Magnificent Mandrake Tropism

Whatever That Might Be

O I'm sorry, were you expecting something sensible?  Then you are most definitely in the wrong place.  We do killer analyses of zombie films, scrutinise nursery rhymes to a 'T' and gargle with delight over radioactive, explosive and toxic compounds, but - sensible?  Hmmmm no.

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe was going to hold forth on a newspaper headline he saw last night, as featured on the BBC's website, which went "Three Lions Thump Old Enemy" and here's the evidence.  Art!

     However, what do we find when attempting to drill down into the article on the BBC's website?  Nothing other than an error code "404" and 'Page not found'.  Ten minutes later the page is back, a pause Conrad assumes is down to solicitors poring over that title "Three Lions Thump Old Enemy", for these are the Teutons we are talking about.  "Is it defamatory? Inflamatory?   Derogatory?  Suppository?" and so on, worry the lawyers.  Apparently not, for the pages are back up and with hilarious irony it's the 'Daily Mail' with the sub-title that sent all those legal pulses racing.  Art!

     Why irony?  Because in the Thirties, when Herr Schikelgruber was marching up and down, threatening the lesser races and demanding unlimited rice pudding*, guess which newspaper was right behind him all the way?  

     No!  Not the "North Sneddlepool Pig-Breeders Gazette" - the "Daily Mail".  This has meant that it gets pulled out as a figurative club by everyone and anyone with an axe to grind and a beef to raise (mixing three metaphors at once in no bother for the blog!).  This is not our intent today.  Rather, we intend to point out the erroneous sub-title.  "Old Foe"?  Pshaw!

     If we are speaking historically, then don't forget that the King's German Legion fought FOR the British from 1803 onwards.  Way before then, in 1756, Prussia - the beating Teutonic heart of Germany - became an ally of Britain.

If it's in an Osprey, then it must be true

     If we consider the Teutons to be diametrically opposed to This Sceptred Isle from 1914 to 1945, then we find that they have been our allies for an awful lot longer than enemies.

Quite the sneering put-down.

     Conrad studiously ignores the possibility that this might be to do with sport, as he knows nothing about it, and cares less because yes, negative cares are a thing.  If they weren't before, Your Humble Scribe just made them.     

     Of course, I might be over-thinking this a bit ...

"Magnificent"

It's in the title because Conrad was pondering on it a couple of days ago, which inevitably results in a recourse to the Collins Concise.  Ah, etymology!

     Also inevitable is that it has a Latin root <hack spit> - yet it also allows us to reverently refer to one of the great westerns -

     We shall ignore the recent remake.  ANYWAY back to Latin and "Magnus" for "Great" and "Facere" for "To Do", which formed "Magnicifus", and thence to "Magnificentior" and you can join the dots for the rest.  Art!

     "From the famous novel by Booth Tarkington" says the blurb.  Hmmmm.  Hardly a magnificent name, is it?  In fact it sounds like the pseudonym assumed by a disgraced accountant found guilty of embezzlement.

     Hmmm "Embezzlement" now there's a word to ponder on - but No! for we have yet to accommodate my Frothing Nitric Ire.

Accommodating My Frothing Nitric Ire

So kind of you to do so!  For yes, we are back to the M.E.N. Codeword, that predictable source of annoyance beyond all understanding**, and let us not beat about the small domesticated shrub:

"MANDRAKE": Not to be confused with Youtuber Post-10, who is Man And Rake.  No, this word is a corruption of the original Greek "Mandragoras", quite possibly because the roots of this plant were held to resemble human form, and "Drake" means "Dragon" in Low German.  Art!

Like looking in a mirror

     People believed all sorts of bosh about it, as in that when you pulled it from the ground, it screamed and anyone too close would instantly drop dead, because yes screaming can really do that, except it has to be at 5000 decibels in order to harmonically pulp your internal organs***.

There's also this chap

"TROPISM": Er, what?  A tendency to Trop?  Hang on - ah, "The tendency of an organism, especially a plant, to react to outside stimuli in such a way to closer approach that stimuli, which is pretty technical biology and should not be resorted to by crossword or codeword compilers".  There you go.  Art!

Go on, watch this annoy someone.  "That poor plant!" etc.

"THROVE": Presumably the past tense of "Thrive"? Yes, I looked it up.  WHAT?  WHAT!  When did you last read or hear this word?  NEVER!  I bet it went out of use in the eighteenth century.

"They throve,

'Pon the treasure trove.

Found under a mangrove.

Let us be clear

About botany here.

'Twas not a mandrake.

That would be a mistake."

     Art!

The mangrove

     That's all on that word.

