Hill Of The King

Do Not Tempt Either Fate Or My Remote Nuclear Detonator!

For no, this is nothing to do with "King Of The Hill" I'll have you know.  However, I would like to put it on record that Hank Hill is a splendid role model that every man ought to aspire to.  He is described in Wikipedia as "responsible, hard-working, disciplined and honest", to which you can also add "adaptable, decent and compassionate".  The modern world and it's ways sometimes leaves him behind, as a conventional middle-aged man, yet he always manages to accommodate it and not be a bottomhole.  If I were not pushing Ambrose Bierce for President, I would have Hank instead*.  Art!

     Right.  Now that we've got what this Intro's not about out of the way, let us continue.

     You may remember, going back well over a year, that Conrad used to occasionally post links or stills from a Youtube channel called "Because Science", which was written and hosted by - Kyle Hill.  Art!

Not a wig

     Mysteriously, Kyle left the channel nearly a year ago (which channel is owned by Nerdist) and has been as forthcoming about why as Ruby Rose was about leaving (or being sacked from) "Batwoman", except people cared about Because Science.

     Surprise! Kyle is now back on Youtube, under his own aegis (which means 'name'), with some rumours attached that he wasn't allowed creative freedom from Nerdist, which is why he left.  I expect it will all come out in the wash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew064gt2thY

     That's a link to a video he put up about a week ago, concerning the "Castle Bravo" thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll back in 1954, which went badly wrong.  We've covered it already here at BOOJUM! so I shan't go into it again.  Sadly, no goofy animated artefacts, not even Kyle talking enthusiastically to camera.

But we DO have footage of a 15 megaton thermonuclear detonation!
(Which is almost as good)

Kyle 0 Razor 2

     And thus we have today's title.

     Motley, let's play Blindfold Lawn Darts!


Shhhhhh

Conrad recently came across a Youtube channel titled "Groovy Scene", whilst he was looking for video footage of unicorns or self-propelled anti-tank weasels, or something.  "Oho what's this?" I asked myself - I can do this safely thanks to working from home - and replied "Looks like classic television programs from the Sixties onward."

     Yes indeed.  Including episodes from "Callan" when it was being broadcast in black and white.  Art!

     Conrad remembers the character being described as a "grey, remorseless, gadgetless Bond" and thinking "O realistic then?".  Callan works for "The Section", whose principal occupation is dealing with threats to the UK, frequently by killing them stone dead.  He doesn't exactly want to do his job, but he's very good at it, and The Section has enough material on him to finish him.  It very good, even if it puts This Sceptred Isle in a rather dark light.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVsDav1a1riO1nlvoUYX6pg/videos

  That, gentle readers, is the link to Groovy Scene's Youtube channel.  I did ask if it was okay to post it before posting it, and they said "Yes" so tread lightly if you venture there, and be polite.  If you don't your descendants are going straight to the uranium mines**.

     

Since I Mentioned "The Skreeming Voles" ..

Way back when the years didn't end with a twenty, Your Humble Scribe was attempting to establish BOOJUM! as a place to go for - er - <thinks> - ah - stuff.  And in pursuit of this he invented a punk rock band called "The Skreeming Voles" simply because he could, and it lent itself to a lot of facile punnery.  It must be about 6 years since they had an item to themselves, so the time is ripe for a retrospective, hmmmm?

     The trouble is, I mentioned them quite a bit in passing, so searching on Blogger for 'skreeming voles' brings up a whole lot of posts where they are mentioned only once, being that passing thing.  

Yes, it's a rat.  You try finding a picture of a screaming vole!

     Still - 

It also sounds rather like a silly punk band from 1979.  Who sing like this:

Toxic to voles! Toxic to voles!

We're going to squash squirrels

And stamp on your moles - 

Toxic to voles! Toxic to voles!**

     We have improved since then, honestly***.

You What?

I did mention above that Hank Hill gets a little confused by the modern world, which is entirely understandable as society, culture and civilisation all move onwards with implacable inertia, and anyone growing up in the Seventies might well find themselves blindsided by Venmo, Sprong and FKA Twigs.  This afternoon Your Humble Scribe found himself in the same boat as Hank.  Art!

