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Thursday 29 April 2021

You Want To See My Crib?

As We Have Already Established

Conrad, Your Humble Scribe (me! do keep up!) is not a fan of South Canadianisms that ooze their way eastwards o'er the Atlantic and end up on these shores, because 1) we have our own vernacular, thank you very much, and 2) Codewords are difficult enough already without adding in their slang, which the compilers would do in a heartbeat as they have low morals*.

     So, doubtless you are beginning to read this, warily, since "Crib" appears to be Trans-Atlantic for "Domicile", and are probably wondering what Conrad is up to.

     SURPRISE!

Tanks with planks

     These lumbering behemoths are Mark V tanks, carrying - cribs.  The 'crib fascine' was an improvement on the original tank fascines, which had merely been an enormous bundle of twigs.  Art!  Less coal more goal!


     The idea of a fascine, of whatever composition, is that tanks would drop them into battlefield obstacles such as trenches or anti-tank ditches.  A crib would give consistent results as against the bundle-of-twigs version.

     Here an aside.  If you have been reading the spirited and also amusing commentary that Roel has been doing about warfare in the ancient world, then you know he always, always criticises Hollywood for not including ditches as a defensive design.  To overcome said ditches in the real world required, yes you guessed it, fascines.

     Back to the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

"Ten bob says 'e cuts that phone cable in the next ten seconds.**"

     What brings this up is mention of British tanks using cribs to allow crossing of the Selle River on 17th October 1918 during the Battle of the Selle, at a relatively shallow and narrow part of the river.  Narrow and shallow it may have been, it still prevented the tanks from crossing; however, a matter of ten minutes dropping cribs in it was incontestably quicker than waiting for the Royal Engineers throwing up a bridge heavy enough to sustain the weight of tanks.  The Teuton defenders probably considered this to be thoroughly unsporting and un-cricketlike and that violin in the background is playing for them.

     I am inspired to post this because Your Humble Scribe is now about half-way through Peter Hodgkinson's "The Battle Of The Selle", which I bought about two years ago and have only just gotten round to, so vast are the unread slopes of the Book Mountain.

Cribless South Canadians at the Selle

     Okay, that's enough of the Selle.  We're done with the Selle.  We are Selle out.

Bernie Cribs

We've Been Here Before

Conrad discharged his civic duty late this afternoon, walking up to post his postal votes for the forthcoming local elections, which is as far as we get on that topic.  Whilst walking back to The Mansion, he diverted himself by looking at the fanciful house names going back to the late Victorian era on gateposts.  "Thorn Hill", "Moss Bank" and - "Hilbre".  'Hilbre'?  What is this?

     Well, a set of tidal islands in the Mersey estuary, actually.  When the tide is out you can walk to them.  This sounded familiar, and Conrad recalled that a couple of years back he had an on-going series about tidal islands in This Sceptred Isle.

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/03/today-we-insult-internationally.html

     Okay okay, four years ago.  Art!



The Special Escort Group

This one has been on the back burner for at least a week, because another entry has always pipped it to the post.  'Postally pipped' in the words of Guy Garvey.

     ANYWAY I decided to get it in here.  You may never have heard of the SEG, who operate in Hades In Concrete ('London' if we're being formal), escorting (the clue is in the title) very very naughty prisoners, very very important people, the Royal Family (STAND TO RESPECTFUL ATTENTION!) and Government ministers (loud raspberry) into, out of and around the capital.  Art!

You are strongly advised to give way

     All SEG members are armed, openly, so arguing with them about traffic control is a non-starter.  They use whistles instead of sirens, as the sheer novelty of this makes it especially effective.  They also STAY WITHIN THE SPEED LIMIT, on average.  For those of you familiar with the hideously choked nature of Hades In Concrete's roads, this sounds impossible.  Well, it's not.  Art!


     The bikes leapfrog each other at road junctions, getting to the next one ahead and stopping cross-traffic, as the next bike in the motorcade accelerates ahead to the next junction and repeats the process.  They decide what route to take on the move, so you can't predict their movements in advance.  Plus, those marked and unmarked cars?  Bulging with armed SEG officers itching to put their expensively-acquired skills into action.

     Oddly enough, I cannot find any occasion when they have been challenged.  Strange, that.


Returning The Favour

You should by now be aware that NASA has managed to get the Martian helicopter Ingenuity to fly successfully three times.  Each time in action it has been filmed or photographed by the Perseverance rover, which has been acting as a kind of base station for the diminutive chopper.  Well, Ingenuity returned the favour on it's latest flight.  Art!


     Conrad suspects they have cropped the image to remove the Martian Rock Snakes, and if it were in infra-red you'd probably pick up a camouflaged Ice Warrior or two.  But - Hay Pesto! - Perseverance!


It's That Matte Again!

NZ Pete has very kindly agreed to let me post stuff from his blog, as long as it's correctly attributed and any kind of link on social media is also appreciated, which is no problem.  Pete's blog is a very, very detailed record of matte film work up to the Nineties, which is when CGI began to replace painted images.  It is kind of ironic that one of the twentieth century's most innovative and influential art forms fell back on one of humanity's oldest, i.e. painting.


http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/


     That's a link to Pete's blog itself.  Highly recommended, but IT WILL CONSUME ALL YOUR SPARE TIME!

     I want to put up a couple of shots from "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", which is kind of borderline what I was posting about other colour sci-fi classics.  Art!


     This is a scene showing the slave encampment, as you the audience witnessed it upon cinema screens.  Guess how much of that is actually the filmed insert?


     That bit at central port is what.  You can see the section of screen that had been blanked off to only allow the insert section to be filmed in the upper starboard shot.  This is how you have an exotic location and a giant paddle steamer ship, with minimal outlay in special effects.

     I'm sure we shall re-Pete this subject matter.  Given the weekend I may be trawling charity shops for suitable films.


And with that, we are done!


*  If any.

**  This was a real and serious issue.  I kid you not.

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