The Magnificent Severn

No!  We Are Not Talking About A Film With A Mis-Spelled Title!

And the only reason you're not a thin haze of rapidly-cooling plasma is because my Remote Nuclear Detonator is off-line for repairs (hint: do not hit the button in a paroxysm of rage as it is delicate and prone to breakage).

     Okay, I have established what we're not talking about, even though I did mention them yesterday.  I can change my mind if I feel like it, and once again, whose blog is it?

     For today we celebrate the beautiful and majestic River Severn, which - Art! Less coal more goal!

Picturesque as owt

      - you see above.  It is spanned by not one but TWO mighty bridges, which if Art can put down his bowl of coal -

Told you.  Mighty.

     They have to be mighty to cross the majestic, not to say magnificent, Severn.  There is also another one that people swoon over, which is thanks to it's history, not it's mightiness, as you can see from the below.  Art!

The Iron Bridge at - er - Ironbridge

     This was the first bridge in the world to be made out of iron, cast in a new process that produced larger and purer quantities then before.  Designed and built in 1780, it has a single span because the Severn at this point was prone to flooding.  Somewhat ironically it went out of use for vehicular traffic in the Thirties as both sides of the river gorge are moving slowly towards each other.  In another 150,000 years they won't even need a bridge!
     We seem to have gotten slightly off-topic here.  Art!  More Severn!

With puny human for scale

     It is also one of the few rivers that can bore and still be interesting, if not magnificent, because in the picture above you can see the Severn Bore.  This is a phenomenon that occurs when the incoming tide (for the Severn is an estuarine river, as well as magnificent) heads into narrower and narrower reaches of the river, going from a width of five miles to a few hundred yards, that are also progressively shallower.
     There we are.  I think I've sucked all the possible humour out of that particular subject*.  Let us proceed.
     Motley!  Shall we go Shark-Surfing?

How it's done

When Is It Payday?

<sighs heavily> Conrad, out of a spirit of inquiry, decided to re-read "Monty's Men" by Professor John Buckley, a tome he purchased last summer.  This can be regarded as a broader and more in-depth companion to the same author's  "British Armour In The Normandy Campaign", since it covers the whole campaign fought by the British Liberation Army from the preparation for D-Day to the final Teuton surrender at Luneberg Heath.

     "Yes yes yes," I hear you quibble.  "Get on with it, do, because "Wolf Hall" is on shortly."

     Pausing only to note that Your Humble Scribe is impressed with your improvement in taste, I shall explicate.  This time round I am making sure to refer to the Notes, of which there are many; so many, in fact, that I have a second bookmark at the back of the book to make checking easier.

     O dear.  There are so many, many books there that I don't have <wallet squeaks in fear> and feel that I would like want need.  Hence this item's title.

Ol' John expounding in his natural environment

  
"The Dig"

'Fraid so, Gwynnie Paltrow.  Now, I expect you to nod sagely, such your teeth and comment on Ralph Fiennes accent, how realistic the mud and rain was and -

     WRONG!

     For Conrad is nothing if not Mephistopholean ("sneaky") as you ought to well know by now, and yes that's another word you never expected to read when you rolled out of bed this morning.  The film triggered memories of a book I read loooong ago, and if Art has finished sucking out the insides of those fuel rods -

     I got it cheap from a charity shop is my excuse, probably without realising that it was the novelisation - if such a thing is possible - of a computer game.  It was written by Alan Dean Foster, who probably had rent to pay and needed food on the table, and do you know - I cannot remember a single thing about it, except there was something about fitting lids into holes underground.  Which is probably a direct reference to the game, which Conrad has never played and doesn't feel culturally poor for not doing so.

Can you <ahem> dig it?

"We Have Ways"

Yes, that podcast featuring Al and Jim, those rascally scamps, comedian and historian respectively.  Tonight's broadcast actually mentioned "Monty's Men" - no Coincidence Hydra involved this time, Jim had posted a Tweet last night that had me looking for it again - and Jim was saying he had at last obtained a "Pixie Suit".

Art! <sounds of Tazer>

     NO!  WRONG!  AS WRONG AS WRONG CAN GET! 

     A "Pixie Suit" was an insulated overall worn by the tank crews of Perfidious Albion in the latter years of the Second Unpleasantness, noted for it's warmth and much coveted by envious South Canadian officers in the infantry serving alongside the British.  On one occasion Colonel Cristopherson of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry was able to placate a fiery South Canadian major, after his men having suffered friendly fire, by presenting him with a pixie suit.  Art!

     As you can see, once you put on your goggles and scrim scarf, there was no way for the treacherous elements to get to you.  Ha - take that, wind and rain!  The name, I believe, comes from the suit's resemblance to an item of infant apparel.

Finally -

DOG BUNS!  DON'T THEY REALISE THIS IS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE! <pauses to allow the red mist to recede and temple veins to cease throbbing>

     "What?  What?  A journalist used TWO spaces after a full-stop before capitalising?" I hear you snigger.

     This is no joke.  THIS IS HOW YOU GET SKYNET!!**  Art?

"Robot dog Spot skips, cleans and does gardening"

     Yeah, yeah, laugh and mock if you will, just wait and see.  Remember James Cameron's frightening documentary "The Abyss" and that quote " - it went straight for the warhead, and they think it's cute."  Remember my prophetic words when an army of rogue AI-driven cyberdogs equipped with miniguns takes over***.

*  Provisionally.  Never say never and all that.

**  I feel two exclamation marks are merited by the seriousness of the subject.

***  Or - put your faith in Catman.