"UMBRAS": <chokes in apoplectic fury>  YOU WHAT!  MORE LATIN!  Where's the controls for my Remote Nuclear Detonator?  Art!

     Note to those who thought it meant very small umbrellas: you were wrong.

     There was more but I dare not continue with this subject as it's very bad for my blood pressure.  I also trod on the controls for the RND and need to get it sent off to Doomsday Industries Inc for repair, so some of you can breathe a little easier.  Not for long, it's going to be couriered there and back.

Finally -

Apologies for another random word popping up in my mind, which is both inexplicable and welcome, as it means less casting around to create content.  Today's random word is "Cuyahoga" which Your Humble Scribe was aware of having a South Canadian aspect.  A quick bout of wrestling with Google and I find that it is a county in Ohio, whose county capital and indeed largest metropolis is Cleveland, which might be familiar to you as featured in the theme tune to "The Drew Carey Show", where Ian Hunter goes on about "Living in sin with a safety pin" yes quite Ian we are not here to judge.  Art!

Where it sits in Ohio

     Let's have a picture.  Art, again!

     Ah yes, apparently the river was a bit of a one for - er - catching fire.

     I think that's enough material facts now.  Back tomorrow at the same Rat Time, on the same Rat Channel!

*  Okay, okay, I pinched this from 'Doctor Who'.  If it's good enough for the BBC's premier dramamentary it's good enough for BOOJUM!

**  But which, to be honest, does generate a fair bit of content.

***  Or so I've heard.

Sorry To Bother You

You Know Me!

Hopefully not too well, or you'd run screaming from the room, although you should by now know how thoroughly polite I am.  British to the core, don't you know.  Polite, reserved, well-spoken (when sober) and naturally reticent about imposing the blog onto you -

     Except no.  This title is another in the list of 'Weird And Interesting Films' that came out of The Flop House's list, which I've never seen and may - or may not - bother to see.  Art!

     I read a synopsis of the film, and it does seem rather odd.  You have the main character, who gets bound up in labour politics whilst doing his job as a call centre operative, and then there are the Equisapiens, who are Hom. Sap. who turn into - er - horse-people.  Art!

     Of course there are evil corporations and plots for at least market domination if not the world, and transforming drugs and rebellious Equisapiens, plus moving up the property ladder.  Art!

Just young folk horsing around.

     Seemingly the Equisapiens were created to be a docile, obedient, stronger work-force;  I think the scientists misplaced a few decimal points along the way because the film ends with a horde of angry ES storming the home of said evil corporation's CEO.

     So, apologies for pestering you, gentle reader.  Now, motley, can we transform you into a horse?  I've got some fur and glue; let's have a bash!

Colour Conrad Confused

There have been peculiarly inappropriate adverts cropping up on Facebook of late, of which this is one.  Art!

     Hmmm although we have gone over various British lighthouses whilst I was reading that work on them, so perhaps that has been blearily detected at a distance and date.  "Lightship Learning"and "Colreg Kits" - let me see if a quick dab of Google-fu illuminates us at all.  

Nope, still no clearer

     

     Aha, looking for 'Colreg' alone revealed that this is a colloquial diminution of "International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea", which appear to be the rules as graven in stone about how you behave on the briny deeps in order to avoid crashing into another vessel.  Art!

     And this kit is to help you learn the rules, much as one might mess around with Dinky toys to learn bits of the Highway Code.  After all, you don't want to sink your £60,000 yacht the first time it gets taken out for a sail.

     There, I like a satisfactory conclusion to a conundrum.  You can treat this item as today's watery-themed contribution.

A Small Act Of Goodwill

There are enough decent people in the world that those of us with a lack of scruples or an excess of egotism (or both) are in the minority.  You just wait until the Robot Rebellion, mind, that'll test who has both moral fibre and compass.  It'll come, don't you doubt it; right now there's some blinkered scientist creating an autonomous AI

     ANYWAY I wanted to feature a memorial in Lanarkshire, Scotland, which is dedicated to those Scots who went and fought against the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil Unpleasantness.  Art!

Disgracefully daubed

     As you can clearly see, dirty curs of a right-wing persuasion have scrawled upon it.  Grrrr!  This is akin to desecrating graves and draws Your Annoyed Artisan's jaundiced and liverish eye.

     However!  Along came Mister Steve Macgowan, with his young son, and together they cleaned the graffiti away.  Good for them.  This has a bit of resonance with Conrad, as his great-uncle Hugh, a Clydeside Communist of deepest, darkest red, went off to Spain as a volunteer*.  