Upper port

     Since it's a little obscure, allow me to replicate: WILLARD WHITE IS A SEX DEMON RAVE IN THE REDWOODS SECRET STORYLINE NEW EVIL BOSS IN DLC MAPS.

     What on earth are they blathering about?  Willard White?  Am I supposed to know who he is?  A reality-tv celebritute?  Are they talking about Californian Redwoods or is that an entirely different location?  How do they know the new boss is evil?  (or were they featured on one of those Reddit Youtube channels I cannot look away from?)  What is or are or were or will be "DLC Maps"?

Walter White.  Close enough.

Finally -

You know Conrad, ever one to luxuriate in schadenfreude over another person's misfortune.  Hey, I never claimed to be a nice person (or even human)!  So, tonight will see the third episode of "Batwoman"'s second series being broadcast over in South Canada.  This means that accurate viewing figures won't be available until Tuesday on this side of the Pond, and so I shall forbear doing an article about them until later next week.  I'm so excited!  Will they have suffered another 7% drop?  Will they have bottomed-out?  Will they have <gasps and reaches for the oxygen> increased?

I'm glad one of you is happy

     There is a certain baseline the show cannot fall below, however; because a fair number of viewers are actually reviewers who intend to roast it subsequently, and who thus have to watch it.  Probably with the help of a bucket of gin.

*  Vice-President to Ambrose?

**  When I take over - date to be arranged.

***  Not going to give any percentages on how much.

Our Sunday Scan

I Need To Hammer This Out Quickly -

Those haddock goujons won't cook themselves!  Not only that, they've been lurking at the back of the fridge for a few days now, and they were bought remaindered thanks to the Sell-By-Date (which Conrad always treats as a challenge, not a warning).

     So, without further ado, let us bring on the now-expected click-baity picture to entice unwary travellers on teh interwebz.  Art!

ATOMIC CYBORG KILLER EMUS*!

2020

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2020/01/never-trust-quiet-man.html

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-big-queasy_31.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/01/sandy-shore.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/01/hail-to-our-robotic-overlords.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-blood-beast-terror.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-plurality-of-pix.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-grey-day.html

*  Perhaps.  It's a little unclear what's going on here.

What's In A Name?

That Had Better Not Be ANYTHING To Do With Shakespeare

For, if you know anything about Conrad, you know he hates the Barf Of Avon with a passion <shakes fist at Shakespeare for making English O and A levels miserable).

     DOG BUNS!! I just Googled and it IS from the Barb Of Avon.  Right, when I take over his collected works are going in a skip, getting doused with petrol and set alight.  There will be a Department of Anti-Shakespeare, staffed with relentless, remorseless bloodhounds who will track down and delete anything and everything to do with the Bark of Avon.  

<Conrad rubs hands gleefully>

     Anyone teaching English will be vetted and, if they prove the teensiest bit upset at Shakespeare getting shafted - off to the uranium mines with them!

     Where were we?  O yes -

     Your Humble Scribe mentioned "The Virginian" recently, which naturally begets the question: why is there a "West Virginia" and a "Virginia"?  The locals might have gotten used to it, but it sounds confusing to foreigners.  Art?

     Well, this goes back to the American Civil Unpleasantness, when there was only Virginia.  The western part of that state decided that they'd rather not fight to keep the institution of slavery, ta very much, unlike the rest of Virginia, which is why the division came about.  And that's how it's been for the past 160 years.  Art!

     That's West Virginia delineated in scarlet, and as you can see Virginia has a peculiarly arbitrary southern border that appears drawn with a ruler.
     So there we are, one factoid richer than we were five minutes ago.

Trees, Please

Hah!  I found the story I wanted, one set in the Allotment of Eden rather than South Canada, about TREELAW <insert bad pun here>.  The Original Poster on Reddit lived in a mansion house that had been divided into three properties, and in their garden they had two Sequoia trees, that were 200 years old, whilst their neighbour had one.  Art!

A.k.a. Redwoods

     Apparently the Victorians had a thing about the Sequoia and imported hundreds of them into the UK from 1860 onwards.  Some chump in the Reddit comments said they didn't believe the story because redwoods only grew in the US.  Hello!  Art?

