Z českých luhů a hájů

Ha!  That'll Baffle Anyone Who Isn't Czech
It is Czech for "From Bohemia's Woods And Fields" and is a symphony by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.  This English keyboard doesn't have the diacritical marks for proper Czech spelling, so we shall settle for calling him Beddy.
     It's a splendid piece of music, worth tracking down, and is one of 6 symphonies he wrote, including one called "Tabor" which is about the city founded by the Hussites, whom we mentioned the other week.

Priority Number One: drink the beer

     Why mention it?  Well, by now you will have observed that Conrad is interested in the history and cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, and also because you can consider Beddy's symphonies to be varieties of - 
     Bohemian rhapsodies.
     Come on, you must have expected that at some point.  For Lo! are we not about to do A Little Musical Critique about "Bohemian Rhapsody"?
     Yes.  Yes, we are.  O stop weeping Mister Mercury, it's a considerable honour to be the subject of one of these.

Art!  Did today's Tazering frazzle you in vain?

     There's the rub: was he named after the planet, the metal or the messenger of the Greek gods?
     Don't forget, children: mercury may look cool and fun to play with, but it's a toxic heavy metal and should never be swum in.

A Little Musical Critique
Yes, today we focus our laser gaze on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was a very big hit when Your Humble Scribe was very much younger.  In those days, you see, records were released in the shape of a disk of vinyl, which was played at a speed of 45 revolutions per minute rather than the albums, which played at 33 RPM, and it was always a laugh to deliberately play them at the wrong speed.  John Peel was always getting this wrong.

CAUTION!  To be played at 33 RPM.  John Peel take note.

     Okay, take it away!

Is this the real life?

One is struck by use of the definite article here.  How many real lives are there, anyway?

Is this just fantasy?

No, it can't be a fantasy because I'm not an immortal good-looking billionaire 

Caught in a landslide,

I think that proves you're not in a fantasy.  Unless you have some very odd desires.

No escape from reality.

Try gin.

Open your eyes

Sorry, we've all got to sleep sometime

Look up to the skies and see

Clouds.  This is England, you'll see clouds.  And rain.  Lots of rain.

I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy

O really?  You seem to be positively trawling for it, matey

Because I'm easy come, easy go

You may find South Canadians interpret being called "easy" in a different way

Little high, little low

Do I hear it for Little Hampton?

Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me

Look, we had this out with Donovan and "Catch the Wind"

You see?  You see!  It DOES matter which way the wind blows

     Someone pass Brian May a box of tissues.

"A Full Life" By Sir Brian Horrocks
Well, I confess to a little exaggeration, as he wasn't graced with the "Sir" when he wrote the book.
     Hmmm.  I have just discovered that mozarella doesn't make the best cheese toasties.  Too rubbery when cooling.
     I have just reached that point in the book where the British Army - NOT FORGETTING THE CANUCKISTANIANS - fights it's way through the Reichwald forest, in February of 1945 as it clears the west bank of the River Rhine.  Art?

Typically muddy

     As Jorrocks points out, mud was the main problem, caused by ceaseless heavy rain.  He also adds in some telling statistics.  As a Corps commander, he would normally have two divisions under his aegis (ha, another word you never expected to see today) of perhaps 30,000 men plus attached units.  For "Operation Veritable" he had 200,000 men under command, supported by 35,000 vehicles  and 1,400 guns.  One and three quarters of a million gallons of petrol were issued, figures that the Teutons, had they known of them, would have wept about.  Box of tissues for Herr Schicklegruber!  Big Al on the podcast "We Have Ways" pointed out just how ghastly these battles were, at a point where most people back home, and everyone in the present day, considered it all over bar the shouting.


     A picture of part of Op. Veritable.  Note the 'Buffalo' amphibious carrier in the background, which made swanning across rivers a lot easier.  Also, note the destroyed bridges and, at far upper right, a British Bailey bridge being brought into position.  By this date in the war the Brits could bridge any river in a day, they had that much experience and kit.

Jorrocks, minus hat

Another One I Can Get Behind
From naked military might to the polar opposite and no, I don't mean a bunch of hippy vegans sitting around a campfire singing filk songs, the degenerates.
     For Lo! we are now onto that 'Rolling Stone' list of the 50 Best Sci-Fi Shows Of All Time, and Number 23 is: Star Trek; The Next Generation.  Art?

A later iteration
(You can tell by Riker's bewhiskeredness)

     It ran for ages, unlike it's barely-known predecessor, and was very popular.  They made a bold decision to cast a Brit in the lead role (even if he was pretending to be French), because - gasp! - he wasn't the villain.  You know Hollywood, they love Brit character actors being villains, they still haven't gotten over 1776 it seems*.
     Back on track, Conrad.  Okay, STTNG to abbreviate it, was a lot more touchy-feely that the original, and nobody could ever explain the Klingon foreheads, and episodes could on occasion be silly.  However, when it was good it was very very good, and their outstanding series villains were undoubtedly The Borg.  Plus, "Star Trek: First Contact" is the best STTNG film hands down, no argument permitted.

British character actor, meet British character actor

     Nose-grindstone interfacing to commence!

Finally -
Oho.  And also aha.  Rather speculatively, Conrad typed in an URL from a 2014 work by Professor William Philpott, "Attrition", and Suprise!  It worked.  The resource is the Westpoint website, and a long list of the full-colour contour maps taken from the Official History of the War.  I've gotten pretty much all of them already, but this way I don't have to put on disposable gloves to avoid soiling the pretty, pretty pages, nor do I have to find space for 20 or 30 text volumes on the floor of my Sekrit Layr.

They do like their old-timey uniforms, don't they?

     Besides, it feels like getting something for free that one ought not to, which is always cause for a frisson of misbegotten glee.

And with that, we are one and done!




*  Plus we burned down the White House.