This Elephant Is OUT OF BOUNDS!

Your Humble Scribe Shouldn't Have To Say This -
 - but I will anyway, because I have a word count total to hit*.

     You should not be using elephant guns for their intended purpose.

     There, I can't be any clearer, can I?  Generally, an elephant's tusks, feet and head look much better on the elephant than some trophy-hunter's wall.
     I most especially want to raise your awareness of another elephant, whom you may not have heard of before.  Art?

Uncle is the elephant

     Uncle is the invention of one J P Martin, who wrote six novels about the millionaire elephant with a B.A.  He inherited the gigantic castle of Homeward, which is more akin to a pocket city-state, and lives there with his best friend, the Old Monkey, and a troop of staff that includes The One-Armed Badger, Cloutman, Gubbins, Fat Sam and occasionally Uncle's brother.  Art?

Some of the cast of characters

     They are full of wit and comic invention, where literally anything may be lurking or waiting around the next corner.  Like any hero, Uncle has antagonists in the shape of the Badfort crew, who are truly a collection of miscreants:  Beaver Hateman, Hitmouse, Hootman, Fillijug Hateman and others.  They generally scheme to ambush and embarrass Uncle all during each novel, finally achieving success towards the end.  Art?

The Badfort Orkestrar at play

     Conrad had the good fortune to read these novels when his local library stocked them, before they went out of print.  They were impossibly hard to find as second-hand editions, and commanded ridiculously high prices: I've just been on Abebooks and there's only four copies of "Uncle And The Treacle Trouble" available, the cheapest of which is £95.  There were rumours of fans who had full collections keeping prices artificially high by conspiring about how much they were being charged -
     They were also featured on "Jackanory", that most British of programs, being read by Spike Milligan, who was probably the best person alive to read them.  As you can see, they were so wonderfully illustrated by Quentin Blake <a moment's silence for the great man> that it would be foolish redundancy for any other artist to dare tackle them.

And they're charging £600 for this one!

     That above is Beaver Hateman in his customary rags, wielding a boar-spear, about to be tackled by Uncle in his customary purple dressing-gown and wielding a stout cudgel.
     Now, as I iterated above, if you have any intention of taking aim at Uncle with any kind of weapon, I shall be pointing this 750 Nitro Express elephant gun at you.
     Motley, make like a banana and split!

Back To Banging
Okay, Your Humble Scribe has obliged you by explaining what elephant guns are, and also what tanks the Teutons used in the First Unpleasantness, all as background to Listy (David Lister, published author and blogger) and his very detailed examination of the British using elephant guns as anti-armour weapons against said Teuton Terror Turtles.

https://www.facebook.com/historylisty/posts/1602807726548663?__tn__=-R

      Listy has refrained from posting on his blog as he is potentially getting remuneration for doing his research into this subject matter.  How very moral of the chap.
     The question on your lips, I can tell, is why the British would use elephant guns as anti-tank weapons, instead of creating proper anti-tank weapons?  Because of time and money, I would respond: the Teutons only had 70 tanks over the whole of the First Unpleasantness, compared to the French, who had 3,500.  

Mostly these

Thus a Teuton Thirty-Ton Terror Turtle was only rarely encountered, and certainly nowhere near remotely in the vicinity of needing to create special weapons for use against them.  Art?

The Teuton anti-tank rifle

     Here an aside.  The weapon above was intended specifically for use against tanks, since the Allies could put hundreds into the field at any one time, but it only got issued from May 1918 onwards, and I don't recall reading about any successes it had.  The thing was nearly 6 feet long, weighed 35 pounds and had a ferocious kick upon firing that could break the user's shoulder.  There are lots of captured examples in museums around the world, presumably because if you had to retreat this would be the first item you ditched.
     Anyway, Listy worked out that your average elephant gun round might not penetrate the mild-steel (NOT armour plate, Fritz you cheapskate!) of an A7, but it would put one hell of a dent in it, sending spall whanging round the inside until stopped by one of the 25 squishy humans within.
     This is not as far-fetched as you might think - but we shall come back to that later.

     Remember, folks - the hippo is deadlier than the shark**!

The Stupid!  It Thrives!
At least in Hollywood.  Conrad saw an advert for "Mercury Rising" on Netflix and, knowing that they only ever praise their products (they would insist "Night of the Lepus" was 'spine-chilling panic-inducing bed-wetting epic terror' when we know better, gentle reader) he checked it out on teh Interwebz.

A Mercury, rising

     How did this film get made?  It seems to pile silly on top of stupid.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!  NOT THAT YOU SHOULD BE BOTHERED, IT'S A RUBBISH FILM

     1)  Two idiots in charge of South Canadian cryptography deliberately plant an example of their unbreakable code in a commercially-sold puzzle book.     
     They don't get fired, fined or prosecuted, just kinda shouted at.  Seriously?  Yeah, I know this was 1998, but government organisations back then still had standards.

The idiots responsible

     2) A 9 year-old autistic kid then figures out the code.  Nobody else.  Despite an audience of tens of thousands, nobody else figures it out.  Ever.  Given that the code is now in view of the public, what are the chances that someone gets to hear of the "unbreakable puzzle code" and gets to work on it with a couple of Crays?

"Simon's neck could not cope with the colossal weight of his brain."

3)  The boss of the two idiots above, when he hears that the 9 year old has broken the code, immediately decides that, as A Threat To National Security, he and his parents MUST BE IMMEDIATELY MURDERED.

"The mailman was late with my mail.  HE MUST BE IMMEDIATELY MURDERED!"
or
"This coffee was made with Sweet 'n'  Low, not sugar.  YOU MUST BE IMMEDIATELY MURDERED!"

     He's supposed to be a colonel.  Do they consistently promote idiots in the South Canadian armed forces?  Conrad's first reaction, apart from firing The Two Numpties, would be to cackle gleefully, rub his hands together, then invite Simon to work for him.  Imagine that!  A kid who can crack unbreakable codes in no time, and whom you can pay in jellybeans and lemonade, FSB watch out!
     The depressing thing is that this farrago made £60 million across the globe.

     I feel unhappy leaving the blog on such a sour note.  Let us instead have -

Finally -
Did you realise that 250 million people around the world speak Portuguese?  When Portugal only has a population of 10 million, you realise that the Porks were, back in the day, quite the empire builders.  They are also one of the oldest allies of Perfidious Albion, with a relationship going back 500 years.  

There you go

     Food for thought!

And with that, we are feito***!



*  Plus I am a hair-splitting pedant of the very worst kind
**  Absolutely true, and pretty obvious when you come to think about it.
***  Portuguese for "Done"