Not THAT Kind Of Corona!

Yes, Conrad Is Being Ambiguous

Because I enjoy it, and also the mental exercise is good for you out there reading this.  Unless you have a personal assistant reading it to you, in which case you have more money than you need, and BOOJUM! will be happy to remove a substantial portion of your excess cash.

     ANYWAY there is that brand of beer known as "Corona" which has probably seen it's sales dip a bit over the past year and a half, and which has doubtless been featured in a hundred unfunny memes.  There is also the solar corona, which if NASA will oblige - Art?

From the Latin <hack spit> for "Crown"

     Those of you who have been reading the blog for more than a fortnight will know that Conrad is a BIG fan of that classic Fifties sci-fi film "Forbidden Planet" (despite what Tom B. thinks about it) and that above mirrors a scene early in the film when United Planets Cruiser C57D arrives in the Altair star system.  Art!

"Meanwhile, this ship arranges it's own eclipses."

     You have to squint and use your imagination to see a crown in either image.

     ANYWAY we are back onto Conrad's story about Corona Del Mar High School.  I couldn't find the Reddit thread about the scandal that broke out there, so have a generic Reddit Youtube picture instead.  Art!

     The OP had mentioned that 11 pupils were expelled from the school in a computer hacking incident, yet avoided giving any great detail about the event.  

     Conrad saw a challenge!  There was a lot more to this once I tracked down online news articles.  For reasons known only to himself, a tutor at the school, Timothy Lai, showed pupils how to attach keyloggers to teacher's computers, allowing them to scrape personal details and log ins, after doing it himself; I suppose this was a "proof of concept" exercise.  The 11 VERY NAUGHTY students then used this information to get into accounts and amend their grades.  Their hacking was busted by a teacher who suspected their computer had been compromised to change grades, because it had been.  An immediate investigation was launched, at which point Lai promptly vanished.  Art!

He then Lai low

     When busted several months later, Lai did a deal that meant a year in prison and five years probation, instead of the sixteen years he could have been dealt.  Of the 11 VERY NAUGHTY students, five went to other schools in the Newport County district and six others left the district altogether.  CdM did a huge retrospective trawl of 52,000 records to see if any other 'tinkering' had taken place, and you know what? it doesn't seem to have happened anywhere else.

     You have to ask, what was he thinking?

     Motley, we're going to see how good a hacker you are.  First we chain you to this pipe in the cellar, and next we set the timer-release on this cage of rabid weasels, O - and here's a hacksaw.  With a blunt blade*.

Home of the "Sea Kings".  Whomever they are.

Whilst Talking About Hacking ...

Sorry, I couldn't resist.  Here we come to the second of today's items dealing with a Roman legion fending off a zombie horde, and this time around we focus on the Gladius, the short sword that each legionary carried.  Art!

Both stabby and slashy

     As in, why take two bottles into the shower with you?  The 'Spanish sword' as it was also known had both a point and edges, so as a Legionary you could either impale your opponent upon it, or slice them into quivering chunks of blubber.  Any zombies within reach could be despatched by a quick stab to the skull, or taking the whole head off at the neck.  There's a third method of dealing with attackers, as demonstrated by a wargamer at Phalanx once; slicing low behind the enemy's knee to cut their hamstring and render them partially crippled.  Art!

     There may be some out there who dismiss the gladius because it's not a gun and has an effective reach of maybe two yards.  Undoubtedly true; yet it has no moving parts that may break down or malfunction, requires no ammunition, needs no power source, is silent, and can be maintained with a dab of oil and a whetstone.  It can also dice fruit and slice loaves, which you cannot say of an AK47.

Less Chuck And More Hog

Earlier today we came across the woodchuck, one of those small rodents peculiar to South Canada, which is also known as the groundhog**.  Rather than try to answer that very vaguely-framed question about how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, Conrad thinks it would be a lot easier to answer the question "How much ground could a groundhog hog, if a groundhog could hog ground?"  Art!

