A Marmite Moment

A Little Background Here
There is a peculiarly British foodstuff known as "Marmite", which is a concoction primarily composed of yeast extract, of a very pronounced savoury taste which you either love or hate: there is no middle ground.  Art?

Conrad loves

     The thing is, it's 10% salt so Your Humble Scribe has quite given up on his daily dose of a mugful that he dips some stale baguette into, not to mention the baguette, too.  Stale because if fresh it tends to disintegrate into the drink, before you ask.
     Well well what the heck, who got a load of goodies when Wonder Wifey went out shopping yesteryon (whilst I was stuck indoors working from home) but Conrad.  Art?

     Yes, for your information that's Marmite-flavoured peanut butter.  It needed a good stirring since it had been sat on a shelf so long there was a layer of peanut oil on top of it.  Then it was Time To Test!  Art?

     It definitely had a different flavour than normal peanut butter, being more akin to Dry Roasted, and is unequivocably (probably the only time you'll read that word today) savoury.  A definite hit.
     I say, motley, would you like some of these rice crackers?  Okay, there you - oops, did I give you a wasabi-coated peanut by mistake?

Meanwhile, Back At The River Pielloric
That's one of the great things about the mid-seventeenth century, there was practically no agreement on how to spell words, so you can make up your own spelling and be confident that nobody can challenge you, the glamfrous borrall-godgers.
     We have now reached Turn 19 of my wargame using Polemos rules and Baccus 1/300 scale miniatures for the soldiery; I think the windmill was Heroics and can't remember who did the resin buildings.  Art!

     The whole table.  The nearer of which does insist on sagging rather, creating a cliff effect across the field of battle.  

     The rather congested battlefield at the headwaters of the river, with the Royalist cavalry getting somewhat encircled and liable to be routed off the table next move.  Just visible upper starboard is Feilding's Regiment (and yes his name is spelled that way) retreating off whilst it still can, since - Art?

     - the Royalist wagon train has only three remaining wagons to exit the table.  You can also see the surviving Royalist cannon limbered up and making for safety, as under these rules artillery is very vulnerable to a cavalry over-run.
     Your Modest Artisan is also justifiably pleased at having the wagons only able to exit via the road, because this reflects the real-life problems of moving baggage around in this period.

Your Load On The Road
Once more we venture into the fascinating world of seventeenth-century roads!
     Okay, first thing is that there weren't any roadsigns on the roads at that time, so you needed to know both where you were and where you were going.
     Second thing is that the roads of the day were simply un-metalled tracks.  You would get cobbled streets in the cities and major towns, but not all of them and certainly not out in the countryside.  Art!

The M25 as it was in 1642

     So if it rained your journey inevitably took longer, thanks to the mud.  This is also one of the reasons why artillery and siege trains took so long to move around.  The "Royal Cannon" of this era weighed about three tons and required up to 100 draught animals to move, and you can imagine what a tortuous process this would be in wet weather.
     The upkeep of roads was the responsibility of the parish they ran through, and each parish had to nominate a Surveyor of Highways, who was heartily disliked as he could compel people to work on road repair for up to six days, and could also impound any building materials without paying for them.  One can imagine parish residents pretending to be out when he came a-knocking at their doors.

Nope

     Also, no canals as we know them existed before 1670.  Thus you can't use them, either.

Thank You, Brain
Ah, what it is to have a brain like a skip that has regular rubbish-quakes: you never know what's going to come to the surface.  Today we have -

This, thus

     Conrad distinctly recalls reading about this series in a newspaper at the time it was on, with one of the production crew explaining about their continual quest for authenticity.  She had been responsible for tracking down period-specific beer bottles for a scene in a pub, and, having gone to considerable time and trouble to find them, felt the director should have had them all facing to camera in acknowledgement of her devotion to duty.  Art?

Perhaps the very scene

     I should explain that it was a drama series about a Liverpudlian family from 1938 to the end of the Second Unpleasantness; nowadays it would be some fearful politically-correct drama about incest and murder and pulling the wings off flies*.  Your Humble Scribe has never seen an episode and, to be frank, is disinclined to ever bother.  Why would you want to when a second series of "The Umbrella Academy" is in the offing**?

Finally -
Well, those lads on the "We Have Ways -" podcast have come up with a way to celebrate the Chalke Valley History Festival during lockdown, by having guests on the show, and their latest guest was Professor Gary Sheffield.  Yes, really!  Art!

Gazza himself

     Conrad well remembers reading his "Forgotten Victory", which is an iconoclastic tour de force about the First Unpleasantness, and it has to be about 20 years old now.  Al quoted it as having "annoyed all the right people" when published; not I.  It triggered a now long-held interest in the First Unpleasantness that shows no signs of going away.



*  Shakespeare mentions this so I think I can get away with it, too.
**  I know, I know: people are strange