Then Doubtless I Would Also Have To Add -
WASH OUT YOUR DIRTY MINDS! you disgusting perverts. How often do I need to re-iterate that BOOJUM! is crafted only from the most exquisite SFW materials, and that the single time a naked female bottom graced the blog was when we featured a statue?
True, we do play hard and fast with nuclear weapons, armoured fighting vehicles and zombies, none of which are unclad or behaving in a saucy manner (we shall ignore the <ahem> 'exotic dancer' zombies at the start of "Zombieland"). Art!
Ambrose Bierce. The grumpy old man's grumpy old man.
As you should surely know by now, Ol' Amby is the only candidate Conrad will endorse for President, even at 180 years of age. We'll come back to this, don't forget.
So, 'analect' popped up in the purulent psychic protoplasm that makes up my mental mindscape - sorry if you can't un-see that image - earlier today whilst working, rather to my surprise. Sending out job offers by the dozen is not really conducive to philosophical reflection. Art!
Do you read Chinese? Nor do I.
This is an example of Confucius' writing, collected together by his various devotees and disciples and diarists. They are attributed both to him and other heavy-duty thinkers around at the time, and are known variously as either "The Analects" or "The Analects Of Confucius". So, 'analect' is derived from Greek, inevitably, and 'ana' meaning 'up' paired with 'legein', which means 'to gather together', via 'analekta' or 'things collected together', and thence to a collection of philosophical articles all bound up together. Art!
There you go, not a smutty word or picture amongst the lot. Really, you lot ought to get your minds out of the gutter.
"But but but - where does Pres - I mean, Ambrose Bierce come into this?" I hear you quibble, and - you must be South American quibblers, nobody in this country has ever heard of Ambrose Bierce.
Or they think it's a mis-spelling of this.
Well, for years and years Old Bitter used to add a few horribly citric and critical word definitions to whatever newspaper column he was writing at the time, for he was a feted and noted journalist. Eventually, long after he went on an extended holiday in Mexico and forgot to come back, these got collected into "The Devil's Dictionary", which is an hilarious look at South Canadian culture towards the end of the nineteenth century. You could, in fact, if you were looking to make pun points, describe it as an analecture on South Canadian politics, economics, history and cooking. Art!
Well, it made me laugh. Yes, that is what matters here - whose blog is it, once again?
Motley! Let's do a little Combat Cos-play. You can be Mildred Pierce, armed with an umbrella and a pair of opera glasses, and I'll be Ambrose Bierce, armed with a Colt Navy revolver and a Bowie knife.
How Lemmy Invented The Lighthouse
Well, kind of. Okay, not kind of. Okay, okay, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the design, construction, staffing or maintenance of lighthouses. Happy now? Happy that you've killed the mystery before it began? Bah!
You may not know that Lemmy, pre-Hawkwind days, was a member of a band called <ahem> the Rockin' Vickers.
That's them. I am maliciously keeping the image small so you have as much trouble as possible in identifying him. Heh*.
And then we transition abruptly to the Bishop Rock lighthouse, which would be sufficient of a connection to make you groan despairingly. Vickers? Bishops? Rock? Art!
This basalt behemoth sits on a tiny rock island in the Atlantic ocean, miles from the Scilly Isles, which are themselves miles from the British mainland. It was one of the most disliked posting for lighthouse keepers, because of the isolation, the horrid weather and waves, and the likelihood of not getting relieved after your two month stint of duty was up. It receives the full force of Atlantic storms and waves, which have to be seen to be believed. Art!
Getting washed nice and clean
The lighthouse was rebuilt in the later nineteenth century, increasing it's mass to six thousand tons, and it still shook - or rocked, in our context - when the big waves came in. Despite that, it has stood intact since construction and the only occupants are occasional engineers or mechanics from Trinity House who maintain the automated systems. What we need is a picture that gives a sense of scale - Art!
The exceedingly risky process of using a bosun's chair to swap keepers and load supplies. If the seas were bad, this couldn't take place, frequently for weeks at a time. Even today, bad weather can stop helicopters from landing.
I think that's enough serious shizzle. Time for some light and frothy nonsense with LITHIUM WAFER BATT - perhaps not. I am determined NOT to resort to frothing at the mouth and hammering my keyboard so hard the plastic splits and the keys come loose - also known as Codeword compilation complaints, so let us instead venture forth into <thinks>
CANAL DEFENCE LIGHTS!
There, doesn't that make your heart beat faster? A carbon-arc filament light designed and intended to dazzle and blind the Teutons during night attacks, and not intended to defend canals at all, because Perfidious Albion, haha! Housed in a tank for safe-keeping, since carbon-arcs are delicate and don't take well to bombs and shells. Art!
An artists impression, since photographs are hard to come by. Photographers not keen on standing next to a piercingly incandescent light source, "because of the contrast" and not, of course, "because I might get killed".
There you go, that's the 'tanks' part of our remit.
Finally -
Have we actually gone into atom bombs in any detail recently? Possibly not, so we may have to revisit the topic. I mention this because the BBC only today mentioned a Cold War confrontation that I'd not heard of before, waaaaay back in 1958 (before I was created in a lab, so I have an excuse), between the South Canadians and the Populous Dictatorship, over Taiwan. The South Canadians were backing Taiwan, and the Populous Dictatorship wanted to get their hot sweaty paws on it; cue worried briefings from the top strategists at the Pentagon that they might have to go nuclear if the Pops tried an amphibious invasion.
Of course the Pops never tried, mostly because their ability to conduct amphibious warfare in 1958 was about 5% of nothing at all.
Hmmmm. As for today? We may come back to this.
Lacking only buckets and spades
And with that, Vulnavia, we are ever so done.
* I know, aren't I a swine!
No comments:
Post a Comment