Instead: From A To Z

Note That We Are Using The BRITISH AND THUS CORRECT Pronunciation Of "Zed"
Thank you.  We shall also be avoiding, where possible, the use of Metric <hack spit> measurements in favour of Imperial ones.  In some cases this is unavoidable, e.g. "The 88 millimetre anti-aircraft gun", as none of you would have a clue what I meant if I referred to the "18 pounder anti-tank gun" -
     Sorry, where were we?
     O yes.  As the title states, today we cover two items that begin with the first and last letters of the Roman alphabet; sorry, not covering the Cyrillic one.

"This neglect made Dimya very, very angry"
(Here he is, fondly imagining that card is Conrad's neck)

      And because this is BOOJUM! the "A" in question is Arsenous Trioxide - NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!  yes yes yes, it begins with "Arse-" which is a British vulgarism for one's posterior.  Grow up, do.  Art?

I know what you're thinking: "What On Earth!  A medicine?"

     As2O3 is used commercially in treating wood as a preservative, in the manufacture of glass, and as a cure in anti-cancer chemotherapy.  Yes, really.  The injected dose has to be verrrrrrry carefully measured, mind, because you can send people into lethal convulsions with vomiting and diarrhea and haemorrhaging if you're not careful.  
     That's "A".  And for "Z" we shall have - 
     "Zokko".  What, did you think we were going to go for the hackneyed old "Zebu", or "Z For Zachariah"?  Art?
                  

     You are - damme, that's three 409's gone past in the space of 5 minutes, so much for the amended Covid schedules! - er - hang on - yes, you are all much too young to remember "Zokko", which was a children's television program that ran from 1968 to 1970, and which Conrad remembers watching on a Saturday morning.  Art?

Okay, it was the afternoon.  Have patience with me, it was 50 years ago.

     It was a kind of anthology of kid's bits and pieces, and Your Humble Scribe had a great deal of difficulty in explaining to fellow children at school exactly what it was.  This is also an example of how the internet has expanded, since I remember trying to look it up years ago and only finding a single picture.  Art?

And this was it.

     Also, I hate kippers.  Full of bones.  Just so you know.
     Motley, put this bucket over your head before I hit it with a hammer*.

A Little Musical Critique
This comes from Your Humble Scribe waiting for his buckwheat groats to cook this afternoon, a period of not doing a lot guaranteed to be filled with idle musings.  Or were they ponderings?  Anyway, that song title "Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter" popped up in my mind, by - and there I was stumped.  Saxon?  Not Judas Priest, yet someone in that vein.
     Lo and behold, what do we have here but - 

Ah, Iron Maiden.  I was close.

     One has to say that the daughter in that image is a little under-dressed, and if she were mine, there'd be no way Daughter was getting out of the house in that apparel.
     Anyway, I took umbrage at that title.  In this world of supposed sexual equality, what about inviting sons to this event, hmmmm?  "Bring Your Son To Armageddon" has a nice ring to it, and if any heavy metal band ever records same, Conrad wants royalties.
     Not only that, how family-friendly is this slaughter?  Do they have an age limit below which no female can attend?  Are there sufficient toilet facilities to cope with demand?  How intense is the security, do they have female staff and is there a cloakroom?  How reasonably-priced is their merchandise, and what percentage goes to the event organisers?
     And that's all before we even begin to look at the lyrics.  I can see we have a serious case for treatment here.  Art!

An iron maiden.  Guess what her favourite TV channel is?

Notable By It's Absence
As an example, Conrad remembers an intriguing little mention by Robert Heinlein in a novel of his, about "What's wrong with this painting?", which turned out to be that the colour red was missing from it.
     In the same way, I have only just noticed an omission in wartime pictures of the land of the Teutons during the Second Unpleasantness: no barrage balloons.     This will require a bit of an explanation.  Barrage balloons were de rigeur in Perfidious Albion during the Second Unpleasantness, from the start to the end of the war.  Allow me to illustrate.  Art?

Balloon antics

     The idea was that any unfriendly aircraft would have to fly above balloon level, since the cable that tethered them to the ground would cause severe damage to any aircraft flying into it, and the relatively thin cables were effectively invisible until it was too late to evade them.  If you see footage of the Allied navies when anchored, they always have barrage balloons floating above them like great gaseous sausages.  Art?

76 years ago today

     However, you *never* see the Teuton equivalent.  Check out pictures of Berlin, and their skies are entirely balloon-free, despite the city being a British Bomber-Magnet.  Conrad has only just realised this absence, and can only wonder at the reason.  The lack of a suitable material for balloons is possibly one, because the Teutons were chronically short of rubber before and during the Unpleasantness.
     I shall go away and do a bit of research on this one, gentle reader!
Finally -
One cannot finish typing anything today without acknowledging that it's the 76th anniversary of D-Day, which, up until 06/06/1944, was merely the generic military name for the day an operation began on, at H-Hour and M-Minute.  I don't think they ever got down to S-Second as nothing required that level of synchronisation, but if you do know differently please inform me and I will completely ignore it**.     I shall now post a picture from "The Longest Day", which is not perfect but which did try to do a good job in replicating the original.  Art!

A laugh, a smoke, a hit of morphine ...

     And remember, folks - "Cartagena delenda est".  Do svidaniye!

*  Ambiguous, that's me.
**  Horrid, that's me.