You Tool

What?  What!  Why Are People Sniggering?
More worryingly, why doesn't Blogger's spellcheck recognise "Sniggering"?  Look, it's in my Collins Concise: "sly or disrespectful laugh, especially one partly stifled", an 18th century variation on "Snicker" - O yeah right, it recognises that.  "C17th: imitative of a whinny" and that Dog Buns chocolate bar with nuts.

<sound of hooves>

     Anyway, Conrad strongly suspects that you AND YOUR DIRTY MINDS are leaping to conclusions, because BOOJUM! is as SFW as it ever was.  Yes yes yes yes yes we had a naked female behind once, but it was on a statue, which makes it Art.
     What I really intended from today's title was an instruction, not an insult, as you seem to misapprehend me, and it follows from what Big Al was saying on a recent "We Have Ways" podcast about industrial production.  One of President Roosevelt's advisers (Mister Stettinius, I believe) was bringing the Prez up to speed on things like production capacity in the armaments industry in June of 1940.  Art?

Stetty.

     "You tool," he said, and then hurried on when the Prez looked annoyed.  "You tool up and it takes you a good six months to acquire the relevant machine tools to construct, say, a B24 bomber.  It then takes you another six months to train men to use them and begin putting out completed planes.  It takes another six month period to ramp up production by getting rid of all the problems and bottlenecks and drags on efficiency.  So if you give an order to begin building tanks and planes and artillery pieces, things will only start to hop in a year and a half."   Art?

It's behind you!

     The timing is very significant, as June 1940 marked the surrender of France and This Sceptred Isle standing alone against the Teuton hordes; the Sinisters were busy being Herr Schickelgruber's bezzies at this point, a fact they hated to admit and went to any lengths to avoid confessing to.
     So, coincidentally, when Pearl Harbour suddenly propels a very surprised South Canada into the war, they are about to begin commencement of a whacking big increase in military production, instead of having to wait another 18 months.
     Thus one might create an aphorism: You Tool; You Train; You Trial; You Triumph.

Thus

     Blimey, motley, I only meant to do a paragraph.  Ooops.

     Let us now bring on a short collection of bits.  

Let Us Now Praise White-Haired Men
John Bolton, Stettinius, Conrad.  I know Stetty was a captain of industry, and Bolty got to the highest levels of government, but ask yourselves this: how good were they and are they at doing Cryptic Crosswords, hmmmm?  Art, the evidence!

     Done in less than 20 minutes, which also includes a trip from my Sekrit Layr to the kitchen for a final cup of tea.

Of Books
Conrad still has some odds and sods to acquire in order to complete his Official History of the War Military Operations (the war on land), but that total has been reduced by one.  Art?

     By the time this one was published "The War" was no longer accurate, as it was 1941.  There should have been a second volume, which was never published.  The papers for it are said to be held on file at the Public Records Office; however, since the Battery Press never used these to create a second volume, one presumes the process would be too expensive for them to recoup their costs.  Anyone out there interested in proving me wrong?
     Next!

     Your Humble Scribe is having a read of his assembled English Civil Unpleasantness works, in the spirit of informing his wargaming of that era (Game 2 using the Polemos rules is nearing completion).
     Conrad remembers starting "A Full Life" and not getting far with it.  It concerns the military history of Sir Brian Horrocks, whose style is self-deprecating and humble, rather like the man himself.  He was an immensely popular general, besides being extremely capable, and the South Canadians who worked with him thought the world of "Jorrocks" - his nickname, and unlike every other general in Europe you could get away with calling him that to his face.  Art!

And -

Jorrocks of a different sort

     In "A Bridge Too Far" Horrocks is played by his good friend Edward Fox, so what you see on screen is very much like the man himself.
     Enough military wibble!  Time for - actually I'm not sure what.  Art?

Was It Gone?
Conrad accidentally managed to read the front of the M.E.N. this evening.  I heartily apologise for this, it won't happen again.  What struck me was an eye-rolling headline on the front page, as if it were an important event.  Art?

