Cranes, Trains And Bright Brass Bras

Given An Opening Like That

I can't really pretend that we're going on an ornithological expedition, can I?  You know, cranes, the bird species defined as a "large, long-necked, long-legged wading bird inhabiting marshes".

     And so, without further ado, we continue into the thrilling world of TRAINS, because - well, if I've been inflicting "Transportation On The Western Front 1914 - 1918" upon myself, you're going to also share the benefit.  Art!

     This is a "Floating crane", for your enlightenment, which were used in the First Unpleasantness at the docks in France to unload large bits of kit from the ships coming over from This Sceptred Isle.  A tank would weight in the region of 30 tons, you see, and a locomotive up to 90 tons, which might have strained the capacity of the dockside cranes.  A floating one could manoeuvre around ships and the jetties in ways a static crane simply couldn't manage, thus making unloading of large, awkward objects a lot easier.  Art!

The harbour at Brest

     To unload ships in a timely manner, you see, required cranes.  Lots of cranes.  Perfidious Albion, being a maritime nation, realised this and built 215 of them on French quaysides.  The problem is finding pictures of them, as cranes and gantries are not really seen as pulse-pounding heart-racing action stuff that boys and girls want to see more of, and there is something of a dearth of derricks.

     You see?  That's Le Havre.  Not a single crane to be seen <sighs>.

     Then there was the problem of what to do with the supplies landed.  They tended to pile up in warehouses or on quaysides, because thanks to all sorts of reasons they arrived higgledy-piggledy rather than to a schedule.  This meant huge supply areas had to be built outside the ports and harbours, and I doubt we're going to find many pictures of those.

     There's a marshalling yard in France for you.  Now, imagine that you need to keep note of all those trucks, whether they are empty or not and if full, what they contain, and where they need to go, in consort with which other trucks, and - O! I say, it's a Hun bombing raid!

     Complicated.

     "Yes but what about the bright brass bra?" I hear you sleazily enquire.  "Purely out of curiosity's sake."  Very well -

     One wonders about this.  Surely the terrified damsel here is from a primitive alien race? for otherwise Conrad balks at a civilisation that can create interplanetary spaceships, ray guns and vacuum-proof spacesuits, yet which cannot find a better material to make bra cups from other than brass.  Which must be rather cold of a morning.  Note, too, that her skirt is made from a fabric textile, so that brass lingerie must be made that way by choice, not necessity.

     You could write a thesis on this one.  Given that the Obligatory Damsel In Distress is about to be launched into the hinterland by a missile, she might be praying for metal lingerie.  And Captain Future, if that is indeed him wielding the ray gun, needs glasses pretty urgently, as he seems to have completely overlooked the ODID not to mention the Evil/Sinister/Alien robot crouched mere feet from him.

     Motley!  Get ready to repel the Mushroom Men From Mars*!

Turning Over A New Leaf

Lots of new leaves in fact, for Conrad has come to the end of his venerable Pukka Pad, that he's been scribbling in for about a year and a half.  I can't simply throw it away as it was used for reference on several occasions; there's a list of the Official Histories of British Divisions in the Great War, which ones I've got and which ones I want**.  O and a list of the various pieces of artwork we went to see at the Juan Miro gallery.  Art?

New versus old

     Plus there are mysterious cryptic notes that could do with a little decyphering.  What's that?  I wrote them so I should know what I'm talking about?  Pshaw!  If only you knew!

Over The Hill With The Swords Of Sixty Thousand Men

Conrad is now up to about 5% of "Le Mort D'Arthur" and we've had a protracted battle between the 'Eleven Kings' and Arthur's army, with the 11K having allegedly assembled 50,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry.  I say 'allegedly' because these numbers are frankly unrealistic for a fourteenth-century army, as they would not have been able to be provisioned or watered in numbers like that.  

