Zinc And Sepia Boutique Karma!

But You Must Visit In Mufti
Sorry if that seems a bit random, because it is.  Art!

     As you can see, they are all solutions to that second Codeword, which I solved all by myself.  You'll just have to take my word for it because, this being the weekend edition of the MEN, the solutions are in the back of this section.  I didn't look <adopts insincere pose and tries hard to look honest>.
     Of course I was going to protest at the words I've used as the title - "ZINC" had me thrown because having a word end in "-NC" made me question "ACTOR" as being a correct solution.  Plus, how many people would know that "MUFTI" is a proper word?  It has two definitions; in the first, it refers to people who normally wear a uniform going around in civilian dress. 

Some of these people are in mufti

     And the second one is a Muslim legal expert qualified to give judgements about the Koran.  Neither of which are exactly in common usage, hmmmmm?
     Then it occurred to Your Humble Scribe - could one compose a story using all the words of that particular Codeword?  But of course one could - the trick would be to work them into something only a couple of hundred words long ...
    Food for thought!
    Motley, what do you think of this screenplay I wrote?  It's called "The Cult of the Dumb Gum Actor"?

Damn!  Beaten to it!

     Not bad: a 250 word Intro from five words.

Excuse me, I need to go put some laundry on.  O my rock and roll lifestyle!

Found It!
If you were reading the blog earlier AND YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN FOR ONLY THIS WILL SAVE YOUR DESCENDANTS FROM SLAVERY IN THE URANIUM MINES <ahem> then you'll recall me banging on about one of the the Second Unpleasantnesses lesser known conflicts, that being the British and Commonwealth invasion of Syria, which was controlled by Vichy rather than a Gaullist regime, and which maintained an air of hostile neutrality towards Perfidious Albion.  Art?

Tah-dah!

     It was at the front of the book cave, and just reachable if I stood tiptoe on a chair.  And it does cover Operation EXPORTER, in some detail, so I shall be re-reading it tonight.
     And then, Vulnavia, you will get to hear all about it, whether you desire same or not.
     I have also dug out Alan Moorehead's "Desert Trilogy", which has a fair few entries in it on the subject of Syria, and also checked out Alexander Clifford's "Three Against Rommel" since he was  good mate of Alan's and they frequently knocked about together.  There's only a few references in the index, so I imagine they were working separately.  Art?

Alan to port, Alex to starboard

     I wonder if it explains how they retain their caps at that jaunty angle without them falling off*?

This Will Make Sense On Facebook -
Honestly.
               

Oh Hubris!
Conrad is also making his way through the memoir "It Is Bliss Here", where Myles' South Canadian friend mentions, in a letter, the author Walter Millis, whom I'd never heard of.  He was a South Canadian journalist who wrote several books, none of which seem to have retained any popularity.  Myles' correspondent mentions "The Road To War America 1914 - 1917", which apparently blames everything on Perfidious Albion, and seems to endorse the isolationist stance that was very popular in South Canada until late 1941.  Art?

The tome in question

     Conrad, intriguingly, came across the author defending his work and thesis in a response to criticism, which was published in April 1941.  By his standards, isolationism and avoiding getting involved with the conflict in Europe was entirely reasonable and justifiable.
     Oops.  
     He may have abruptly changed his mind as of 07/12/1941.  In fact - Art?

     Quite what he made of Herr Schickelgruber declaring war on South Canada I cannot say, although I bet he was pretty annoyed.  I mean, you explicate your position with rationality and forethought, and some political nutter comes along and completely undermines you. Really!
     
     I realise I touched on Politics there, which is okay as the events are now almost 80 years old, so they count as history.  Besides, whose blog is it?

"The Wages Of Destruction" By Adam Tooze
I've nearly finished this work, with only 27 pages left to go, and we've now reached the chapter titled "Disintegration", where the Nazi economy is reeling by mid-1944, it's loss of Ukranian iron ore and Romanian petrol meaning industrial production can only continue for a year at most.  Art?

Oil installation at Ploesti

     As Adam points out, the Anglo-American air assault on industrial targets had, in 1943, instantly halted Albert Speer's improvement in production figures, and kept them from improving.  By mid-1944 the giant flying mallets were incrementally destroying the industries that supplied and supported the Wehrmacht on all fronts, especially when they targeted the railway system - I have heard James Holland remarking on how this was one of the most vital parts of the whole Nazi war machine.
     One thing that Adam does with quiet academic relish is to utterly destroy the propaganda that Goebbels did so much to cultivate about how mighty the Nazis state and it's military arm was; smoke and mirrors, Joey, smoke and mirrors!  Germany was resource-poor in everything save coal, and this came back to bite the collective Teuton buttocks most severely.  Indeed, it was a race to see which would implode first - the Nazi state or it's economy.
     I could go on, and may, but I shall draw to a close here.  I've been concentrating on this work above others because it's a bit like a Thomas Pynchon novel: long, complex - though without any song lyrics - and too complicated to put aside for any length of time, or you'll lose the plot.  Art!

Nikopol, 1943, with spoil heaps.  Sorry, no puny humans for scale.

     And my stomach is rumbling, so it's time to stop. 


*  Hairclips, rubber bands or glue.