Barging In

This Will Make Sense In A While

So kindly bear with us.  

     Firstly, however, we need to take an urgent detour into what is either Late Medieval or Early Modern history, because if Conrad has to endure 800 pages of "Le Mort D'Arthur" then rest assured you out there are most certainly going to reap the benefits.  O yes.  Art?

The ancient and noble sport of stone-stabbing

     A lot of Book Two is dedicated to the derring do's of Sir Balin, whom you may feel you've met before, and you have if, at any point in the past, you have read or watched "The Hobbit", as Ol' Tolky was an academic and historian well-versed in the languages of ancient Britain, hence his stealing borrowing homaging the name.  Art!

     Sir Balin of King Arthur's court is a far cry indeed from a Celtic dwarf with a penchant for gold and digging, seeing as he has two swords and is mighty in battle.  He also has a twin brother, Balan, which must have caused some trouble at home if Mum was calling from the keep of their castle home and they were up on the battlements.  Art!

     SPOILERS AHEAD!

     I WARNED YOU

     Sir Balin ends up in a castle where he has been tracking an invisible knight who kills with impunity - no, I didn't turn over two pages at once, this Garlon chap is able to become invisible - and finishes by killing the castle's seneschal, King Pellam, whom it transpires had the blood of Joseph in his veins, and the weapon used to kill him (Balin's sword having inconveniently shattered) was the Spear of Longinus, yes that one, as used to wickedly poke a hole in Jesus.  This causes a curse to fall on the land and kill many people - we may come back to this.

The pointy thing in question

     This is all related to Balin by Merlin, who is always showing up after the fact, instead of beforehand when he could have prevented nasty things from happening, and it seems horribly unfair that Balin is given the greasy magician's eyeball when he had absolutely no clue about Ol' Pelly's bloodline nor that spear.
     Okay, I shall now get to the point.  Art?

     I put this here as yesteryon we were harping on about "Brake vans" and it tickled my sense of humour.  Your amusement may vary.

     

Vandals Took The Handles

For Lo! we are come upon one of the very few interesting bits in "Transportation On The Western Front 1914 - 1918" where they talk about more than TRAIN timetables and portray a little local colour.  

     Okay, Art, we want a bucolic scene featuring the Somme canal.  Hop to it!

     And let's have a colour photo from today.

     In 1917 the Teutons pulled back to their defences in the Hindenburg Line on a wide front, and they lived up to their distant namesakes the Vandals - or the Goths or the Huns, if you prefer - and if they couldn't steal and carry it away, they sought to destroy it.

     Enter the Somme Canal, which you see above a hundred years ago, and today.  The dirty curs had vandalised this transport hub over a distance of 7 miles, at one point blasting the sides of the canal level with surrounding ground, when it should have been 4 feet higher.  Where they couldn't do this they had chucked everything and the kitchen sink into it: barbed wire and wire stays, telephone wire, empty ammunition boxes, railway tracks, railway wagons (!), barges, pontoons, tree trunks, girders, brickwork and masonry and temporary bridges.

     That's actually a different canal but gives an idea of the mess the Somme version was left in.  Heaven only knows how the Teutons got railway wagons close enough to push in.

     The whole of the above was intended to slow down any Allied follow-up into the debatable plundered lands the Teutons had vacated, meaning they needed to repair the canal before it could be used for suppliles again.  Hmmmm well it was all done in 8 weeks, probably a lot quicker than Gustav and Erich intended.

It also made these chaps very cross indeed.

Let Us Now Descend To The Depths

Conrad would like to display another pulp magazine cover from the early Fifties, featuring, of course - obviously! - an attractive young lady not wearing a lot.  These were the prime reason for catching people's men's boy's attention when the publications were displayed on newsstands, with author's names coming a distant second.  Art!

Small = SFW

     Note the strategically-placed bubbles and eddies in the water that mean the picture is just this side of acceptable, a phenomenon that Derek and Clive have commented upon**.  It's still quite striking, as it juxaposes (not a word you were expecting to hear today) a mermaid with a submarine, giving you a sudden realisation about what the scale is here*.  Also, who knew that mermaids were heavily into shockingly scarlet lipstick?

Another Wallet-Drainer

Professor Gary Sheffield, who works at Wolverhampton University, recently stated on Twitter that he's going to post up military history books from the past year that he thinks particularly highly of, at which Your Humble Scribe groaned aloud and, shaking his head, directed a searching look at Wallet.

     "O noes!" squeaked Wallet.

     First up has been "The Fortress" by Alex Watson, which is about the Austro-Hungarian fortress of Przemysl, and it's siege during the First Unpleasantness.  Most of those commenting on Amazon and Goodreads had never heard of it UNLIKE YOUR HUMBLE SCRIBE, who knows the outline.  Art!

     I may return to the subject and elucidate briefly, that you may decide if you want Alex's book or not.  Prof. Boff (another military historian) also recommends it.

Finally -

We are nearly at the Compositional Ton so what frothiness can we end BOOJUM! upon, we wonder?  O yes!  At the back of "Once And Future" - which deals with Arthurian legend and myth and makes a good primer for LMDA - there was a panel with half a dozen other titles from Boom! publishers, four of which looked interesting.  Let's look at "The Woods" first.  Art?

     From what I can gather, over 500 pupils and staff at a South Canadian college are suddenly transported from planet Earth to Somewhere Else.  It ran to 9 trade paperbacks, so it must have been popular and have plenty of plot.  Dear me, dear me, another wallet-drainer.

     "O noes!" squeaks Wallet.

*  Er - I just realised.  No pun intended.

**  English comedians and very, very NSFW.