     Nor is that all.  Sir Thomas Malory, the author (do keep up!) has it that 45,000 of the 11K's troops were killed, despite their forces in the field not having broken.  Conrad is ready to call effluvia on this.  You see, in battles up to the Early Modern era, the greatest casualties were inflicted on the side that broke and ran because then they were simply a fleeing rabble unable to defend themselves.  The victor consequently had casualties that were a fraction of their opponents.

"Here's Johnny!"

     I think to make this plausible we're going to have to divide by 10.
     There is more to write, especially on what we might call 'relations' as enjoyed by the characters - which is another story for a different kitchen***.

     Hang on - let me just carry out a swift bout of Google-Fu - no, Thomas Pynchon has not written a new novel yet.  Dog Buns, Tom, get a move on before you boing off this mortal coil!

Finally - 

We don't need much to hit the Compositional Ton today, so what can we end with that's nice and concise?  Aha!  I need to pop on over to The Great War Forum and ask if anyone there knows what the "danger angle" means with regards to artillery pieces, and firing them.  There used to be a correspondent there, Nigel, who had been a gunner in real life, and who could be guaranteed to explain the arcana of the 'Drop-shorts'.  He's not posted for several years now, so he may be retired or just not very chatty any longer.  We shall see!

Close enough

*  You couldn't get away with this sort of thing nowadays.  It would have to be the "Mushroom Persons From Mars".

**  All of them, of course.  Obviously!
***  NOT A LITERAL KITCHEN.

Articulate

Conrad Hopes This Is The First Word You Think Of When Reading The Blog

After that, you can add "Bizarre", "Stupid" and "Nonsense" if you like.  Just as long as "Articulate" is in there first.

     We are now going to risk an incursion by the ever-present Steam Locomotives, who could sneak up on us with ease given how foggy it is tonight; however, Your Humble Scribe has discovered that TRAINS are more complicated then he imagined and wants to share some of this new-found data.  Art!

     This, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is an "Articulated" locomotive, which is to say one that can swing about on it's bogies in a manner the conventional locomotive cannot <conventional locomotive goes into a sulk>.  There are various different patterns of Artic. Locos, and although I generally avoid pinching images from Wikipedia, their schematic is very clear and concise.  Art!

     To what end are these various arrangements employed?  I thought you'd never ask!  They allow the locomotive to take turns that are sharper than a normal locomotive could risk, without getting derailed.  There is a definite limit to how sharp the curve can be on a railway before the train is going to leave the tracks.  Art!  Another example!

     This South Canadian beast is another Artic. and the wheel description 2-6-6-6 tells you so; you can see the first 3 underneath all that plumbing, and the second 3 behind them (the reciprocal 3 being on the side you can't see).  I bet you've never given a single thought to rail curve versus derailment risk before, have you?  Now that you know it's a real thing, your train journeys in future will never be the same.

     Come here, Motley, for I wish to test what make this length of railway track is by dropping it on your <substitute for a> foot.  9 or 16 pound (per yard length) and you'll be fine.  75 pound and we might need to call an ambulance.  Art!

Atompunk or what?

A Palpable Hit!

"What's Conrad doing by quoting Shakespeare, for leaven's sake*?" I hear you quibble.  "For he loathes the Barf of Avon mightily."

     Correct.  I was quoting The Doctor, if you must know.  Art!

Root versus Dalek

     From that classic of the Pertwee era "Death to the Daleks", where a roving Dalek, being nosy as all of that species are, encounters a 'root' originating in the Exillon's city.  This root is highly aggressive and packs a power-laden punch that leaves the Dalek in bits**.  The Doctor is witness to this japery and comments as above.
     Which has about 0.001% relevant to a Youtube video I was watching, and if Art can put down his Mara Corday scrapbook -

     YES! WELL DONE SIR! RIGHT ON THE BUTTON!

     I refer, of course - O so obviously! - to his correctly stating "Frankenstein's monster" rather than the usual sloppy misattribution merely to "Frankenstein", which, as one who has read the novel actually thanks for asking, irks the spit out of Your Humble Scribe.

     What was he commenting on? Ah. Yes.  Er - something about the persimmon harvest in Novi Pazar?