     The answer is, not much.  Groundhogs are not large creatures, and if lying down to hog the ground in a hug, they'd maybe hog all of a square foot.  Unless!  <typically grim and dark Conrad musings> - unless they were roadkill, in which cas<redacted out of good taste>

Three Wheels On Mein Vagen

Ah, yes, motorcycle combinations of the Second Unpleasantness!  You will undoubtedly have seen these vehicular arrangements without realising, most certainly if you have seen "Where Eagles Dare" or that Indiana Jones film about Cross-eyed Losers or something.

     The subject came up because Phil over on the SOTCW Facebook page had posted a picture of Sinister motorcycle and sidecar combinations.  Conrad was unaware such things existed; if a model exists then it has to be real, am I right?

CAUTION! will also run on vodka

     That's not the photo he posted, it's just a proof-of-concept picture that shows these things really existed.   I think Art needs motivating with the cattle-prod to come up with some supplementary evidence - Art!

     That, ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, is the MC combination from WED.  We may come back to this, there's some mileage in it.

Finally -

Corks!  Have started the final episode of "Sweet Home" and the slow attrition of our survivors in the Green Home apartment block continues, although they have seen off all the monsters that had infiltrated their block and it's garage.  Not necessarily monsters in monster-shape, either.  Which will be all I say for today, going out as I came in: ambiguously.

Now, this - this is a monster.

*  Can't make it too easy!

**  DON'T MENTION THE FILM!!

A Tiger Of A Tale

Conrad Is Diligent!

Or obsessive.  I think it's one reason I do jigsaw puzzles.  I am referring, of course, to the story on a Reddit Youtube channel about Corona Del Mar High School in South Canada.  I thought I'd taken a photo of the relevant thread, but - No.  Naturally I tried searching for the thread, at first on Google - 

The educational entity itself

     Which brought up a ton of links to do with Covid-19 Coronavirus and no Youtube links.  Nor could I remember what the thread title was, until I hit upon "What was the 'íncident' at your high school?" which itself brought problems, because - Art!

     No shortage of candidates, none of which are numbered, so I've had to review and note them by duration, as no two seem to be the same length.  So far I've looked at seven <sigh>.

     One story I came across stood out from the rest due to sheer amusement, as a lot of these stories involve unpleasant students being unpleasant.  So!

     Saint Thomas, of the US Virgin Islands.  Art!

     The narrator, hereafter known as 'OP', was at high school, when a total lockdown was ordered.  Police SWAT teams - which OP hadn't known existed until then - were patrolling the streets of Saint Thomas.  The reason?  They were trying to track down an escaped Bengal tiger.  These things are 1) Large and 2) Dangerous - you may have been ahead of me here - and the school didn't want any of it's students ending up as predator canapes.  Art!

Terrifying!

     OP was escorted from the school, as were all the other students, by a pair of SWAT troopers; one on the left and one on the right, both keeping a sharp lookout for feral jaws and claws.  They got him to his father's car and then they were off home.  All very blood and thunder, plus a day off school.

     The denouement? More embarrassing than exciting: the escapee was a Bengal CAT, which went by the name of "Tiger".  Art!

Terrifying! - to mice.

     At least it gave the SWATties a chance to look cool.

     Motley, here's a PIAT, we're going to go hunting Tigers!

One we hunted earlier

Still With The South Canadian Animals Theme

There is a tongue-twister that the folks across The Pond are fond of: "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"  This is very silly for several reasons, the first of which would be 'Why is this supposed woodchuck throwing wood in the first place?' 

It's a big Kubrick fan?

     Secondly, where is this wood coming from, hmmmm?  If it's in the form of branches and twigs, then there's a limit to the size of wood our hypothetical woodchuck can pick up and thus throw.  Or does it have access to a pile of perfectly-proportional pre-cut planks? which is stretching probability to breaking point.  Thirdly, does the woodchuck have a five-minute break every half hour, or does it keep on hurling lumber until it collapses?

