Yes Indeed, And You Dirty-Minded Perverts -
NEED TO WASH YOUR FILTHY MINDS OUT! <ahem> Okay, back in the Seventies Your Humble Scribe used to have a six-week summer holiday between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. This situation applied to the whole of England with only very minor variations. Consequently there were millions of schoolchildren loitering around the house, because you cannot trust the British weather to be 'summery', especially in summer.
Enter a clever person at the BBC. They realise they have a near-captive audience, who are not very discriminating, and whose parents aren't home to ensure their offspring only watch wholesome and educational programs. Thus we get -
NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!
This was a French historical drama, made in France by the French, which was dubbed into English and split up into 12 brief 22-minute episodes by the BBC, one of which would play every couple of days during the daytime. The central plot revolved about the Spanish siege of a French castle in 1630; Chevalier De Recci and his manservant are sent from the castle to request a relief from the French army, pursued by Spanish soldiers and agents. They are racing against time, since the Spanish want to storm the castle before a ceasefire is negotiated. Art!
The Chev and his mate
Interestingly enough, the opening scenes for the siege were supposedly at the castle of "Casal", which, if Art can put down his drink of diesel -
Bit of a fixer-upper
That's the year, not half-past four in the afternoon. You see, the castle is actually the Chateau Gaillard! Yes, I thought that would impress you, and it is a - sorry, what's that? You've no idea what I'm talking about? Shocking! Art?
It was constructed late in the twelfth century on the orders of Richard The Lionheart, being big, complex and expensive; he called it his "Saucy Castle". There, now you know more than you did five minutes ago.
Not really what we were after, Art.
Darwin Runners-Up
Conrad was perusing some horrifying yet hilarious tales on a Youtube Reddit about spectacular violations of health and safety regulations; people don't seem to realise that H & S regs are there for a reason, because toxic, explosive, massive, incredibly sharp, red-hot or all five combined together in industrial equipment are - let's belabour the point here - DANGEROUS. Art!
This is an industrial-sized cardboard compactor. Loose cardboard gets put in the port side of the equipment, until it either reaches sufficient mass to operate or an employee triggers the operation, and a tidily-compacted and bundled bale of compressed cardboard comes out the other side. I don't see an emergency "Off" button but can guarantee there is one. Probably on the other side.
Okay, the DA aspirant in this story had been tasked with spray-gluing a sign on the side of the compactor that sternly warned against anyone getting into the machine, because of that weight trigger. Our genius sticks the sign on, puts his spray glue on top of the compactor, and it falls inside.
You are probably waaaaay ahead of me here. Yes, he promptly jumped inside to retrieve the can, thus causing the compactor to begin compacting. He was saved from being crushed into a layer 3 inches thick by a person who just happened to be passing by.
As they say, you cannot cure stupid.
But you can cure concrete!
Last Night I Picked Up A Couple Of Names
One was definitely from Christopher Fowler over on Twitter, and Your Humble Artisan is unsure where or how he picked up the name "Erik Wilson". The context makes me believe he's an artist, and whilst stooging about teh Interwebz this afternoon, I checked him out. And guess what I found! Art?
There you go, lower starboard. Conrad has no idea who the other people are - artists of some description I venture - but may check them out at a later date. The poster is from "Printed In Blood", a website I've never heard of before. As you can see, they are screening "The Thing" in a 70mm version, and booking your ticket also gets you a bag of swag. Art!
I can't see any prices*. You can bet with the kind of ephemera offered above it won't be cheap. Still, if you happen to live in South Canada and are anywhere near Portland in October ...
Clover Field
No! Nothing to do with monsters. Rather, this is the product of another Reddit thread, this one being to do with neighbours who hate each other, and the results. So, we have Neighbour A, whose lawn is an utterly immaculate expanse of exquisitely manicured grass, without flaw or blemish. Neighbour A lives and breathes only for his lawn.
Then we have Neighbour B, who puts as little effort into his garden as possible. Neighbour A will call the police if Neighbour B's leaves or twigs get blown onto his - excuse me - His Lawn. This goes on for ages until Neighbour B decides revenge is in order. He deliberately plants clover in his garden, so that when they flower, all the seeds will get blown onto Neighbour A's garden, and to leave nothing to chance, he hires an industrial fan to speed the process.
Heh
Of course we cannot condone such wilful behaviour, even if we do have a certain sneaking regard for it.
Finally -
Conrad has been bigging-up the Free French/Fighting French of late, and feels it necessary to point out that cruel jokes about their inability to fight completely ignore that minor sticking point we call the First Unpleasantness. It is a real possibility, say pundits with more and better information than I, that during the Battle of the Frontiers when the Teutons invaded in 1914, the French suffered more casualties on one day than Perfidious Albion did on 01/07/1916. This is an assertion, not a fact; it does give you an idea of what the French were doing from Day One of the conflict.
The Hairy Ones advance
Jumping forward a few years, the canard "French rifle for sale; never fired, dropped once" is an hilarious allusion to France's being overwhelmed by the Teutons, implying that the Gallic chicken carrying it surrendered at the earliest opportunity. In fact the campaign continued for weeks after Dunkirk, with the Teutons having to advance and attack south against the remaining French armies, who were learning on the job about how to deal with blitzkrieg attacks. Principally they adopted a 'hedgehog' formation that was highly effective in slowing down the Teutons and causing lots of casualties. If they had begun the war in this fashion they might very well have held their foes to a stalemate. But of course that doesn't make for a funny meme.
Gosh that was serious. Quick, nurse, a tray of pistachios for the patient!
* A little digging reveals the Artbook going for about £30 (O alright $38.99)
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