Quiver In Fear!
For there is no typo here. NO! I have not gratuitously mis-spelled that old song title by The Cyborg Zombies The Rolling Stones (it's true, the ones that aren't zombies are cyborgs) "Jumping Jack Flash" and you'll not get a picture of the band because I don't like them. Instead let's have a picture of something I do like - Art!
For we are back on the subject of "Field Guns In France" by Colonel Neil Fraser-Tytler. The Major (as he was then) had a job to do in the small hours of the morning, namely plotting work in his underground shelter, working out lines and times for the battery to fire on the next day. The Teutons - Art!
The mighty metal mammoth Matilda
In fact those are Austro-Hungarian troops in Italy, but I took the picture months ago and never got to use it, so it's getting used now and I don't care if you don't appreciate it.
ANYWAY
The Teutons were being especially hateful and had laid on a proper pasting with gas shells, and since the Major had bothered to put on his mask, they weren't merely lachrymatory (tear gas to you) ones. In fact from what Your Humble Scribe knows, they would have been phosgene shells, which is spectacularly bad for you. COCl2 is the formula for this particular bitches brew. The Major was particularly irked at having to work by candlelight in a gas mask. Art!
You can see his point.
Stylish yet functional!
"Yes, Conrad, O tightly-trimmed one," I hear you mutter, "We can see half your point, about gas. And the rest?"
Because at 03:00 - as I said, in the small hours for neither war nor British artillery officers ever sleep - he was brought a hasty breakfast of tea and bacon "both tasting vilely of gas".
Hmmmmmm.
You ought to know Conrad by now; incurably nosey and with the internet at his fingertips. "How bad is eating and drinking food contaminated with phosgene?"
'Not good' isn't really very accurate, yet I'm afraid there's no hard and fast answer, since phosgene is normally used in gas form and all the data on how toxic it is deal with inhalation, not ingestion. We can look at it with an analytic eye; the phosgene would be diluted by the tea and bacon it had contaminated and would affect the stomach and digestive tract. From there it would be taken into the bloodstream but any effect would be delayed by this process, and phosgene was noted for delayed effects anyway. Would it build up in the body at sub-lethal doses? The pathology on this is novel, one suspects, as inhaling phosgene is usually a quick trip to the pearly gates and any studies on it would deal with the gas, not imbibition.
Still, NFT cannot have done himself any good by cheerfully chowing down, having <ahem> named his poison.
Motley, I made too much tea. Would you like a cup*?
CAUTION! Lemon infinitely preferable to poison gas as garnish
Sick Sick Notes
Enough of carnage and bloo - er - well, actually here we have some more blood and carnage. Conrad recently caught up with "Doctor Hope's Sick Notes", one of the more cerebral Youtube channels he follows (and with far less swearing than The Critical Drinker, parents).
Here an aside. We recently went to visit Darling Daughter, in anticipation of her 25th birthday and handed over presents with a sense of relief that she hadn't caught Covid again - O to be a parent! - and of course Conrad had to chide her when she used a naughty word or two. Even though she is 25 and talking about buying a house. Art?
 |
| A picture of health. In a skeleton onesie |
ANYWAY
The good doctor does an hilarious on-the-spot assessment of various fight scenes in films and television shows, analysing how effective certain people are at fighting.
This is one of his favourite television shows at the moment, and he looked at <ahem> "Mando"'s fight scene in Season Two.
They have him surrounded. The fools!
Mando is outnumbered ten to one, which appears to barely make it a fair fight; Conrad hasn't seen any of this program and so cannot answer for how effective Mando is. Can you help us out here, Doctor?
I like a nice round total. As the doctor points out, we're not counting Baby Yoda in the totals here. Plus, several of the "Critical" are going to end up ticking a box in the "Deceased" column.
Okaaaaaay. I think we can presume to say that Mando is pretty hando as a commando. Certainly a quantum level or two beyond clumsy old Boba Fett.
"Don't call me clumsy!"
(Falls into Sarlacc Pit)
Conrad - Long In The Tooth, Sharp In The Eye
I forget how, exactly, I ended up watching the Guards on parade on a Youtube channel. You know the Guards: Coldstream and Grenadier - whom have a tradition of rivalry that goes back a couple of centuries*** - Scots, Irish and Welsh. The officers tend to be sprigs of the aristocracy with an independent income, and the band musicians put down the instruments and pick up stretchers and other medical kit in wartime. Art!
This is the kind of soldier the Teutons of August 1914 thought they'd be encountering. Ho ho.
The Grenadier Guards on parade
Anyway, Conrad spotted a flag at the back of the parade on Youtube.
"That's Norwegian!" I mused to myself. Art!
Correct! These are the Nork's King's Royal Guard, who were given the signal offer of marching with the Guards.
Finally -
This came up as a question in our (rather hard) work's Christmas Quiz. Art!
This is the Christmas tree that has arrived in Trafalgar Square every year since 1947, as a 'Thank You' from the Norks. This is pretty generous of them, since Perfidious Albion (and France, just to spread the blame around) made an utter bodge of defending them from the Teuton invasion in 1940. Although we did provide a safe haven for the King and Nork volunteer soldiers, and helped them to run the "Shetland Bus" - which is another story in a different galley.
* Don't worry, it's not poisoned**.
** Or maybe it is.
*** Grenadiers must be fed or paid either first or last NEVER second to the Coldstream
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