Conrad Narrowed His Eyes Menacingly ...
Menace! That's what I'm conveying. Even if you think I merely look constipated. I am talking about today's title (confusingly, this is being written the night before, do keep up!) because NO! it's not a spelling mistake or typographical error. I can only plead guilty to a bit of horrible punnery, because Lo! we are back to Doctor Roel Konijnendijk, he of the splendidly Dutch surname and Irish accent, an engaging and informative chap when it comes to parsing how Hollywood represents Warfare In The Ancient World. Art!
From "The Three Hundred Spartans" 1962 iteration
Conrad would just like to point out that this supposed Persian is being played by Donal Houston, a Scot, and since the Spartan response is "Then we shall enjoy fighting in the shade" one wonders which language they were communicating in.
ANYWAY if Art can put down his coking coal (I am not going to make the mistake of calling it 'coke' again) -
 |
| "Braveheart" |
Dear me, if you could harvest the energy from eye-rolling, Roel would be able to power a small town at this one. This is actually Medieval, rather than Ancient, a small oversight we can omit this time*. He points out that the Scottish infantry would be wearing standard chain mail and plate armour, not leather that had gone out of use centuries before, and by this time nobody would slather themselves with woad. Next!
By this time Roel's eye-rolling would power London. He has a particular hatred of scenes like this, where both sides rush madly at each other and collide like an earthquake with sharp things. As he mockingly explains, if your sides are so mixed up, who do you know to stab? You don't. Ergo combat would take place between even lines, not a rugby scrum intent on murder.
That above is a Scottish 'schiltron' which we've mentioned on the blog before. Clearly, these chaps had to move and co-ordinate properly and not simply run at things, hacking madly. Which is tricky to do with a spear.
Time, motley, for a game of Catch The Porcupine! Hang on, that doesn't sound right. Could it be a Porpentine instead? As Jeeves used to say, in a quotation about something or other, " - the fretful porpentine'. Art? Resolution, please.
Ah.
Perhaps a round of golf instead?
By the way, I am working tomorrow, from 09:00 to 17:00, so this will be the ONLY new post you get. This is non-negotiable. Just to be clear.
Ortelsburg As Was
You ought to recall that this once very, very Teutonic town is now called Szczytno, and is very, very Polish. The Polish population suffered from the 1920's onward, since the Teutons tried very hard to Teutonize everyone, and the local Poles refused for a couple of decades. When the Nazis came to power the local Teutons in Ortelsburg embraced them with an unholy glee - over 75% of them voted Nazi, close to double the national average. This had severe consequences in 1945, when a lot of Slavic tourists wearing tanks bearing red stars took the town. Art!
I have no idea. Allow me to dig around and get back to you.
This is in marked contrast to 1914, when the Tsarist Ruffians burnt most of Ortelsburg. Today there are numerous street sculptures that are supposed to represent Polish art and culture -
A goblin riding a pig, of course. Obviously!
I don't think I can top that as an artistic statement, so let us move on.
Smart Can Be Stupid, Too
Another Darwin Award winner here, where (unusually) alcohol was not involved, and the decedent was an extremely clever chap with an engineering degree as well as being a fully-fledged lawyer.
Okay, to set the scene, we are on the 24th floor of a Toronto skyscraper, one of those giant edifices that are all glass and concrete. Enter Gary, our DA winner for the day. Ol' Gaz was escorting a tribe of proto-lawyers around the building, and his party trick was HURLING HIMSELF AGAINST THE WINDOW. At 160 pounds he could not be described as either delicate or sylph-like.
The building in question
Matey liked to do this to show how shatterproof the glass was. You might have imagined his engineering background would salve his demeanour, but no. Conrad, besides being a fearful coward, knows that the glass doesn't have to break; all you have to do is unseat it from the frame. Gary did his stunt once, and then repeated it, at which point the frame did indeed give way, and he came to a terminal stop 24 stories below.
He proved his point, because whilst he was very broken, the glass remained intact.
Seemed apt
The lesson, gentle reader, is that one ought to always ask the question "What's the worst that could happen?" because given the way this cold, cruel Universe works, one day it inevitably will. Chainsaw jugglers take note.
"How Much Land Does A Man Need?" By Leo Tolstoy
Bear with me on this, it takes a bit of mental gymnastics. Okay, the short story above concerns a greedy Ruffian landowner, who makes a bargain with the Bashkirs that he can give them a thousand roubles, and have as much land as he can walk around in a day. But he has to be back at his starting point by nightfall.
Pahmon - for that is his name - walks and walks, and is always seeing more land and copses and ponds and rivers, so he keeps on walking, always seeing more valuable land, more fertile land, more more more -
Of course it ends badly. He walks so far he has to run like an Olympic athlete on nitromethane to get back to the starting point, managing just in time.
Then he drops dead from fatigue.
Close enough
This 'mission creep' has also befallen the British and French forces in the Gallipoli peninsula, where summer 1915 has arrived, bringing with it millions of flies and chronic dysentery. By August the original three divisions have now risen to fifteen: 1st and 2nd French divisions; 29th division; 42nd division; the Royal Naval division; the ANZAC division; 52nd Division; 10th Division; 11th division; 13th division; 53rd division; 54th division; 2nd Cavalry division; 1st Australian division; 2nd Australian division, and yet another beach had been landed upon.
Pacman the 1915 mod
Finally -
Tomorrow you are going to see the results of a question Your Humble Scribe asked himself yesteryon; which (preferably classic) sci-fi films of the Fifties and Sixties IN COLOUR provide fitting examples of matte work? Disregarding the ones we've been hammering to death over the past few weeks. So, thanks to a raft of suggestions from Degsy, we shall encounter -
Tah-dah!
And with that, we are done.
* One time only, Roel.
No comments:
Post a Comment