I salute you ambition, mate, but that's not going to work

     We're not done with this topic*.

"Under The Stars"

Don't fret if astronomy's not your bag - though I question whether this blog is realllllly for you especially if you also express disinterest in zombies and atom bombs - as there aren't that many more photos from the BBC's webpage left  to coo over.  Art!

As taken by Rachael Blakey

     This one hails from New Brunswick in British America, featuring both the Milky Way and a creepy abandoned house, which appears to be sinking.  Good on Rachael for sticking around long enough to get the shot, because Your Humble Scribe wouldn't have stopped until the Sinking Shack was a dot in the rear-view mirror.  Yes I am a massive coward, and no I wouldn't be caught by any of the tropes in a horror film.

Contra Mortui Viventes!

Again, if you're not at all interested in zombies then this blog is probably not for you, as we return to the fascinating subject of how a Roman legion would have tackled a horde of the living dead.  Their Auxiliary troops have already been covered, as has the legionary's shield; let us now look at their personal weapons, the sword and javelin (known as the 'gladius' and 'pilum' respectively).  Art!

Lots of stabby, pointy sharp things

     Pilum first.  It would take a feat of marksmanship to hit a zombie in the head with a javelin, although it could be done; just not often enough to be effective in stopping a horde.  In conventional combat it was intended to punch through a shield, keep going and impale anyone behind it, and, even if it failed to injure them, trying to keep a shield up when it's being dragged down by a six-foot javelin is tricky.  Zombies, lacking shields, would one hundred per cent get impaled, and would then come to an abrupt halt as the javelin shaft drooped at an angle and impacted the ground.  Art!

"Gustum Romanus pila, mortui viventes!"

     These things had a maximum range of about thirty yards and legionaries carried two of them, so an attacking horde would be hit by hundreds of javelins.  Once thus immobilised, they'd be dog-food for the archers and slingers loitering on the flanks, or if the legion counter-attacked.

     I think we'll leave the gladius until tonight's post.  Too much of a good thing and all that**.

Finally -

Currently Conrad is sitting downstairs in the lounge, for practical reasons.  It is dismally dark outside and the lounge's enormous bay window allows in far more of the dingy daylight than the much smaller windows in my Sekrit Layr, meaning I'm not risking eyestrain quite so much.  It also means I can watch "Sweet Home" on the big screen monitor, thus getting to witness every gory detail in appropriate detail.

     Aha!  I caught sight of a bus poster - also much easier to see from this perspective - about "On the go?" and the logo for Kitkat was in there at the very bottom, an important detail not visible from my Sekrit Layr chair.  Art!

     Sadly no sign of the bus poster despite extensive Googling <heavy sigh>

     And with that, Vulnavia, we is done.***

*  Is that fear or excitement you're quivering with?

**  Routine disclaimer - of course, I may be over-thinking this.

***   Yes yes yes I know that's bad grammar.  Sue me.

The Bronks

"Conrad's Taloned Fingers Hovered O'er The Remote Nuclear Detonator"

Because I just know there will be those out there who will point and bray, exclaiming about how Your Humble Scribe is either showing signs of dementia or of necking the sherry first thing in the morning.  Art!

     "He spelled it wrong!  He spelled -" at which point they will suddenly discover what it's like to be transformed into vapour at fifteen thousand degrees.

     For I would like to begin this Intro with a mention of Justin Bronk, an aerospatial defence pundit who gave an exposition on Youtube about the Ruffian air forces.  Art!

     Young Justin looks as if he only left school a couple of weeks ago, which is unlikely as he is a Research Associate at the RUSI, and you have to be practically white-haired to get in there.  Royal United Services Institute, if you must know.  A military study place.

     He delivered a wide-ranging analysis of current Sov- er - Ruffian air forces, on the Youtube Military Aviation History channel, the link to which is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf1uQF38ZeA

     Worth watching if you have a spare 30 minutes.