Just some of the UK's redwoods

     To be concise, the single-sequoia neighbours were a bunch of bottoms, whose envy grew boundless when a storm toppled their tree.  The OPs family came back from a holiday abroad to find both their trees cut down, two oak trees on their land also cut down, and the Nasty Neighbours presenting them with an £8,000 fee for the removal.  "There was a storm" they lied in explanation.

     Unfortunately for the Nasty Neighbours, OP had put up one of these:

     A wildlife camera.  It showed the dirty deeds being done: there was no storm and the bottoms from next door had deliberately trespassed to inflict property damage.  OP called in a tree surgeon, who calculated that each redwood tree was worth £100,000 and were irreplaceable - you just can't order a 200-year old tree off the shelf.  Not only that, they also recommended getting a structural engineer to examine the house foundations, because the roots would rot and if they had gotten into the foundation - Danger Will Robinson!  The Nasty Neighbours were taken to court and with other charges were found liable for £500,000; they had to sell their house and move out in order to pay.  OP got a 'new' redwood that was 'only' 80 years old, new foundations, new kitchen, new loft extension and new neighbours, so a win-win all round for them.

     The first cut may be the deepest, but that last one can be the most expensive.


Current Affairs

No! we are not going to comment on Mister Trump firing all his legal team or anything like that, for Lo! we are on about "Military Operations Gallipoli" again, and the landings have finally taken place, at long last!

     Except at the wrong place entirely.  

     The author, Mister Aspinall-Oglander, mentions that the plans for the landings of the ANZAC forces alone occupied twenty-seven pages of foolscap, detailing when the towed boats would be sent in and in what order, etcetera.  However, nobody at any level seems to have bothered to find out what the currents were like offshore.  "None" is the assumption.  Wrong.  They were so strong that the towing steam launches were pushed a mile north of the original landing site, which was discovered too late to amend, and mixed the towed boats up as well.  You can see the landscape above, which is still covered with heavy scrub.  The Ockers and the Polite Australians were thus scattered, disorganised, mixed up and slow to progress.  Art!

When things had been organised for a while

     The ANZACs never recovered from this dodgy start.  Remember, there had been five weeks to find out what those currents were like.  We shall see how the British and French managed to muck up their landings shortly!

A Touch Of Whimsy

No!  Nothing to do with Lord Peter or Dorothy Sayers.  Although that does remind me I've still not read one of the novels - something about a dead man turning up on a beach -

     ANYWAY as you should surely know by now, Conrad does the weekly shop on a Wednesday, because habit and tradition.  Whenever he buys beer, Your Humble Scribe always has a good look at the bottles and cans, because there is nothing he will not use as grist in the ever-grinding mills of BOOJUM! and so we present you with - Art?

     I'm not really bothered what it tastes like, I got it for the label.  Bird, banana and bread-flavoured beer sounds like the kind of brew only drunk for a dare or having lost a bet.  We shall see.  Or, rather, taste.

     

I Told Of The "Askold"

Back in the day, this Tsarist cruiser had quite the exciting time.  She fought in the Russo-Japanese Unpleasantness (the Sinister's probably banned people from talking about this since the Ruffians lost), and was off in the Far East when the First Unpleasantness broke out.  As part of the Allied fleet out there, she was co-operating with the Japanese (!) and British, which must have raised hackles somewhat.

     She then got sent to the Mediterranean, forming part of the joint Franco-British fleet that swanned up and down the Palestinian and Syrian coastlines, blowing things up either by gunfire or naval landing parties.  Then she helped support the operations at Gallipoli, eventually cruising back to the port of Archangelsk in the far north of Russia, declaring for the Provisional Government.  After the October Revolution, the Royal Navy happened to s<coughccough>teal her and renamed her HMS "Glory", sailing her to Scotland.  Rather cheekily, after the Bolsheviks had won their Civil Unpleasantness, she was offered back to them for a modest 'we were only looking after her' sum.  Sadly, she was judged unfit for service - she'd been around and in action for twenty years at this point and was definitely the worse for wear - and got scrapped.

      And  with that, Vulnavia, we are done.  See you on the other side, and don't forget - Ambrose Bierce for President!

Feeling A Little Saw

Be Careful, My Remote Nuclear Detonator Still Needs Testing

We are supposed to observe a 500 yard Minimum Safe Distance between the target and other individuals, except Conrad's got no intention of sticking to that, so your whole street might go up in a cloud of vapour.