     I'm not going to enlarge it, that would only encourage them.  "8 pages of City & United in Sport" they bray.  Great Squeaking Bats (No!  No cricket pun intended!) how can they have 8 pages of this drivel?
     Conrad gloomily supposes it's a consequence of having two Premium Lager teams in the same city.  Imagine if one lived in <thinks> Hampton Dibney, with no PL football teams; all those extra pages you could put more Cryptic Crosswords on!
     Mind you, every cloud has a silver lining.  Silver iodide, in fact, which is used to 'seed' the clouds and cause precipitation to fall, as used in drought-stricken regions other than Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell -
     Sorry, where was I?  O yes - if the ballfoot game has recommenced then it means there are going to be Have Your Say Commentaries on the BBC webpages.  Schadenfreude ahoy!

Pretty As A Picher
You can believe that I'm going to be using that pun for a while.
     If you recall AND YOU JOLLY WELL OUGHT TO then we left the town of Picher, Oklahoma, in the aftermath of the Second Unpleasantness, when there was suddenly no demand for lead to make bullets and the lead mining industry in town died a slow death.  This also meant the abandonment of 14,000 mineshafts and tunnels, which were no longer maintained, meaning that by 1967, when mining had stopped, groundwater had gotten back into them.  They used to pump them dry of water that leaked in from the water table, you see, to be able to keep mining.
     There was a more immediate problem, lurking in the background.  Art?

Nope, not sand

     Those "hills" are composed of mining spoil nicknamed "chat", laced with lead, and cadmium, and arsenic, which you may recognise as Chemicals That Are Not Good For You.  Their potential as a source of toxic dust went utterly unrecognised for decades, meaning that the town's entire population was ingesting it every time the wind blew.  And there was 170 million tons of it to blow around.
     So, you have a hot wind to contend with, and groundwater contaminated with toxic heavy metals, which had percolated into the water supply, which sounds pretty grim, doesn't it?
     That was just the beginning ...
Finally -
I don't have any handy short articles to finish today's musing with, so I shall just have to wing it.  
     Ah!  I know, another Horror Film Cliche: in any group of Mixed Assorted Victims, it's always the black guy who gets the chop - literally - first.  Has anyone inverted this trope?  You can imagine the screenplay:

<A group of six burly, meaty football-playing jocks are exploring the derelict Elm Street Mansion on a dare, five black chaps and one white dude>

FIRST BLACK JOCK: What's making that creaking and banging noise?
SECOND BLACK JOCK: Probably just the wind.
THIRD BLACK JOCK: There is no wind!
WHITE JOCK <smugly>: Yeah, one of you should go examine it.  I'll just stay here.
FOURTH BLACK JOCK: And you know the front door, which we wedged firmly open?
SECOND BLACK JOCK (obviously the optimist of the party): It's still firmly open?
FIFTH BLACK JOCK: No.  It's closed.  And locked.  I tested it.
WHITE JOCK <impressed>: You went and checked it on your own?  Dude!  And you came back alive!
FIRST BLACK JOCK: That sure sounded like footsteps.  Is it coming from the attic or the basement?
SECOND BLACK JOCK: Just birds.  Or - er - squirrels.
FOURTH BLACK JOCK: Well, I've just been down in the basement.  Completely deserted.
WHITE JOCK <uneasily>: You - the basement - alone - and - you're still alive?
FIRST BLACK JOCK: Last I heard, squirrels ain't known for wearing hobnail boots.
THIRD BLACK JOCK <appearing from behind them, making everyone jump>: Heck, there's nothing in that attic but cobwebs and guano, I just been to check.
WHITE JOCK <now looking nervous>: Ah - alone - still alive.  Yeah.  Right.
SECOND BLACK JOCK: Let's split up to explore, that way we'll cover more ground!
WHITE JOCK:  Er - I'll just stay here, guys, if that's okay.  You know, hold the fort, establish a position, keep my eyes peeled -
<They split up to search.  Within seconds there is a terrifying scream and they rush back>
ALL THE BLACK JOCKS TOGETHER:  What's happened to Tarquin - and where did that pool of blood come from!

Elm Street Mansion: a fixer-upper if ever there was one.

     And with that we are well and truly done!