     The consensus is that the latest Ruffian bats out of Hades aren't as good as the latest Western ones, particularly as they lack guided munitions ("smart bombs" to you) and don't have what he called 'sensor pods' underslung.  Also that their most recent combat experience is dropping ordnance on militia mobs, which leaves their air-to-air skills rather wanting.

     Then we come to Detlev Bronk.  Conrad is not entirely sure why this chap's name has stuck in his mind, perhaps because it sounds like an anagram not a name.  In fact Ol' Det had quite the notable career in science and education, helping establish biophysics as a fruitful field of study.  Art!

     He was involved in NASA's predecessor, which may be where I have come across his name.  Maybe not.  Anyways, he is a distant ancestor of Jacob Bronck, a Swedish immigrant to South Canada when it was still just all Canada, who bought up tracts of land on Manhattan Island, the area of which was known as "Bronck's Farm".  This is where "The Bronx" originates from.

     However, just to muddy the waters a bit, Justin's surname has a different non-Swedish root, having derived from the old Anglo-Saxon 'Branche', meaning (you may be ahead of me here) 'Branch'.  This was adopted by the faithful minions of William, the Norman conqueror, where it became 'Bronk' - probably because the haughty Normies were trying to add their own accent.  Art!

Some of them appear to be wielding - branches.

     And there we have today's title.  Motley!  Er - what's that you've got there?

Close enough

Murder, Intrigue And Conspiracy!

Yes, the thrilling conclusion to the murder trial and today we discover the identity of the real killer!  First, I'm afraid we have to allow some doggerel nonsense because the Judge permitted it (I think he's been at the gin over lunchtime, frankly).

"Who'll sing the psalm?

I, said the thrush,

As she sat on a bush, 

I'll sing the psalm."

    Thank you for your contribution, now, can the bailiff and ushers get that shedding shrub out of the courtroom?  O and we have one last contributor <heaves dramatic sigh>.  Go on.

"Who'll toll the bell?

I, said the bull,

Because I can pull, 

I'll toll the bell."

     How very apt!  Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, because it tolls for thee - WEASEL!

     Yes, Your Honour.  Weasel conspired with the Wren and his hen, both of whom were in debt to Cock Robin.  Thanks to fingerprint and DNA analysis, I can prove that Cock Robin was actually STABBED with the arrow, by Weasel, who had stolen it from Sparrow's quiver.  Wren and his hen merely waited until Sparrow did a little target shooting and then dumped the body nearby, making Sparrow look like the guilty party.  You will note that Weasel has been in the public gallery every day, consuming buckets of popcorn*.

The Narrator rests, M'Lud.

From The Base To The Sublime

Yes, there are still some photographs we have yet to reproduce from the BBC's "Under The Stars" collection.  Art!

Courtesy Craig Lefebvre

     
     Craig identifies the location for this exposure shot as Red Rock Crossing Park in South Canada, of course - where else could it be with a name like that?  In Arizona, to be more precise.  The exposure that created the star trails was for 30 seconds at a time, spread over 60 minutes.  The wooden structures are what passes for historical in South Canada, being as much as 50 or even 51 years old.

<short pause as stuff gets put into the oven>

A Little Detective Work 

Conrad still hasn't given up on the story and background of the historical plasterer expert working for English Heritage - at least the consensus was that he worked in plaster, which we have to take as a starting point; there can only be so many crafts that English Heritage require.  More of a long term dig-dig-digging project, one feels.  It may even require letters to be sent 

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe came across a story on a Youtube Reddit channel about various low-jinks going on at a pricey South Canadian school.  I believe we took a picture.  Art?

     Ah.  We have the school not the Reddit post.  I shall have to track it down and get back to you.  Trust me, it's an interesting topic and one has to wonder what everyone involved was thinking at the time.

Finally -

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is now able to generate blog content by examining the bus posters on the 409s as they whiz past my windows, which has meant the odd undignified scramble to peer at a poster before it vanishes around the bend.  This behaviour is balked by the unco-operative buses that do not have a poster present, which is really letting the side down.