Blame him

     Here an aside.  Why did nobody ever dedicate a series to the Mirror Universe "Star Trek"?  Instead of the namby-pamby Federation version, we would be able to see <thinks> giant space battles, planets being exploded (Remote Nuclear Detonator Industrial-Size), naked force being used to solve problems, phaser fights, the Romulans getting a right shoeing, annoying crew members being punished with torture, no comic moments at the end, AND NO *****Y TRIBBLES.

Yeah, baby, yeah!

     ANYWAY what I wanted to comment on in this Intro was a sub-species of Reddit posting on Youtube that comes under the unlikely title of "Treelaw".  Which is to say, law about trees.

     Conrad is pretty sure you readers out there only think of trees if one falls on your car.  However, they are pretty idiosyncratic objects that can take decades to reach full maturity, and which can be around for centuries.  They also carry a substantial financial value, all the more so if they are used for making furniture and the like.  Art!

Wood you believe it

     Given the above paragraph, chopping down a neighbour's trees illegally can cost the perpetrator £££ in the hundreds of thousands.  Sometimes it can cost over £1,000,000 - as in one case where the insurance company dragged their feet and tried to bluff it out in court.

     We shall begin small tonight.  Okay, as with most of these cases, this one originates in South Canada, where the Original Poster had two 80-year old oak trees on his property.  Art!

'Quercus Alba' the White Oak

     That "White Oak" distinction is important.  Okay, the OPs next-door neighbour didn't like these trees, as they threw shade over his outside porch, and he cried into his porridge daily about this.  He asked OP to cut them down, as otherwise his early-morning Codeword was difficult to do in darkness; OP refused this request point-blank.  However, when he returns from a fortnights holiday, he finds 1) Two tree stumps where his oaks used to be, and 2) a 'Venmo' payment of £1,500 pounds sent to him*.  Yes, Shady Neighbour had cut the trees down.

     OP is seething with rage, quite justifiably.  He rejects the payment, then has a county surveyor come out to confirm that the trees were legally on his property.  They were.  He then has an 'arborist' come out to value the trees as were.  It transpires that these trees cannot now be replaced, since the environment is now urban and Quercus Alba won't grow there if replanted from new, and they can be valued for insurance purposes at £750 per year of growth, plus a premium for being valuable timber (that White Oak thing).

     Shady Neighbour how has a bill of £150,000 to foot for chopping down trees that weren't on his land.  One hopes the uninterrupted daylight on his porch was worth it.
    

Possibly not

     This, believe it or not, is retribution at the lower end of the scale.  For those confused about 'arborist', the more down-to-earth description in This Sceptred Isle is "Tree Surgeon".

T. Sturgeon.  Close enough.

A Skate Over Some Statistics

NO!  Not the fish.  Dog Buns, what on earth do you think we do here at BOOJUM! but misdirect and mis-interpret Not the fish.  We are returning to a topic broached this afternoon, which happens to be: how many troops were there in the UK after Dunkirk, if we imagine the massive evacuation from Dunkirk never happened?

     The answer is, quite a lot.  As mentioned earlier, almost 200,000 troops were evacuated from eight French ports post-Dunkirk, meaning that they took all their equipment with them, since they weren't being lifted off open beaches.  Art!

Thanks to Wiki

     If the evacuation from Dunkirk doesn't occur, there are still 1,400,000 troops available in the UK in June 1940.  This is an enormous number, although we must remember that a lot were armed with nothing more than the uniform they stood up in.  Your Humble Scribe has Churchill's "History Of The Second World War" and seems to remember that there is a chart in there with details of what divisions there were, at what status they were and how readily they could engage in combat in the summer of 1940.  Art?

     I may pursue this further.  The general corrective to Jim and Al and their "We Have Ways -" podcast is that, even without the Dunkirk evacuees, there were still an awful lot of warm bodies in the UK ready to resist uninvited Teuton tourists.


"Chelation"

Not going to apologise here, yet another mysterious word risen from the depths of my mind to trouble the daylight.  I did have a vague idea that it was involved in dealing with gas warfare/poisoning/rampant turtle attacks <delete where applicable>.

     Technically, a 'chelate' is a molecule of an organic compound that includes a metal ion.  Art!

     There you can see a Nickel molecule in the middle of an organic array.