Still On Military Matters

If you are sitting there wondering when the fluffy lambkins and happy bunnies come out to play, then I fear you are very much in the wrong tent, quite possibly on the wrong planet, for such fripperies are no concern of BOOJUM!  Remember: tanks, atom bombs and zombies, our staple fair.

     ANYWAY, what I'd like to do now is post information discovered on that most excellent website "With The British Army In France And Flanders" where the creator, who goes by the name 'Magicfingers' had an article on the Italians in the First Unpleasantness.  

http://thebignote.com/

     His web address if you care to take a look.  Be warned, he's spent a long time creating this blog and there's an awful lot of content.  Avanti!

     Welcome to the Italian Lenticolare M14 hand-grenade, which is, I think, unique in being disk-shaped.  You lit the fuse, guessed how long it would burn for and then heaved-ho with all your might.  Conrad, and I suspect a lot of people out there, had never encountered one before.

     The Italians - I must come up with a BOOJUM!-specific nickname for them - also came up with a Cunning Chucking Contrivance, which could propel these engines of infamy further than the unaided human arm.  Art!

     As you can see, a Lenticolare has been loaded into the cup.  The idea is that this catapult would hurl the bomb over the parapet and into the middle distance, where resided the Austro-Hungarian enemy.  It would be an idea to 1) weigh the whole thing down with sandbags, to ensure it doesn't shift position every time you fire, and 2) try a test shot with an unfused grenade first.  It would be embarrassing, to say the very least, if a bomb with it's fuse already burning bounced off the parapet and came back to rest at the feet of the firer.

     It does look to be safer than that terrifying British invention, the West Spring Gun, which was far more deadly to it's operators than the enemy.  Art!

All three dicing with death

     I think we'll return to this Italian topic, because I think it's interesting, and it's my blog**.

Finally -

Conrad has bitten the bullet and finally started watching "Better Call Saul", which is a variety of comedy-thriller featuring a struggling lawyer barely able to make ends meet, with a consequent lack of scruples and money.  For no good reason, he starts off the first episode as 'Jimmy McGill' and half-way into the second he's still Jimmy, so Your Humble Scribe is worried he's picked the wrong series and this one is all about probate law, because "Jimmy McGill - I'll sort out your will!" could be a thing.

     We'll see.  Art!

James, that's uncouth.  Uncouth, I say!

     I think that's us done here.

*  It was not remotely glamourous, for your information.

**  Your opinion is duly noted and ignored.

The Terror Of SHOES!

Perhaps I Exaggerated A Little

"Awed incomprehension" might be a better title, or "Stunned by cobblers" or even "Getting a right leathering".

     This probably doesn't make much sense to you, which is okay, as it doesn't make much sense to Conrad either.  I was distracted, you see, when looking up the word "Sacerdotal" which, true to form, had popped up in my head for no good reason.  Art!

???  Art, what are you playing at?

     O wait a minute you wag!  I got the definition in my Collins Concise - " Of or related to or characteristic of priests".  Well well well, Art can play the punnery game too.  That's too clever to warrant the Tazer.

     ANYWAY what is below that in the column of definitions but "Sachs", with an entry for 'Hans' who was a Meistersinger (some kind of operatic male warbler) and master shoemaker, as immortalised by Wagner in his opera "Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg" which Conrad has never seen or heard and has no intention of ever doing so, as all opera is loathsome to him.  Art!

     Maybe it's just me, but I found the idea of an opera all about a cobbler rather humourous, as it's hardly the heroic image of Yer Actual Operatic Hero with his spear and magic helmet (I stole this from Bugs Bunny as I have little experience of how operas go).  Art!

Yup.  Looks magic to me.

     There you go, an Intro that spans heavy metal and opera by way of Looney Tunes.  All we need to be complete is a zombie in an atom-powered tank trying to blow up the Moon.

Oooops.

"Overlord"

Conrad went and watched this war-cum-zombie film last night, and INEVITABLY his inner pedant came outside and danced around in frothing rage, which is an interesting sight as it has no more rhythm than Conrad.

     ANYWAY there are a whole host of people on IMDB quibbling about accuracy, because as they aptly point out, there were no black paratroopers in the South Canadian airborne until 1948.  

Bokeem Woodbine being strict

Jovan Adepo, whose character wouldn't harm a mouse*.

     There is also a glaring continuity flaw about the paratrooper's planes flying over the Channel in daylight, when as any fule kno they travelled at night.  Hey, I can point out a Goof that nobody on IMDB noticed!  There were no SS present in Normandy before the invasion, despite there being scads of them in the film.  You see <Mister Hand mercifully redacts 8,750 words about the Normandy campaign> from Chernopol in the Ukraine - imagine that!