Evolution

I realise by using this word that the Biblical literalists will choke on their tea and shortbread, suddenly realising that the blog is nothing to do with Lewis Carroll and nonsense verse.  Sorry about that, and remember - the Heimlich Manoeuvre is your friend.

     You see, Conrad was intrigued by a line of thought he came up with in outline for Sunday's second post, about the cover illustrations of pulp magazines from the Thirties to the Fifties, and their conventions.  One that I came across was a splendid example of the genre.  Art?

     Conrad definitely NOT using this as the default picture that comes up on Facebook!  "Star of Treasure", hmmmm.  Not a name I'm familiar with, nor does the name "Charles W. Harbaugh" ring any bells, and it's probably a pen-name to boot. Okay, I did a bit of Google-fu and that above is not the entire cover, so lets have the real thing, please, Art.

Not just "Wonder" but "Thrilling" too.  Your cup runneth over.

     This one ticks all the boxes.  Stern, square-jawed, clean-shaven WASP male with ray-gun?  Check.  Grotty alien monsters (apparently a species of carnivorous seals)?  Check.  Sleek streamlined spaceship?  Check.  Hapless, helpless and also  glamourous alien (yet startlingly human-looking) princess not wearing a lot, and who needs rescuing?  Check.
     If the cover illustration is for "The Veil Of Astellar" then I've still never heard of it, although Leigh Brackett's name I am familiar with.

     You were expecting a man, weren't you?  We may come back to Leigh, she did interesting work.

A Taste Of Britain

I have seen a Youtube video of various British dainties being fed to callow and unsuspecting South Canadians.  Unsurprisingly, none of them took to Marmite very much, because it is genuinely either love or hate, with no middle ground.  There was mystification at why the "Digestive" biscuit was thus named, since as one person put it, that made it sound like a medicine.  I have seen a recent Youtube comment that mirrors this.  Art?

     These biscuits are indeed delicious, and Conrad has to avoid them like poison, for their principal constituents are flour, butter and sugar THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES all baked together into - <I must stop tormenting myself>.

     Many years ago Your Humble Scribe lived not far from the Mcvitie's factory in Stockport and when the wind was in the right direction you got the scent of digestives being baked.  How glad I am not to live there now! <dammit stop tormenting myself...>

TAUNT ME WITH WHAT I CANNOT HAVE!

Finally -

Have to hurry and get this up to the Compositional Ton, as there is a fascinating video by Legal Eagle on Youtube that I was watching before starting on BOOJUM!  I won't go into details as it consists of both Current Affairs and Politics, and is about that recent election thing in South Canada.  Legal Eagle does a forensic breakdown, in his capacity as a practicing attorney, of Certain Legal Issues.  One thing to take away from it that I can pass on is that Rudi Giuliani, that old guy with glasses and not much hair, is on a retainer of £15,000 per day.  So since the e<coughcough>n took place, he's made £400,000.  Not bad if you can get it.

Ambrose Bierce would be 163 this year

*  Less serious than 'heaven's sake' and much yeastier

**  Good.  Fascists on rollerskates.

Sunday's Sideways Scan

 A Little Artistic Licence There

Since this is more a rearward look than a sideways one.  Don't complain, it's not as if you have to pay to read any of this, is it?

     Okay, we need the usual click-baity picture here in order to tempt passing traffic to visit the blog, after which - well, I guess we'll see, won't we?

     What can we have <thinks> aha!  A hokey old science-fiction magazine cover from the benighted times way back, when all women were fit for was looking good or screaming in terror.

Sometimes both at once

     How very apt! for we now look back over 7 years of BOOJUM!

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/11/building-blocks.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/11/kill-thy-neighbour.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-beachy-boys.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/11/hear-me-carp-about-aeolian-harp.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-season-of-slutch.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/11/southampton.html

2013

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2013/11/fret-not-for-boojum-has-returned.html

Nowadays we have - er - this.  Whatever "it" is.