     "So what?" I hear your callous comment.  Well, if anyone is suffering from heavy metal poisoning <insert Blue Oyster Cult joke here> then they get dosed up with chelating agents, which bond to the metal ions, rather than letting them bond to the victim.  The subsequent refuse is excreted, rather than being retained in the body for 27 years.  It works for lead, arsenic and mercury, the most common heavy metal poisons.

     Conrad's septic sewage of a mind throws up useful information - who knew!

CAUTION! This man is now dead

Finally -

I have yet to come back to you about "Military Operations Gallipoli" as the Allied landing commence, but don't worry, we will get there.  And yes, "Allied" because there was a considerable French presence there, as well as the near-legendary Ruffian cruiser "Askold", which you could write a thriller about, except nobody would believe it.  Seriously, if the West and the Ruffians want to build bridges, they could do worse than make a film (or more probably a mini-series) about the "Askold".

The "Askold"

      And now I have to go finish off the haggis.  A dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

*  I convert all dollars values into pounds, because Imperial is best.  Also, 1776 never happened.

Sound Affects

Be Careful!

For no, we are not talking about that album by The Jam - which is "Sound Effects" by the way - and secondly, my finger is paused - PAUSED! - over the Remote Nuclear Detonator button if you so much as twitch in the direction of Spelling Mistake.  

     No, what I refer to is a combination of the wind outside and "Locke And Key" on television.  The setting is a vast creepy old mansion, and the scene is at night and - the wind outside keeps making the windows creak at inappropriate moments.  Art!

See?  Creepy even in daylight

     Plus Your Humble Scribe, whom we all know to be an utter snivelling coward, is all on his own.  Even Edna has abandoned me.
     First, a matter of correction.  Conrad subscribes to a weekly e-mail from 'Skeptoid' which publishes a list of corrections and emendations when necessary, good practice that BOOJUM! has absolutely no intention of following, apart from the following.  The meat of the matter is "Batwoman", that trainwreck-with-added-dumpster-fire television program.  Art (and be careful now, the stooopid is catching)!

Art dodges a bullet

     You see, Conrad was looking at statistics for BW, and working on it having the usual 24-episode season.  This was incorrect; due to money/reviews/Covid-19 <delete where applicable> it is only going to have 13 episodes.  The second part of this correction is the viewing figures, which were definitely finalised at 659,000  for the second season premiere.  Foolish Conrad went with the interim figure for episode 2 (642,000) when in fact it was 621,000.  

No, I don't know why the fright wig, either

     This is not good news for the CW studio, because STATISTICS! that's 17% of your audience gone in a week.  Coincidentally it means my prediction of 240,000 viewers by the end of the season still holds true, and also reinforces my belief that one of the writer's Daddys owns the studio.
     Having both corrected ourselves and indulged in a little unseemly gloating, we shall now move on.
     Motley, would you like some ice-cream?  We have Tea 'n' Turnip or Parma Ham flavours -

Me Correcting Somebody Else

Conrad being a hair-splitting pedant - who would have believed it!  Okay, this will take a bit of background development.  Jim and Al - I can call them that as we're such terrific chums - were nattering about "Operation Sealion", the Teuton invasion of the UK that never happened, on their podcast "We Have Ways".  They had invited listeners to e-mail in prospective ways such an invasion might have succeeded; one prerequisite was that the BEF was never evacuated from Dunkirk.  Art!

British tourists at the seaside

     The thing is, they rather forget that the troops rescued from Dunkirk were emphatically not the only ones This Sceptred Isle had on the Continent.  In other evacuations coming under the umbrella of "Operation Ariel" almost 200,000 troops, plus equipment including tanks, were returned to the shores of the Pond of Eden, from ports in the west and south of France.  Not only that, if there is no "Halt!" order, it is highly likely that the entire 51st Highland division would have also been able to evacuate.  

Jocks in frocks*

     They also fail to take into account the forces left in the UK.  This is an item for another blog, but from what Conrad recalls there was a complete New Zealand and Canuckistanian infantry division on British soil, and these chaps were not antediluvian LDF volunteers armed with pikes, they were some of the best troops in the Commonwealth.
     Excuse me, I have to go check on the haggis.  Back shortly**!

Giving One The Bird

No! we are not talking of that irreverent South Canadian gesture.  Though this does concern South Canada.  Art!

