Today We Go To HELL!

Kind Of
I know, I know, it's a damn clickbaity title, yet it is pretty accurate, and because we are SFW, it's not Conrad ranting and tanting at booksellers who rip off buyers with extortionate post and <Mister Hand intervenes to remove hundreds of venom-laden vituperative expostulations*> carried by a flock of wild swans with a lattice woven from golden threads by virgin maidens!
     Where were we?
     O yes.  Hades.  

CAUTION!  Always clean up after your dog.
(The Fire Brigade will thank you)

     That's Cerberus, the triple-headed dog who guarded Hades and prevented anyone from leaving.  It's unclear who took him for walkies and where they went, and he must have had a diet consisting of whole oxen.  In fact the Greek underworld of Hades was not wholly given over to flames, that would instead be our concept of Hell.  Art?

A balmy Spring day in Hell.  Temperature Gas Mark 6.

     Fascinating as it would be to meditate on how our concept of The Bad Place has changed over time, all Conrad is doing is creating a mise en scene, as the film people say, or a genius loci, as the Latin-spouting poseurs sneer.  A sense of place, because what else is Hell but an oppressively hot environment, with lots of fire, an atmosphere thick with strangling fumes, no natural light and an entire absence of banana-toffee popcorn?
     Say hello to Centralia, again!  Art?

Looking into the inferno

     If you remember, the town of Centralia no longer exists thanks to a fire that broke out in coal seams there back in 1962.  The thing about an underground fire in a coal seam is that it's almost impossible to extinguish, and this one proved no exception.  It spread, and spread, and spread, burning through previously-mined underground galleries and chambers and tunnels and destroying their structural integrity.  Art?

The view on the surface

     This has meant sinkholes suddenly opened up, buildings collapsed thanks to general subsidence, gouts of steam and smoke appeared at random, all mixed in with lethal levels of carbon monoxide for shizzle and giggle.  It is no wonder the townsfolk left as soon as they could.
     People don't venture into the subterranean mines any more, because - seriously, I have to explain why**?  If they did, then they would experience an environment just like Hell.  
     The fires are still burning today, after over 50 years, which you might think was an incredibly long time to be burning.
     You'd think - and you'd be wrong.
     Motley, how was your trip to New Zealand?  Arms tired?  Here, sit down, have a cup of tea and I'll toast a crumpet in front of the fire ...

A marshmallow, but the principle's the same

This Will All Make Sense On Facebook
Honest!  Okay, Art, bring them on -



Fire!  Volcanoes!  Earthquakes!
In real life, those who live near volcanoes risk not only having a deluge of molten rock come say hello through your house, but also toxic gases and fumes, which can be a lot less visible.
     Anyway, that has only a passing connection with The Battle Of The Piellorick River, which I am waging as a wargame using Polemos rules.  Tonight we got up to the middle of Turn 11.  Art?

     Things are hotting up in the flat ground at the river's headwaters; a cavalry encounter is underway and the Earl of Essex's Regiment of Foote has arrived.  It now has to change from March Column to Line, which will take a turn, and then it can split up and move forward.  The question is, will the King's men in Fielding's Brigade be able to wheel sufficiently to take them on?  There are still 5 wagons to be gotten away, which could take ages because the Royalist commander has to choose to move them or the soldiers; he doesn't have enough Tempo Points to do both.  And the Royalist cavalry near the Bouelle Bridge daren't move forward to help Fielding's Brigade as there are still two brigades of Roundhead cavalry lurking on the other side of the river.

GET A HAIRCUT!

     You can also see why I made that crack about earthquakes - one of the paste tables beneath the battlefield has subsided, resulting in Britain's most serious quake in the past 2,500 years.  Or - there might be a mine fire underneath ...

More Facebook-centric Nonsense -
Quick, Art!


Conrad Has Quibbles
NO!  Not those Dog Buns cooing hairpieces from "Starry Trek", you're thinking of Tribbles.  "Quibbles", from the Latin "Quibus" literally meaning "Who?" and idiomatically as a question.
     For Lo! We are now at Number 30 of "Rolling Stone"'s Top 50 Best Ever Television sci-fi programs, and - "Quantum Leap"?  Art!

STAND STILL!

      Conrad encountered random bits and pieces of this schmaltzy touchy-feely do-goody faux sci-fi show and wasn't impressed; you might as well have had a magic wand or a pair of red shoes to click together in order to do the Leapy stuff, and it was positively painful about how sincere the need to right wrongs was.  Though it did provoke a snigger when the Leapy chap ended up in drag because he'd leapt into a woman.  At least I think that's what happened, maybe he was big on dressing up in women's clothing -

Like this chap.

     Let me guess: it was cheap to make, because you only had one sci-fi set to build and everything else was just period dress and props already in stock?

Tank Versus Tree
In the spirit of lumberjacking - you see? you see how everything fits together? - I would like to put forward a snippet of information gleaned from "Military History Visualised" as presented by Bernhard on his Youtube channel.  He has a splendid Teutonic accent, by the way, and has recently been studying "Tank Ramming Tank" as a practice in the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

No, no - that's a Ram Tank, from British America <sigh>

     First he asked Jens, who had trained on the Leopard 1 tank as a driver, if ramming other tanks was part of their training?  NO, was Jen's unequivocal answer.  Next up, Bernhard tried Neil "The Chieftain" Moran, who is a proper TANK commander, if he had ever been trained to ram other tanks with his?
     NO, was Neil's loud response.  "I am in charge of a £2 million tank -" and the implication was that you didn't risk breaking it by ramming a T55 that costs £55 and which you can get down at the corner shop.

Big!  Expensive!  Full of delicate squishy things!

     Neil did state that you were instructed not to try and knock over trees with a diameter greater than 2 feet, and that, if doing this in a forest, you had to be more bulldozer than lumberjack.  As you can see from above, the prow on an M1 Abrams is pretty pointed and if you're not careful you'll cut the tree off at about three feet high, and then proceed to get stuck on this stump as you move forward.  So you *push* it over.

     Another potentially life-saving factoid from BOOJUM! and with that - 

     - we are done!

*  Mister Hand seems to be trying to impress with obscure words. 
**  You were jumping off Durdle Door, weren't you?