If That Ever Gets Into The Collins Concise, I Want A Payment
For I have created a new word. Granted, it's of very limited application; yet how many of you out there can claim to have enriched the English language recently?
For Lo! we are back to reviewing the Greco-Italian conflict of 1940, where the plan had been for the mighty Fascist legions to steamroller over the effete Hellenics and <Mussolini's fantasy world redacted>. In painful reality, the Italians had been pushed back into Albania, from whence they had come. Art?
By the time early 1941 rolled around, the Greeks were running perilously short of things, as a result of which they were petitioning Perfidious Albion for help with military kit. Just kit; for the Greeks rightly feared that if soldiers in British battledress turned up, they wouldn't turn up in enough strength to prevent the Teutons from intervening. And the Teutons would intervene; Herr Schickelgruber feared another Salonika if the pawky and detested British came and got comfy in Greece. Why, they might interfere with his plans to double-cross, betray and stab in the back his bestest mate, Ol' Joe Stalin!
The Greco-Albanian border. Terrain not conducive to rolling of any kind.
Things played out as they usually did in the early part of the war, with the British managing a highly-skilled withdrawal/unabashed skedaddle/sorry-got-another-appointment elsewhere <delete where applicable>, to Crete. 
The Brits: always looking to crash someone else's party
What benefits the Teutons and Italians got out of their Greek occupation is questionable, since the mountains seethed with brigands, bandits and - British! who were ever ready to stir things up with supplies of gold and guns. The debate as to whether the Teuton's invasion of Greece significantly delayed their assault on the Sinister Union rages to this day.
And a "Dithyramb"? A forceful and passionate classical form of hymn to Dionysus, that chap the ancient Greeks venerated quite a bit. You know, the god of wine, which was consumed in large amounts in toasts to the gallant Hellenic mountain troops*.
I regret to say the Motley will not be joining us this afternoon. It's feeling a bit flat**.Dithyrambling on
With Indecent Haste -
We are back to "Rolling Stone"'s Top 50 Television Sci-Fi shows, and at Number 5 stands an entry I've not seen one bit of: The Mandalorian. Art?
This is, by all accounts, quite good, in the sense that it's a straightforward action thriller that honours the original vision of George Lucas, with added Baby Yoda for that Awwww effect. Even The Critical Drinker likes it, so they must be doing something right. Maybe I'll get around to watching it once my Book Mountain has diminished a little. And just imagine it all came from a little film called "Swingers" all those years ago <checks how old "Swingers" is, gags> yes all 24 of them.
Ooooh, on dodgy ground there
One reason for it's success is cheapness: they use a state-of-the-art curved background screen that takes projections in order to replicate the great outdoors, or the great indoors, or the belly of the whale, or a whale of a belly - You get the idea. So Jon Favreau can have The Mandalorian striding across the Iridium Salt Sands of Klacto Sedsteen V, convincingly, whereas in reality it's a studio set.
CAUTION! Fistbumps will not change a nappy
The Eddystone Lighthouse
We come to Number Four of these hallowed erecti artefacts, put up in place of the old eighteenth century one, which tended to wallow a bit when big waves hit it, as the rocks on which it stood were rather eroded. No mean feat, putting up a four and a half-thousand ton structure on rocks only free of sea for three hours per day. The base of the old lighthouse remains, because it was too well-built to dismantle; quality workmanship, that is, lads, quality workmanship. Art?
The "new" lighthouse went into operation in 1882, and is still working. Again, that's sheer craftsmanship, Vulnavia. How many of our modern gimcrack buildings will still exist in 2140, let alone still be functional?
This fourth model has an obvious refinement: a towertop helipad, which allows easy access even if the seas are bad. Said access would only be for maintenance, repair or replacement as all British lighthouses are automated, monitored by Trinity House Headquarters in London.
There! Now we can move on to the Wolf Rock lighthouse, just not today.
My Mate Listy ...
Actually I'm speaking out of turn, we barely know each other and have never met, and my claim to familiarity comes from reading his excellent blog and purchasing one of his books (there will be others, mind). Let's put up a link.
http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/
There you go, Listy. He does proper research, you know, going out and digging through files and papers and records, instead of Conrad the keyboard querier, which has led to some perfect gems on his blog. This latest one being a case in point: plastic armour.
No, I'm not going to blather on at length about it. If you wish to read more about this remarkable discovery of the Second Unpleasantness, go check out his blog. I will put up a picture or two, if Art can be persuaded to leave his delicious coke-and-anthracite salad.
This 'armour' was a blend of tar, cork, stone chippings and limestone and O Boy! was it effective. A 3/4 inch panel of plastic armour would stop anything up to and including 20 m.m. cannon shells. Bullets? It laughed at them. Grenades? A similar sneer. Bomb and shell splinters? Get out of here! Not only was it highly effective, it was a heck of a lot cheaper than armour plate, being only 1/8th the cost, and it could be easily and quickly manufactured.
There's more, which I will save for a later date. Meanwhile - go support Listy!
The deadly dangerous Armoured Shed, Static Version
Finally -
Let's have a short but gruesome finale, and a genuine Darwin Award winner.
Our soon-to-be-deceased protagonist was snowboarding with friends in Mount Batchelor's ski resort when evening came. Disdaining a lift back to town, he instead dossed down in a sleeping bag on the surface of the resort's car park.
The picture-postcardy resort.
Early next morning a resort worker arrived with a snow removal machine, and set to with a will. Let's hope our DA winner had also made out a will, because the machine rolled right over him and killed him stone dead. The worker didn't see any tents or cars in the car park nor beyond and thus had no clue there was somebody lying asleep in the car park.
There's a great bit of understatement in the press: "It took some time for authorities to identify S*****." I'll bet it did! One also wonders that the noise of a large piece of electro-mechanical machinery, driven by an internal-combustion engine, did not wake our sleeping beauty.
And with that we are done!
* Quite possibly.
** This is what comes of losing at Downhill Boulder Racing
No comments:
Post a Comment