Metal

Although -

It's taken so long to get to this point that it's probably rusted by now.  You see, I booted up the laptop and then went to get lunch, and by the time I got back it was doing that Dog Buns! disk-check, which you can't stop and which takes 45 minutes to run.  I have been using the time constructively, mind, by re-reading "Every Empire Falls", a trade paperback about Mega-City One's time of troubles.  I know, I know, MC1 is always in trouble.  Poetic licence.  And artist Henry Flint is definitely inspired by Carlos Ezquerra.  Art!

You cannot doubt my assertion

     Right!  I don't think we've got enough to make a whole blog post about metal, so I'll put all the relevant items here in the Intro.

     First off, that metal monolith in Utah.  Art!

     First things first: it's not a monolith.  "Mono-" for 'one' and "-lith" for 'stone', and you can see my pedantic hair-splitting point here.  The BBC should know better as it's a "Monometallum", thank you very much.  This particular piece of art was put up at least four years ago and was only discovered by accident when a helicopter crew were out counting sheep.  Quite.  We even have picture proof of same, so - Art?

     Pictures courtesy Google Earth (so they don't sue us).  Of course lots of people immediately compared it with the <ahem> monolith from "2001", when what they ought to be comparing it with is from "Full Metal Jacket" instead and if Art will put down his plate of coal -

     Then we shall jump in time, space and subject matter to the Western Front during the First Unpleasantness, where motor vehicle and horsed transport is mentioned, though not in as much details as the TRAINS, in "Transportation On The Western Front 1914 - 1918".

     I can hear your question from here: "What has that to do with metal?"

     So glad you asked!  For much supply dealt with and because of, 'road metal'.  This is a misnomer as it's not metal at all, it's stone, usually crushed into a fine gravel and used to make roads with.

     Why is this important?  Because the ceaseless usage of the roads in France and Flanders, in all weathers, caused them to break up, hence they needed re-metalling frequently.  TOTWF quotes a total of 3,370 tons daily for December 1915.  This is a lot; the total required in summer would be considerably less as there wouldn't be the rain/snow to erode the roads, nor the sub-zero temperatures to break them up.  It's an awful lot of metal, you must admit, and is one reason light railways were used so extensively; their 'permanent way' didn't get ground down and destroyed by use.

     Jumping back to art in the wild, mention was made in the Beeb's article about the Monometallum of another so-called 'famous' installation that Your Modest Artisan had never heard of: The Lightning Field.  Art?

     This event is rare, which we have to take as given since the site's location is a secret, it's only open for 6 months of the year, no campers are allowed nor can you take photographs (so where did the one above come from?).  It consists of 400 steel poles set up in a grid pattern over a square mile, the end.  Well, not quite the end, as TLF was created or installed or inflicted, whatever term you want to use, in 1977.  It's still there, unsurprisingly, since you'd need an 80 mile round trip to get there and back to the nearest town and those steel poles are secured in buried concrete blocks.

Walter de Maria's work

     Please note the complete lack of bad puns here.

     Motley!  We're going to track this storm, and you can do it wearing our special  De Maria helmet; you'll need to stick your head out of the car window, that helmet won't fit in the back with all those steel spines we welded to it. 

Talking Of Comics ...

This may come as news to you, as you surely lack Conrad's age and knowledge about comics.  Back in 1954 a South Canadian psychiatrist called Fred Wertham published "Seduction Of The Innocent", which was an horrific expose of how comics caused juvenile crime and delinquency.  Art?

     The South Canadian comics industry had to immediately instigate a voluntary code for comics, with a list of what they couldn't publish.  You had to stick to the Code and get a seal of approval or no distributor would touch you, nor would anyone stock your comics.  Art?

     This is why the underground comics of the Sixties sold: they were long on sex, swearing, violence and nudity, frequently all four simultaneously.

     The thing is ... (and I bet you were expecting this) Ol' Fred's book was essentially a collection of lies with a binding.  He didn't hesitate to fake evidence, make anecdotes up, deliberately distort his subject groups and probably passed port to the left.  The CCA is long defunct now and was on it's way out by the Eighties.  And how can you have any respect for an authority that censors comics but allows Disney to publish the unfunniest cartoons ever?