He's having you for dinner

     This, gentle reader, is a Bald Eagle, a species native to South Canada.  My idle query is: whyfore do they call it "Bald"? because it is patently clad entirely in feathers.  Vultures are bald; eagles are not.  Art? prove me right.

Beautiful on the inside

     That is definitely bald.  As for the eagle? <checks Wikipedia> aha, so in olden times "bald" could be interpreted as "white-headed"***.  Which it most certainly is.  Apparently it also builds the most giganticest nests ever, which can weight up to a ton.  Wowsers.  Art?

Arguing over who placed the very last twig

     It is also the official South Canadian emblem, making it very, very illegal to do anything to the bird or it's nest or eggs.  You can get two years in prison and/or a £20,000 fine if caught doing *anything* to a bald eagle.  It might be safe to satirise one, since the Muppets got away with it, but that was decades ago and I wouldn't recommend trying it nowadays.

"Lawyers stand ready"

     The Bald Eagle has come back from the brink of extermination and now only stands at "Threatened" rather than "Endangered", which, again, is what you'll be if you do one in.

     Blimey, still horribly windy out there.  Thankfully my new double-glazing keeps both the noise and cold out - as I have relocated from the lounge to my Sekrit Layr.

Finally -

We need but a short item to hit the Compositional Ton, so - what do you do when you have lemons?  Apart from making Sicilian sorbet, of course - obviously! - you would make lemonade WHICH I CAN NO LONGER DO THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES <ahem>.  What do you do when you experience significant snowfall?  You can build a snowman; Darling Daughter once built a snow bunny.  However, if you want to think BIG then there cannot be any other option but - 

     GODZILLA!  Art?

     A couple of body-paint artistes created this beast, then used their paint supplies to ink in the finer detail.  It stands nearly 6' high, although unfortunately I cannot find any pictures with puny humans included to show scale.  Art!

     Imagine passing that on the way home from the pub at night ...

     And of course I cannot leave without the by-now traditional complaint that some people have far too much time on their hands.

*  CAUTION!  Do not say this in real life.  Hospital food is not great.

**  Simmering nicely, thanks for asking.

***  Lest you think to so classify Conrad, remember - Remote Nuclear Detonator.

Camelot, Or What?

And If You Even Begin To Think This Is About That Musical ...

Then my Remote Nuclear Detonator will get a try-out!  Go on, I dare you.  

     In fact, is it that musical which features in "The Golden Turkey Awards?"  Why yes it is.  Your Honour, I rest my case.  I did a bit of due-diligence there, to make sure I got the right tome - after all, it might have been in "The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time".  The latter was published in 1978, so it could do with a new edition, hmmm?

"Godzilla Versus The Smog Monster" - another achingly awful contender

     Your Humble Scribe has seen the above, and it is pretty ghastly.  Godzilla is clearly overmatched yet the inevitable tussle between both monsters is interminable and takes up at least 87 minutes of the running time*.
     Well, as usual we seem to have taken a detour to Loony Land within seconds of departing from Sensible Station.  What we are supposed to be addressing, of course - obviously! - is Arthurian legend.  Some would argue 'tis but a hop and a skip from Early Modern chivalric romance to contemporary Nipponese kaiju, but you tend to find them confined to rubber rooms without access to edged cutlery.

CAUTION! Questing Beasts are emphatically not kaiju

     Where were we? O yes -

     Sir Tom, in Book Eleven of "Le Mort D'Arthur", finally gives us a real-world equivalent for the mythical Camelot - Winchester.  

     Ah, not so quick, Sir Tom.  For later scholars debate exactly which location Camelot sat at.  My "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" lists Camelodunum as one possible site, because there is a vague linguistic similarity.  Art!

An early iteration (Colchester)

     But!  It has also been assigned to Caerleon in Wales - and again to Cadbury Castle in Somerset.

Cadbury.  Not very chivalrous, is it?

     Don't go away yet - there's also Camelford in Cornwall, which is where Tintagel Castle resides.  I'm not going to put Tintagel up again, we've had it already a couple of times, go Google it if you're that interested.
     It's unlikely that we'll ever determine exactly where and which Camelot was located, unless someone can persuade a handy Time Lord to loan out his TARDIS.