     HOWEVER.  I think people are missing the point here.  This is not an account of how D-Day played out, or the exploits of the South Canadian airborne, nor yet of the invasion as seen by the Teutons.  IT'S A FRAKKIN' HORROR MOVIE WITH ZOMBIES! so you can cut it a little slack.  How many people out there condemned "Dracula" because it minimised the politio-geographical complications inherent in the Hapsburg monarchy and the Dual Empire?  Anyone?  No, I thought not.

ART!  Careful, careful - we don't want R.J. MacReady barging in

     Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a tunnel is just a tunnel and hideous immoral unethical medical research in search of undead warriors is just that.

Back To Watery Themes

If you recall AND YOU OUGHT TO then you remember that BOOJUM! was following in the footsteps of Post-10 on his Youtube channel, as he pointed out the multiple failings of the Connecticut First Lake Dam, which looks so shoddy you'd imagine the Sinisters built it in 1929.  Art!

Streaky and creaky

     Posty made the worrying point that the water flow from this dam ends up in Francis Lake, which is itself a reservoir retained by the Murphy Dam.  The Murph is no concrete edifice; it's an earthen dam of no great sophistication or durability.  Art!

     This is about the only downstream shot to be found of the dam.  What Posty worried about was the sudden arrival in this basin of all the reservoir behind the FLD, which could either overtop the Murphy Dam or cause it to fail entirely, neither bringing with it a good-hair day.  The chap is not wrong and if you were looking for a happy ending then you won't find that either in opera nor here.

Towns potentially at risk

It Couldn't Happen Here

"Here" being This Sceptred Isle, Perfidious Albion, the Pond Of Eden.

     Okay, the place I refer to is Australia, which Conrad has also dubbed "The Country That Constantly Tries To Kill You" because when it's not parched by incredible drought, it's being inundated by floods, quite besides the hideous array of venomous insects and predatory animals.

     To which we might add: Human Stupidity.  Art!

CAUTION! beautiful but deadly

     Our pair of Darwin Award winners decided to depart on a 1,600 mile trek across the Ocker outback to - pick fruit.  I see.  The grapes of wrath, hmmm?  Their trusty steed was a Landrover 31 years of age,  so the odds were already stacked against them.  They didn't leave word of where they were going nor when they'd be back.  They didn't have spare water.  They didn't have a radio.  They didn't have a map.  And, when their vehicle broke down, they didn't have a chance.  Both perished at their car's breakdown site, only 6 miles from a well.

O well

     You might expect Pom tourists to blunder like this - after all This Sceptred Isle is never going to witness people dying of thirst, and if you travel 1,600 miles in any direction you'll end up in the ocean, Ireland or Europe - but no, this pair were native Ockers.

Finally -

Yes, finally!  Conrad laid his hot sweaty palms upon an edition of the Manchester Evening News, which had been removed from the shelves at the Co-Op on Sunday, damn their eyes the dirty curs.  I get there earlier every week and they remove them even earlier!  Just you wait, Co-Op staff, just you wait, in 257 years my starship invasion fleet is going to arrive and you'll be sorry then when 

     ANYWAY I got to do another Codeword, since I've only managed one in the past week and feel decidedly lacklustre.  Gotta keep those wits sharp, you know?  I am delighted to say that, once again, Your Humble Scribe was propelled to the veriest heights of seething citric apoplexy by the solutions, which you WILL hear about, never fear ab - hang on, is something burning?

"Hey, I got here as soon as I could.  I heard there were flamethrowers?"

     And with that, Dártagnan, we are well and truly done.  Done!

*  Evil Nazi doctors, on the other hand ....

I Oughter - Talk Of Water

Still Sticking With That Briny Theme

If you have a memory greater than that of a goldfish, then you will recall we have recently been recounting the hydration horrors the Crimea is undergoing, thanks to Ukraine cutting off 85% of their water supplies.  Ukrainian politicians pointed out that, if Crimea is now Ruffian, then the Ruffians can supply it with utilities, which includes water.  And they can't.  Art!

     As you can see, the howling irony is that Crimea is almost entirely surrounded by the wet stuff, which, being saltwater, isn't either drinkable or usable for agriculture.  It is, however, custom-made for ships to sail upon, including HMS 'Defender' whose partial track you can witness above.  The Defender looks pretty frakkin' alli, at least to a landlubber like Conrad - Art!

Confounding naval strengths since the sixteenth century

     The sudden arrival of a Royal Navy warship off the Crimean peninsula inevitably provoked a whole series of clucking objections from the Ruffians, because it - I dunno, imperilled the pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar?  In fact, the Defender was travelling in international waters, but the Ruffians don't like other people using their own tactics against them, and the Defender was essentially trailing her coat as bait.  

