Sitting On A Volcano

Literally.  Just That
If you remember AND YOU SHOULD BECAUSE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN READING THE BLOG Conrad was yarking on about unsafe behaviour earlier today, and then briefly describing the volcano of Stromboli.
      Your Modest Artisan didn't know it when posting images of Stromboli erupting, and given such images you'd be forgiven for not realising either, yet there are two villages on the island which are full of live people.  Art?

Stromboli Village

     Stromboli village is the larger of the two.  The other is Ginostra, which is more of a hamlet than a village, as it's so small.  Art?

Ginostra

      You might well wonder why people stay on an island that may start chucking quantities of molten rock at you.  Fertility, is one answer: volcanic soils are usually very rich and fecund, you plant crops and jump back as they almost leap out of the ground at you.  Also, tourism: people cannot resist the urge to visit an active volcano, it seems, and one wonders if these are the kind of people willing to jump 70' into shallow waters ...
     Don't go, for our excursions into Italian volcanoes have not finished.  As you SHOULD recall, Conrad is reading Myles Hildyard's sardonic and insouciant memoir of his exploits during the Second Unpleasantness "It Is Bliss Here" and whilst in Italy he and a group of friends went up to the rim of Mount Vesuvius' crater.  Art?

Vesuvius, proving that thing about fertility

     There was a low-level eruption in progress deeper down in the crater, in an area about twenty feet across, which threw lava into the air and which they had to keep a wary eye upon, lest they be brained by flying hot rock.  Art?

A year later: March 1944

     Yes, sitting on a volcano.  Not advisable, yet not a worry that we here in This Sceptred Isle have to worry about*.

Hang On A Moment -
Yes, he is still alive.  I thought I'd better check first, before posting anything that might turn out to be incredibly insensitive and tasteless, because he is definitely a one for life-threatening behaviour.
     I refer, of course, to that Great English Eccentric Colin Furze, he of the Thermite Cannon and the Spinning Belt Of Knives, two inventions of a class that mean Colin is not going to live to see old age.  Art?

This looks slightly less dangerous.

But only slightly.

You see?

     Conrad recommends you go check out Colin's Youtube channel whilst he is still alive and in one piece (mental condition not assayed), because when his disintegrated, charred, sliced, diced and quantupliced remains are collected and interred in a matchbox, Youtube will definitely delete his channel.
     Mind you, if Dimya gets a snit on and presses The Big Red Button, Ol' Col does have a functional underground bunker in his back garden ...

Back To The Battle Of The River Piellorick
Things are moving apace now!  The Parliament forces are now either at or approaching the headwaters of the titular river, and Conrad, wearing his best democratic pot helmet, fully expects Essex's Regiment of Foote to be there in another couple of moves.  Art?

     Given how roughly the Roundhead forces who crossed via the Bouelle Bridge were handled by the King's cavalry, Your Humble Scribe wasn't going to risk another such event by crossing at the Little Bellegh Bridge.
     However, once the cavalry and infantry arrive at that gap, they then have to shake out of March Column and there's not enough room for everyone to get into line, so they will have to go in as battalia, one behind the other.  The risk there is someone in front having to retreat, and then backing into whoever is behind them - which is what doomed the Oxford infantry last time.  And the Royalists finally got one of their wagons off the table!

     Total gridlock in the village.  Also, the King's commanders now have to decide if they get the wagons out of there, or move against the enemy's cavalry and infantry.  Decisions, decisions!

     Crikey, that porridge is filling stuff, and I don't seem to have made any impression on the giant bag of oats discovered in the cupboard last weekend.  

Make Like Keanu
"Whoah!"

"A Scanner Darkly"

     One of the reasons Keanu is still in films is because of how thoroughly nice he is, all the way through.  Do you remember those prima donna actors who threw their weight around at the height of their fame?  No, me neither**.  Cast and crew enjoy working with Mr. Reeves, which is why directors, producers and casting agents all keep his name at the top of their speed-dial.
     Which, of course, has nothing to do with firing a 2-Bore gun, apart from the exclamation.
     "Silly Conrad!  Senile conrad!" I hear you sneer; "He's missed the "1" from "12", as in the expression "12 bore", of a 12 bore shotgun.  Hah!"
     Less of the lip, I sneer in return, and look who forgot to capitalise the "C" in "Conrad" - bet you don't feel so clever now, hmmmm?

Ian of "Forgotten Weapons" for scale

     I admit that Ian is quite slight of build, but believe me, that's a monster of a gun.  I bring this item into existence as Ian was detailing a 2-Bore double-barrelled shotgun on his "Forgotten Weapons" Youtube channel.   I recall a friend at school explaining the concept of "Bore".  You took a pound of pure lead, made it into a perfect sphere, and the diameter of that sphere was 1 Bore.  Divide it in two, make two perfect spheres - that's 2 Bore.  Continue all the way down to 12 spheres and that's 12  Bore.

Penelope Spheeris.  Close enough

     Conrad is unsure how accurate a process this is in defining shotgun calibre, though it may give you an idea of how much throw weight one of these weapons has.  Why you would need two barrels is a little beyond me, since one 2-Bore cartridge would stop anything mortal, and the noise would scare off it's surviving mates.  Art?

CAUTION!  Can be hard to handle

     I did use "Whoah!" as an expression of surprise, which is a bit trans-Atlantic.  Perhaps I should have said "Gordon Bennett!"

Finally -
I shall have to explain that, shan't I?  <sighs at the folly of youth> It is a more polite and euphemistic way of expostulating "Gorblimey!***" and it seems to hail from South Canada, specifically a newspaper editor named James Gordon Bennett, at least according to my Brewsters.  Art?

Jimmy looking all stern.

     And I shall now leave you, in order to guzzle my way through a tray of lunch.  Chin chin!

*  Tee hee!
**  Coughcoughcharliesheencoughcough
***  Alternatively, "Gorblimey Guvnah!" said in a Cockney accent.