     That's not all.  Sir Tom has consistently mentioned the country of "Logris" in his text, without explaining where this is, whether it's mythical or factual, not to mention the variant spelling.

     "Tell us, O Aged White-Haired Pundit, tell us!" I hear you chorus.  "For we want to know, and also "Wolf Hall" is on soon so a certain degree of celerity is appreciated."
     Pausing only to appreciate your taste in televisual drama, I shall.  Logris is England, which we are only told about three-quarters into LMDA.  Interestingly enough, the origin is Welsh <insert tired joke here> and from the author Geoffrey of Monmouth, who used the Welsh word "Lloegr" a century or so before Sir Tom put quill to parchment.  Art!

     There we go, from Kaiju to Kamelot!  Now we all know a lot more than we did five minutes ago.  Hooray.  Motley, would you like some ice cream?

The Seeds Of DEATH!

No, I am not referring to the BBC's premier dramamentary series "Doctor Who", although if that got any of you to click on the link - hah! - and Your Humble Scribe always confuses "The Seeds Of Doom" with "The Seeds Of Death".  Art?

 
     Memo to self: Death and the made in monochrome.  This was one of the first video releases of the Eighties, no gaps or editing, and in a fairly decent copy, too.  It's not obvious from the above, so allow me to inform you that it featured the Ice Warriors.  Art!

How to scare cats the Ice Warrior way!

     Okay, enough tangential scrivel.  The title is, frankly, stretching thing, which means a little explication is due.  Seeds; you got that bit, didn't you?  From seeds come flowers.  Still with me?  Good.  What can you make from flowers? (apart from rose-petal tea)?  That's right: garlands.

     Enter Herbert Garland, in peacetime a dull and workmanlike metallurgist in Cairo.  Art?

The spitting image of Flambeaux in "Father Brown"

     In wartime, come late 1915, he invented the 'Garland Mortar', an improvised piece of kit designed to throw improvised bombs at the Turk on the Dardanelles peninsula.  Art!

     For a hastily-improvised weapon it looks quite adequate (given time and wear).  They were sent to the Australian and British troops at Anzac and Helles, and went down a storm, firing the 'Jam Tin Bomb'** out to a couple of hundred yards.  It was rare for an improvised weapon like this to be so successful in the trenches, certainly this early in the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

There's one in the background

     The Ockers loved them because the barrel was fixed and to get extra or shorter range, you had to cock the weapon up or tip it forward, meaning it's use was a positive art, akin to cricket.  We don't have any word on what the Turk thought of them; probably "Kanli cehennem!"
     I thought I'd bring this to your attention as I've never heard of this weapon before, and you must be aware of my unhealthy interest in things that go BANG.


A Bit Of A Reach

Your Humble Scribe has been vaguely aware of the HiRISE satellite project in orbit around Mars for, oooh, ages and ages.  Not until I got a link from 'Skeptoid' did I bother actually looking up the host website at the University of Arizona, which has collections of images taken since 2006.  One selling point is that they have a gallery of 3D images - if one possesses a pair of those red-and-green spectacles.  Art!

The item responsible

     I've only skimmed the website, so I cannot report in depth.  What I wanted to look at with a skeptical eye was their hokey anacronym "HiRISE" because as the title says, that's reaching.  It stands for "High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment".  How long did it take them to brainstorm that one***!  Have a picture to while away the hours.

The Martian moon Phobos

Finally -

Riz Ahmed!  A British Asian actor whom Conrad has seen several times already, without realising it.  You can forgive me for "Rogue One" because it's such a buzzkill downer of a film, more depressing than "Grave Of The Fireflies", and "The Night Of" sounded worthy but dull, and which one was he in "Four Lions"?

     Yes well here he is in "Sound Of Metal".  Art!

     He not only looks the part of a rock drummer, he learned to play drums for the role.  Conrad considers him someone worthy of a bit of attention due to that alone.  This is probably late-breaking news for some of you as the film came out in 2019.  Cut me some slack, I'm nearly a pensioner.

I think with that we are very well done, Vulnavia.  Let's go get some ice-cream, if the motley's not guzzled most of it and fallen into the tub in an ice-cream stupor.

*  That's what it felt like.

**  I kid you not.

***  I have to admit feeling a bit of jealousy here.