     Because the Ruffians absolutely cannot and will not accept coming second in anything ever - and we are going back a hundred years now for this phenomena - they had to put out a story of how they fired on the Defender and dropped bombs in front of her, and probably called up a dragon from the sea armed with laser eyes whilst using ill-tempered sea bass with contact mines welded to their heads, and - you get the picture.  None of which happened.  There are crews of journalists aboard the Defender - gosh! it's almost as if the RN expected something newsworthy to happen at sea on this cruise! - who all reported nil events occurring.  There was gunfire: twenty miles away, from a live-fire exercise being carried out by the Ruffian navy.  Perhaps their poor seasick journalists got it completely wrong?  

Russia attacks!
(An artist's impression)

     One wonders what course HMS Defender will be taking when she returns to home waters.  Exciting times ahead!

     Motley, I think we can roleplay this.  You get on a surfboard in the swimming pool and I'll throw hand-grenades at you.  Yes yes yes, you can wear armour, just be careful about the weight.

Still Somewhat Watery

Conrad is wary of large bodies of water, as you never know what's lurking at the bottom of them; U-boats, dragons, piranhas, Aquaman.  Other folk are considerably braver (it's not hard) and are willing to venture o'er the salty seas in various manner of craft; you can see one of the more extreme versions above.  Then you have the vehicles at the other end of the spectrum.  Art!

     This, apparently, is known as an 'e-foil', which is completely novel to Your Humble Scribe.  It may look like an optical illusion but is entirely real, and the relevant bits are invisible underwater, being what enables it to scoot along and remain upright.  Art!

     Yes yes yes I know it looks like an ironing board and a scuba set had a baby.  Hold onto your hat, as this humble item can reach speeds of 30 knots.  One heck of a lot faster than you can swim.

     It may amuse you - or not, I don't really care, I'm horrid like that - to know that I've been listening to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" whilst hammering the keyboard and making Dimya cry about the Crimea*.

Would You Like Some "T"?

I know what you're thinking, "How can Conrad possibly ask that question, since he imbibes tea as other people inhale the very air?"  and you're not wrong.  Except in this case we are talking about the letter, not the drink.  Art!

     Do not fret or worry, gentle reader, because Conrad has absolutely no interest in whatever sport is being described here - motorised roller-skating? - and thus has not changed his opinion on sports one bit - rideable rocket racing? - in that for all he cares you can walk onto the stadium floor and - aha! supermarket trolleys propelled by rockets! - flip a coin to determine the outcome.  No, what I wanted to point out was the region this event is taking place at: "Styria".  This is one of the provinces of Austria.  "Austria" itself is an Anglicisation of "Österreich" meaning "Eastern State", not to be confused with "Australia", which comes from the Latin for "South", that being "Austral". 

      Sorry, where were we? O yes - Styria.  Art!

     Doubtless there will be a whole lot of people looking confusedly at their television screens as thöse supermarket trolleys whiz around the track, exclaiming "I thought that place was dangerous?  And flat?  And hot?  And dusty?" Well, puzzle no longer, people, for BOOJUM! has addressed your questions.

     O hang on!  They were motor racing cars!

If I Were To Say "Locks"

You might expect an item on hairdressing, or how to pick one with a hairclip and <information redacted> or even the water management of a canal system.

     All these would be wrong, of course - obviously! - because I refer to "Lox", which itself is rather ambiguous.  There is the sense you may well have heard already, it being smoked salmon, frequently consumed on a bagel with cream cheese, and thankfully I ate not long ago so am not now being consumed with the pangs of greed.  Art!

Very kosher

     This is Lox #1.  Then there is Lox Iteration 2.  Art!

     Yup.  If you were to be eavesdropping on the launchpad, as another NASA  maintenance mission goes off to service the Moon Holograph Generator, you'd see containers of LOX being ferried about, as having oxygen under such pressure that it forms a liquid means you can cram oodles of the stuff into a small space.

     I shouldn't have to say it, but - do not confuse the two.

Finally -

I've been shockingly lax in watching "Ad Astra" because I've got access to Netflix again on a laptop that doesn't crash every couple of hours, hooray! so I've finished watching the first series of "Locke And Key", done a bit of a hatchet job on "Army of the Dead" and watched "Overlord", the horror-war-zombie film from 2018 which we WILL come back to.  O yes indeed.

     But for the moment, we are DONE!

*  "Dimya" is the familiar diminutive of "Vladimir" and should only be used by his very bestest mates, most certainly not by a disrespectful British blogger.