     On the other hand we have content that makes no sense.  There is one poster I've caught a couple of times, general colour scheme orange, which asks "On the go?" to which my answer is a resounding "NO!" because I'm sat in a large, static chair.  What are they pimping, one wonders?

Googling produced this.  Is that young Justin Bronk?

* Beef-flavoured popcorn.  Gotta cater to your carnivore customer.

A Rosin By Any Other Name

Bear With Me On This One

For we need to invoke the Barf of Avon, William Shakespeare, whom Your Humble Scribe detests with all the flaming fury of a bucketful of Carolina Reaper chillies, except the pun won't work without his saturnine input, the dirty cur.  Art!

Probably a lot less amusing than it thinks it is

     Okay, so we need to pinch that line from "Romero and Julie Ate" sorry too much zombie on the brain - "Romeo and Juliet" where one of them is banging on about flowers and states: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

     Here an aside.  In that classic television series "Anne Of Green Gables" our heroine takes issue with the Barb of Avon (splendid gel!) and his line above, declaring that people would have an entirely different attitude to the rose if it had been christened (can you do that with plants?) the "Lesser Stinkwort" and she has a point.  Art!

Anne: ginger, prescient and no fan of Shakespeare

     At this point in our narrative I think the only person who could make an educated stab in the park at what's going on is Shelli, thanks to her instruments of choice, that is the Cello and violin.  

         BECAUSE! we are dealing with the repellent outcome of another Codeword, is why, and one of the solutions was "ROSIN".  Conrad needed to look this up in his Collins Concise.  Which states: "A translucent, brittle amber substance, produced in the distillation of crude turpentine oleoresin and used in making varnishes and treating the bows of stringed instruments."

     WHAT ARE WE NOW TURPENTINE DISTILLATION EXPERTS ALL OF A SUDDEN?!

Apparently so!

     Conrad idly wonders if it's possible to strangle with a bowstring.  You'd probably need one from a larger stringed instrument, like a c-

     O Shelli!  Do you have a moment?  There are these codeword compilers who are tired of living, you see ...

"LANDAU": I know what you're thinking, and NO! this is nothing to do with  Commander Koenig of Moonbase <a moment's silence for all those souls lost when the Moon was torn out of orbit in 1999>, as portrayed in the documentary by Martin Landau.  Art!

     There you go, an Eagle, one of the <ahem> workhorses of Moonbase Alpha, with a patently sensible modular construction, capable of getting you to where you need to go, safely and efficiently.

     Now, about that 'Landau' - Art!

     Back in the Victorian era this would have been towed by a couple of horses, doing the work, getting you to where you needed to go, safely and efficiently.  Note the enclosed cab, which kept out noxious fumes, rain and the ragged classes.  The name comes from the Teuton town of that ilk, since that's where they were first made.  Phew!  Imagine if they'd been invented at Bad Pforzheim Unter Der Katzenellengoben Brucke -

     Hang on, I forgot to be cross!  CONRAD IS ANGRY!  VERY VERY ANGRY!  I CAN'T THINK WHY AT THE MOMENT BUT GIVE ME A MINUTE AND I'LL HAVE A REASON.

"FLUMES":  Conrad has a hazy memory of these being associated with logs, is that right?  Hang on - aha, not far off. A flume is a water channel elevated above ground level, used for the transportation of materials, frequently logs.  Using water to float and transport makes for a much quicker method than having to haul them around with horses, especially since they might be off towing a landau.  Art!

Log flume in full bloom

     Nowadays log flumes are used for entertainment purposes, with passengers riding a large plastic sled trying to imitate a tree trunk, which naturally leads to the question about which drunken plonker first had the idea to ride a log down a flume for fun, and did his surviving relatives file the patent?

     I'M STILL EXCEEDINGLY CROSS I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW.

     Okay, that's enough Codeword whining for one day.  The show must goon.

     O you know what I mean.

"From Hell It Came"

This is one of those bargain-basement monster-movie creature features from the Fifties, which Conrad has never seen.  Given how poor it's reputation is, this is a situation unlikely to change in the future.  However!  Art?

