Ah, Ancient Rome, Remember It?
Chariot races especially, where skilled charioteers diced with death or mutilation in order to win glory and riches, attracting armies of fanatical followers. In the later years of the Empire, in Constantinople, the (literal) armies of Blues and Greens rose in revolt against the Emperor Justinian and threatened to depose and execute him. Art?
This has a tenuous yet definite connection with that most fanatically-followed of modern sports, the ballfoot game, where it is a rare fan indeed who will acknowledge another team's superior performance or ability.
The masses were revolting, you might say
For Lo! we are back wallowing in Schadenfreude at the BBC's sports pages and their 'Have Your Say' commentary. Conrad, as you should surely know by now, cares not one whit, jot or iota for the ballfoot game, so it's all one to him who wins or loses.
Not so the fans. O no! No, they revel in their team's victories and cavil at their opponent's same, and pour forth endless insults in amusing style, because the BBC won't allow any swears on their Comments. Art?
That top comment had me sniggering loudly. The two players mentioned, Maguire and Pogba, collectively cost £169 million and The Manchester United fans loathe both of them with a fervid intensity; the former is inept, clumsy and slow, and the latter is lazy, greedy and more interested in Instagramming his latest haircut than playing ballfoot - according to the fans. This match was between The Manchester United (thus named to distinguish from Manchester In The City) and Tottenham Hotspur, named after the boy's comic of the Sixties*.
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| The evidence |
It's not over yet, either. O no! You see, there was another match being played tonight, between Aston Roman Villa (I think, bit hazy on these names) and Liverpole, the former winning by 7 goals to 2. From what Your Humble Scribe can gather, Liverpole were champions of something or other last year, and the ARV chaps barely missed being relegated from the Premium Lager to the Chump In A Ship (spelling?)**. Only recently finished, this sported a respectable 1,200 Comments when I tried to log into it - only to be informed that there were problems loading the Comments. Clearly, the Beeb's software is finding it hard to cope with nearly 4,000 comments coming in all at the same time. Their web designers may not have anticipated such an outpouring of Frothing Nitric Ire.
Motley! Did you know that, in South Korea, they believe that having a fan in the room overnight can cause death to the sleeper? They don't mention ballfoot anywhere but I think we can read between the lines ...
More On The 3.7" Anti-Aircraft Gun
I did delay this from several days ago, since we've been having plenty of TANK thanks to The Chieftain and a surfeit of military history is not good for you. The question is often asked by wargamers and other military history anoraks about why the British 3.7 inch AA gun wasn't more widely used in the ground role. We have actually covered this as regards North Africa, where it was occasionally used thus, making Axis tank crews become very chary if they thought one was about. Art!
It's passing hard to find a photograph of the 3.7 being used in a direct fire role, and I think the one above comes closest. They were present in Normandy after D-Day, when the Luftwaffe had been swept from the skies, and were thus re-tasked with firing on ground targets. They were well-regarded by artillery officers thanks to their very long range, which made them useful for counter-battery work, as they could hit Teuton guns beyond the range of other heavy guns. Not only that, they were notably very, very accurate, especially when firing airburst shrapnel. Art?
They were also designed and crewed to operate with a very high rate of fire, so the unfortunate Teutons at the receiving end might very well be hit with dozens of airburst shrapnel shells before being able to get to cover. Listy, over on "Overlord's Blog", has a bare-bones item about the Market Garden campaign, where a troop of four 3.7 AA guns encountered some Teuton Jagdpanthers.
3.7 with puny human for scale
The Jagdpanthers lost. Art?
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| More puny humans and their (captured) Jagdpanther |
Well, Conrad did some number-crunching, as he is wont to do. I shall use metric data as that's easier to visualise for comparison. The Jagdpanther's 88 m.m. gun fired a 7.3 kilogram shell, at a muzzle velocity of 1,000 metres per second. The 3.7's muzzle velocity was considerably lower, at 814 m.p.s. against which it's shell was nearly twice as heavy as the 88's - 13 kg. The 88, when used as an anti-tank gun, was able to manage between 6 to 10 shots per minute. Inside the cramped interior of an armoured metal box, with all sorts of protruding obstructions, the rate would be a lot less, probably halved at 3 - 5 rp.m. The 3.7, with a good crew, could manage 20 shots per minute, which means up to 80 rounds per minute from the whole troop. Art?
It's been properly "3.7'd"
I say, what a grim and ghastly set of stuff! Quick, bring on the dancing weasels to divert people with a bit of light and frothy nonsense -
Domestic Harmony In The Sekrit Layr
The cat and dog have gotten used to each other's company by now, although they both compete for attention when Your Humble Scribe is gnawing on a chicken drumstick, whimpering or mewling with greed (the cat and dog, that is, not Conrad). Here is an example of same. Art?
Dunlapped
This is quite the apposite story, given Storm Alex, which has deluged This Sceptred Isle yet allowed us off lightly, because France has really been getting it in the neck and you can't help feel sorry for the M8s, as they just don't have our island history in dealing with dire weather.
For Lo! yes we are dealing with another dam collapse in South Canada, in this case one of the spillways of the Dunlap dam, which had been erected in 1924 for the purpose of electricity generation, and which had created Dunlap Lake, widely used for recreation. Art?
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| All systems normal (This is an automated camera system set up by the dam's operators) |
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| The middle spillway collapses like a slice of soggy cake |
Now compare water over the spillway top and the collapsed section! There isn't much that can be done at this point to stop the flooding since the speed and mass of water will instantly remove any kind of boom or barrier or blockage that might be imposed.
We will come back to this one, as there's more to be told but again a surfeit of dam disaster is not healthy.
And with that we are done, done,done!
* This may not be entirely correct but I am sticking to it.
** Sorry for all this convoluted jargon.
*** A rubber biscuit? ("Blues Brothers" joke for you there)
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