cornflakes.

"Profundis" By Richard Cowper
 Conrad mentioned this in title only weeks back, when I was riffing and rolling on "De Profundis" (code for "I can't really remember what I was waffling on about and can't be bothered to check").  As I recall it's a mildly satirical sci-fi novel about the denizens of "HMS Profundis", a gigantic submarine cruising the depths after apocalyptic war has ended civilisation above the waves.  Art?

Eye-catching, what?

     The thing is, Your Humble Scribe cannot remember anything about it bar the end -SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

     - and if you read on, now, then it's entirely your fault.  Our hero, Tom, has his departure from the Profundis engineered by some dolphins, and he ends up ashore on the Canary Islands -
     - whose entirely unaffected population are celebrating the Festival Of The Winds, said atmospheric conditions being what kept all the fallout away, way back in the aftermath of The War.
     So there you go.  A slight but witty and amusing read, from what Conrad remembers.


If I Were To Say "Starburst" To You -
No doubt your wretched minds would immediately dart to the sweets which of old were known as "Opal Fruits", Conrad not being aware of any reason to change the name.  Art?

What's in a name?

     I mean, if the idea was that they contained insufficient fruity material to have "Fruit" in their name, how on Earth* is "Starburst" any better, given that they are entirely absent of nuclear fusion at ten thousand degrees Centigrade?
     Of course this isn't the "Starburst" I meant.  No, you see atop a pile of magazines at the entrance to my Sekrit Layr is an old, old edition of "Starburst" the magazine.  Art?

Not this one but you get the idea

     And, being me, and curious, I wondered if it was still in print.  I checked the date on the inner cover and it was from 1995.  Twenty five years gone - 
     - well, of course there is more to the story than that, and you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out more about the bursting of stars.

Finally -
You wouldn't hang around if you saw one of these approaching, would you?  Art!

Quiver with fear, puny Texas chainsaw-wielder!

     In fact it's an entirely innocuous "Chain Trencher", which - the clue is in the name - excavates trenches with it's loop of rough tough teeth.  Conrad can see a set-piece in something like "Pacific Rim XVIII", where one of these takes on a gaiju monster and turns it into chunks of calamari -
     And if that scene ever does make it to the cinema, I want royalties!

Pip pip!


*  Do you s - O you do.