A case of the poster picture being far scarier than the film still

     O Noes!  What can possibly happen to that dagger sticking into Tree Trunk's woody hide?  Could someone perhaps shoot it with Chekhov's Gun?  And thus - terminate it?

     Well, yes, but you know a more definite outcome would be to decoy this monster to the nearest log flume, trip it up and into the current and Hay Pesto! it is whizzed away to the sawmill and made into a boudoir table and chairs.

Also makes good hamster bedding

     Job done, monster gone.

     I do apologise, I never intended to go off at a tangent like that.  O what it is to be creative!

     Sorry, what's that?  Why yes, it's made of wood, it will burn.  O - I can see where you're going with this - DON'T mention flamethrowers!

CONRAD PREVAILING!

Your Humble Scribe did allude to how well he was doing with the jigsaw puzzle-cum giant cryptic crossword, so allow me to update you.  Art!

     This part was really difficult, as the print on the cover picture is incredibly tiny, and one needed a scanning electron microscope to read it.  The tin itself is off in a corner, as Your Humble Scribe doesn't want to accidentally see the crossword solutions, because the sheet they are on constantly shifts into my eyeline.

     And that's where we stand as of today.

Meanwhile, Back In Old Bailey Court Number Three -

The murder of Mister C. Robin and the subsequent trial have revealed a possible conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, with the Dove now having undergone cross-questioning due to the possibility of the murder being either contracted out, or being a crime passionelle, with a loyal friend trying to take the rap.  

"Who'll bear the pall?

We, said the Wren,

Both the cock and the hen, 

We'll bear the pall."

     Your Honour, I submit that this is highly suspicious behaviour.  No other witness has appeared in tandem and my tingling Spidey-sense highly experienced legal nose tells me that these two are up to shenanigans.  An officer of the court ought to accompany them and check that the decedent is the one under that pall AND NOBODY ELSE!

"Do any of you have unspent criminal convictions?"

Finally -

Now up to Episode Seven of "Sweet Home" and do you know, one of the creepiest things about it is the ceaselessly signalling mannequin outside the apartment complex.  It seems to be a variety of safety device, signalling to pedestrians and drivers that there is a potential hazard -

     Or so it seems.  It could well be another example of Chekhov's Gun again.  We've got three and a bit episodes to find out.

     Are we done, Vulnavia?  O splendid, we are - pip pip!

A Stab In The Park

Ah, Forgive An Old Punster

I bet I can tell what you're thinking at this juncture - "O he's going to go whanging on about "Lord Of The Rings" and that bit where the Nazgül attack in the Prancing Pony" -

The Nazgül: making a fashion statement

     WRONG!  Go back and read that title properly, it says "Park" not "Dark".  For Lo! we are going to finish off the story of Kaspar Hauser.  You may recall that I'd spoiled it for the conspiracy theorists, because DNA proved he was an utter nobody, unconnected with any aristocratic parents as gossip would have it.  Not only that, he would suffer Mysterious Events when he thought people were getting bored with him, as with Red Flag Number One.

RED FLAG NUMBER THREE: He managed to 'accidentally' shoot himself in the head, although not seriously wounded.  The gunshot was heard by police who were guarding the house he lived in, and whom naturally came to investigate.  He claimed it was an accident, because he couldn't obviously blame a non-existent assassin this time, not with a pair of coppers standing at the door.  The suspicion is that he was practicing for another Mysterious Event. Art!

RED FLAG NUMBER FOUR: Kaspar came lurching home one night in December, claiming to have been stabbed by a mysterious stranger in a park (see? today's title).  Nobody else ever saw this assassin, rather tellingly.  The wound was deep enough to lead to DEATH a few days later, and the autopsy surgeons were convinced he'd actually stabbed himself.  You remember Red Flag Number One? where the supposed assassin had merely scratched him with a completely harmless and superficial nick to the head?  The consensus is that Kaspar wanted this stabbingly Mysterious Event to look like the real deal, and, not being all that competent at anything ever, he dug the knife too deep.  Art!