     Somewhere in his comic archive Conrad has some pre-code reprints done under the "Mister Monster" heading - which is a story for another day.

A couple of delinquents in training

"Gutta Percha"

Conrad has encountered this word in <thinks> murder mysteries set in the Thirties, and maybe the works of P.G. Wodehouse.  I've never bothered to look it up until now, and what do I find?

     Nope, not rubber: gutta percha being harvested from the Palaquium tree.  It's an inert rubber-like substance that was used before the widespread use of plastics and is still in use in dentistry, of all things.  Oh, it was used for the core of golf balls, which may be the Wodehouse connection as I had a short-story collection of his all about golf.

     Nope, that's a walking stick not a golf club.

Finally -

We only need a tickle to hit the Compositional Ton, Vulnavia.  Oh, I know - for the first time in 211 pages I've come across mention in TOTWF of "Mechanically-worked foreways", which I think is the closest the text has come to of Telpherage systems.  It's mentioned in passing and is proof by omission that these carriage mechanisms were used on a very small scale.  I shall keep my eyes peeled for more such mentions, though I'm not very hopeful.  Art!

The closest I could find.

     With that we are done!

An Experiment

 Nope, Nothing About Alligators Or Eggs

(Audience frowns in disappointment).  This is partly because it's now 18:43 - cue bad pun about the early Victorian era - and I've not typed up a single line of the blog, which would mean spending until 21:00 getting it done, and I have books to read, comics to peruse and notes to make.  Which comics, I hear you ask?  "Once And Future" for a start, as I've only read it the twice: firstly to read all the script and second time to examine the artwork.  I'm also toying with the idea of re-reading "Invincible" in toto, which is a bit of a time commitment as there are dozens of trade paperbacks.  Art - clickbait picture, please.

Coo-eee - Netflix?

     Second reason is that if I've spent seven years creating deathless scrivel, I might as well put that archive to use, much as I now do on a Sunday evening.  This is a test of sorts, so - let's rock!

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/11/sorry-for-cliche.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-to-dismantle-atomic-bomb.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/11/pet-sounds.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/11/te-fala-dhe-urime.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/11/v.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/11/everton.html

2013

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2013/11/forsooth-late-blog-today.html

Lightning Strikes Another 273 Times

Confession Time

No!  I did not sink the Titanic.  That was an iceberg.  Of course, the swivel-eyed loonwaffle brigade probably assert that it was either aliens or the CIA, even if there's no proof of the former and the latter didn't come into being until after the Second Unpleasantness.  Common sense not common amongst loonwaffles.

     No, what I wanted to admit was a guilty pleasure in enjoying "Murder She Wrote", because it's in the genes: once you become middle-aged you HAVE to read and watch murder mysteries.

Jessica demonstrates the Batticaloa Brain-Pinch murder method*

    Here an aside.  All those Dot Sayers murder mysteries?  Gone to the charity shop, because once I've read it I won't forget how it was done, nor by whom nor why.  Retentive memory, you see.  A blessing and a curse.
     Take the episode I've just been watching. The killer murdered their victim in the first-class section of an airliner.  WHY?  There is a strictly limited circle of suspects and they can't escape.  If I were  - 

     Hmmmm, getting a little off-topic there.  And Conrad is pretty sure you don't want to know how to carry out an undetectable murder using succinyl cholinesterase ANYWAY back to MSW.

The cold cruel eyes of a killer codeword-solver

     As you should surely know by now, Conrad loves a bit of number-crunching, and MSW is no more resistant to this than anything else.  Jessica Fletcher, as played by BRITISH actress Angela Lansbury, resides in what I dub The Murder Capital Of South Canada: Cabot Cove, population 3,560.  Art!

