Bottom

No!  Not The Comedy Program

Which Conrad has seen some episodes of, and pretty nihilistic it is too, with one episode featuring "The Sprouts Of Evil*", which would probably go down very well with Robert Rankin (he has a thing for sprouts).  Art!

    I think the title refers to the situation of these two troglodytic bumbletucks, because they cannot possibly get any lower on life's totem-pole.  Unless they were dead; I wonder, is there any mileage in a sitcom about two zombies sharing a flat?  I'll get back to you on that one.

Quiver in fear at - THE SPROUTS OF EVIL!

    There we go, a BOOJUM! staple, banging on about what we're not talking about.  Hey, if you want logic and common sense THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY.  

     No, by "Bottom" I refer to that character in the Barf Of Avon's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", who gets turned into an ass.  Art!

" - but I bet you have a wonderful personality ..."

     Yes yes yes, Conrad is well aware that you're aware he detests Shakespeare, but if it means we might get more traffic I am happy to throw my high morals and scruples in the dustbin**.  So - Bottom.  Nick Bottom, to be precise - which sounds painful! <winces at cheap humour and a joke that was old in the eighteenth century>.

    This all comes back to Your Humble Scribe's rancour of earlier in the day, when he was holding forth about how DARE the Codeword compilers use a set of words that are either wilfully obscure, foreign or long obsolete.  Let me set forth my assertions.

"ASSIZES": What?  What!  Let me consult my Collins Concise: "England and Wales; the sessions of the principal court in each county, exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction; replaced in 1971 by crown courts."  So to get this one the solver would need to either be over 60 or have an interest in legal history.  Or brilliant, as I am.  Bah!

Manchester Assizes.  NOTE HORSE-DRAWN TRANSPORT

     Hence a reference to Bottom, because that's what the South Canadian vulgarism "Ass" means, and I'ze not happy with that one.

Ushanka Ain't In The Lubyanka

Earlier today we had a look at Comrade Mister Sergei's Youtube channel, where a random idiot accused him of channelling Stalin and living Marx; quite an achievement whilst living it up in the ultra-capitalist nation of South Canada.  Sergei had done a Youtube presentation on the KGB, and whether or not he was scared of them.  Art!

   The KGB liked to give the impression that it was omnipotent and omniscient, when in fact it was an enormous bureaucracy that had no domestic competition, and so ballooned unstoppably.  In the West, as I mentioned in a comment to Sergei, organisations like the CIA or MI6 had domestic counterparts like the FBI or MI5, and they hated each other with a passion; they were always engaged in turf wars and empire-building and at times waged internecine warfare with more intensity than against the Sinisters.  The KGB had no such pressure to either evolve and become more efficient or get taken over, so it just proliferated.  Art!

The KGB's Moscow headquarters: the Lubyanka

     Sergei, along with a friend, decided it would be an hilarious jape to take a staged photo outside the Ukranian KDB (Ukranian NOT the same as Russian), with him leaning against the building's outer wall and with the "Ukranian KDB" plaque in full view.  Surprise surprise, from out of nowhere appears a member of the KDB who tells them to "Eff off" in Ukranian.  Sergei felt strongly enough about this to write a letter to his local paper.  You can tell this was during the Glasnost era, because 1) he wasn't arrested, interrogated and imprisoned and 2) they printed the letter.

     That above is Sergei in South Canada, working at a youth camp, and you can see the culture clash evident in his eyes.  He must have liked it, he lives there now.

"Armoured Guardsmen" By Robert Boscawen

In case you hail from those benighted lands beyond the boundaries of This Sceptred Isle, the author's surname is Cornish, as he hailed from Truro.  Just for information.

Truro the terrific

     If you're not especially interested in the comparative history of two British  armoured regiments during the Second Unpleasantness, you still have to stay, otherwise I'll know and THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.

     Okay, young Bob was a tank commander in the Coldstream Guards, an armoured regiment that had been created in 1941 when the Guards division converted from being an infantry division to an armoured one.  They had experience of combat as infantry during 1940 in France, prior to Dunkirk.  Art!

Do.  Not.  Mess.  With.

     Thus, when they returned to France in 1944, they had sky-high morale, and were very well-trained, yet had no experience of armoured warfare.  They learned the hard way, especially at a horrible place called Sourdevalle.  At this point they were using the Sherman tank and attempting to engage Teuton tanks with their tank's armour-piercing round, often to dismal effect.

     Here we abruptly shift to the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, an armoured regiment who had fought in North Africa since 1942.  The officers, NCOs and men were all very experienced, on top of their training and morale.  Immediately they came ashore in Normandy, they realised that desert tactics and techniques were obsolete and instead came up with tactics based on firepower, not manoeuvre, and the Guards could have taken lessons from them.  Art!

SRY atop their gypsy caravan

    What were their tactics?  As David Render explained, in one of the best descriptions I have read about British armour and how it operated - 

Dave in later years

     You deluged the Teuton tank opposite with HE shells, as many as you could fire and as fast as you could fire.  A Sherman could get off three rounds to every Teuton one, and they operated as a troop of three or even four tanks.  So for every shell that came back, between nine and twelve were going downrange.  The Guards, as mentioned, were still trying with accurate AP rounds.

     The results of this barrage were immediate.  First, the panzer crew would 'button-up', i.e. shut all hatches to avoid being killed dead, which instantly restricted their vision.  Second, all external appliances would be stripped from their hull; which includes radio aerials, so now they're not only partially-blind but deaf as well.  Art!

     Third, all the optics would get crazed or shattered, so now they're completely blind, not just partially.  Fourth, shoot at them long enough and their tracks or running gear will get destroyed, making them a sitting duck as a Sherman moves to flank or rear and pots them in the thinnest armour.  

     I think that's enough military history for a Saturday.  Next!

Finally -

Conrad, as we already know, likes a good zombie film.  There are an awful lot of awful ones out there, because all you need is a script, extras caked in grey make-up and blood splatter, and the leading actors behaving stupidly.  I have only just come across one called "Little Monsters", starring the rather lovely Lupita Nyong'o, which, if Art can be bothered -

Do. Not. Mess. With.

     It seems quite a wholesome production - apart from the gory death scenes and bloody violence - where SPOILER!  SPOILER!  SPOILER!  all the children and the adults with a moral compass survive.  We shall have to see if Degsy knows anything about this.

I think that not only are we here, we are done.  Done!

*  Good title for a Doctor Who serial.

**  Wrapped in clingfilm for later retrieval and cleaning