Long out of date, I'm afraid

     Not that original a thought, others have been here before.  Still others have calculated that 274 murders have occurred in tiny (yes), quiet (debatable) peaceful (definitely not!) town of Cabot Cove, which comes out at an alarming 7.5% of the town population.  One out of every 13 people, in fact.  Even the worst third-world drug-ridden slums aren't that dangerous.  The cost of living must be practically free, or there are springs that issue forth beer and wines, or the air prevents aging or - there must be something that keeps people there, surely?

     I mean, you could expect to put up with a single murder in such a small town.  The following 273?  Unless - ah! got it.  Once a dozen murders take place the normal people begin to move out, and murder groupies start to buy houses.  It's the only explanation**.
     Motley!  The suspects are all gathered together in the parlour so I need someone something to play the part of victim.

More Crunching Of Those Delicious Numbers

Forsooth! for I am nearly half-way through "Transportation On The Western Front" and deadly dry stuff it is too.  Be glad that Your Modest Artisan is reading it on your behalf, for it has mostly concerned TRAINS so far.  So many trains!

Note the mix of hats and helmets
(Implying pre-summer 1916)

     The other principal method of movement for the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 was the horse, as I may have mentioned, with motor vehicles coming a distant second.  Not only were there not that many of them, there weren't that many drivers, either, as ownership of a car back in Blightly was limited to the well-off.  So!  When the four infantry divisions (plus the independent 19th Infantry Brigade amounting to about a third of a division) plus a cavalry division went to France in 1914 they took 1,200 motor vehicles.  Art!

     That's for the whole BEF.  Consider that a single infantry division at that time had at full count just shy of 5,600 horses, and the cavalry division had 9,800 and you see the numbers do indeed speak, verily, of Dobbin as the prime mover.  Motorisation proceeded apace - and we shall come back to this.  Also, take note of that picture above.  We shall come back to this, too***.

More About Trains

Steam trains, to be specific, as today's models are all stinky diesel or crackly electric ones.  A good sixty years ago they were a major infrastructure feature of Perfidious Albion, before car-ownership was widespread and the creation of motorways was in it's infancy.  

     Cue artistic endeavour in attempts to persuade the public to travel by train.  The BBC recently covered an advertising and ephemera haul found accidentally in an ex-railway employee's attic.  Art!

     People pay a lot of money for articles like this: £1,200 in fact.  So if Dad ever worked on the railways, it might be an idea to sort out the junk in his attic (lest Darling Daughter be tempted to do this, be careful, there are booby traps).

And Still Bricking It Down Under

No!  Not in the slang sense of "Being a big scared wuss", rather "Making enormous structures out of Lego".  Art?

A Brickman creation

     Yes, another creation from Brickman and team, and this picture really doesn't do it justice, since there are no puny humans for scale, and I couldn't find a picture with any of you us alongside it.  It is 9 feet tall, and no I couldn't find out how many bricks it uses.  Several hundred thousand at a guess, and again it's not readily apparent but this thing glows in the dark thanks to internal lighting and transparent bricks.  I can tell you it was part of an exhibition that took 4,200 hours to build and totalled 2,000,000 bricks.  Is that good enough?

Finally -

We only need a short article to hit the Compositional Ton, after which I think a shave and some scoff are in order.  I deliberately bought some ingredients on the weekly shop that allow me to use recipes from Marguerite Patten's "500 Snacks and Suppers" and I've done two so far, which were pretty tasty and filling.  Who knew that creamed spinach on toast was a thing?  Or Scrambled Rice And Bacon?

     Which of course has nothing to do with what I wanted to say, which was - er - sorry food again - to parse the phrase "As sure as eggs are eggs".  Which means "To be indisputably correct and true in every regard".

     Yes - but why EGGS? exactly?  Why not a lump of granite or a grilled trout or a De Tomaso Mangusta running on high-octane petrol? (see not everything is about food).

     My "Brewers" has an interesting theory.  The phrase may be a corruption of the logician's posit "Let x equal x", which is intriguing and which has less cholesterol.

     See?  Laurie agrees.

     And do you know what?  We're done.  Done done done!

*  This may not be entirely accurate

**  That, or aliens.

***  I can see you twitching with excitement at the thought.