  

     RED FLAG NUMBER FIVE: After his case became a cause celebre, an English aristocrat offered a reward for anyone revealing the identity of his supposed gaoler for the first sixteen years of his life.  Nobody ever came forward to collect it, not at the time nor subsequently, leading to the inevitable supposition that it was all smoke and mirrors.

     Of course people will still "Ah - but -" because they have a book to sell or a script to flog.  However, in the eyes of Konrad, Kaspar's Kase is Kracked*.

     Motley!  It was said that Ghengis Khan's mounted warriors went into battle wearing a silk undershirt, which deformed under stress but which didn't tear.  This meant that arrows which struck them could be pulled out of the wound, presumably without killing them.  So - here's a silk undershirt ...

"Contra Mortui Viventes!"

Okay, we've looked at the Auxiliaries present in a Roman legion, and how effective they'd be at beating off the zombie hordes.  It turned out that they could inflict attrition on the raving undead, rather than stopping them.  So, what happens when the rotting meaty murderbags encounter actual legionaries?  Let's have an illustration of what a legionary looked like circa 0 AD.  Art!

     Let's break this down.  I know the more astute amongst you will be pointing to those bare legs and shrieking "AHA! Visible weakness, Conrad, visible weakness!  O so vulnerable to zombie bite attack!"

     Well, NO.  You see that large shield-shaped device that is, in fact, a shield?  That would be held to the fore, protecting those naked legs from injury.  In real combat, the legionaries would charge their foe and attempt to knock them flat with that shield, because it's that robust.  Nor would they be doing that solo; the rest of their maniple would be doing the same thing, and once a zombie's on it's back, a quick poke in the cranium from a gladius and that's all she wrote.

Gladius

Gladioli.  Just so we're clear

     Having effortlessly beaten you down on that one, I can predict your next objection will be those unclad forearms.  Remember, the left forearm is completely protected by the shield, and the right forearm is going to be mostly behind the shield, too.  Besides that, the Romans weren't stupid, and if they found that men were getting bitten on the arms and then turning MV, why - they'd either have tunics with long sleeves or issue armour.
     As ever, I may be overthinking this ...

Not Sure Where This Came From

You know the Latin <hack spit> phrase "De Profundis" means "From the depths"?  Well Conrad has an alternate for you: "De Vadum", which hopefully means "From the shallows".  You see, I was listening to the adverts a-playing during "Murder She Wrote" and an especially daft one came on that began "This is your skin talking.  I need something I've been missing -", at which Your Humble Scribe immediately responded "AMYL NITRITE!" because it amused me.  Art!

 

The jungle that produces this beggars the imagination

      Of course AN (better known as "Poppers") is inhaled, not smeared on the skin, Conrad suspecting that it wouldn't do your epidermis any favours if so applied.  It's not illegal in This Sceptred Isle, oddly enough, even if BOOJUM! recommends giving it a very wide berth as the only drug we endorse on the blog is caffeine.  AN will make you experience your brain going quaquaveral, just so we're clear.

"Sweet Home" 

Your Humble Scribe is now up to Episode Six of this Korean post-apocalyptic horror drama and is pleased to see that a second season has been given the green light.  Our disparate bunch of survivors have been forced to co-operate to survive, and to quarantine those who have become infected and who may turn into monsters AT ANY MOMENT.

     I've not seen the television series of "The Mist" but anticipate a certain similarity.  Art!

They're - waitforitwaitforit - attacking the block

Finally -

Bleurgh!  It is unpleasantly clammy at present, as we sit sweating under leaden grey skies; MAKE UP YOUR MIND WEATHER!  Either be cold and wet or hot and dry, don't try to mix it up.  

     Okay, we have hit the Compositional Ton, so I shall have to shelve that article about Italian Hand-Grenades Of The First World War.  Sorry, I know you pine like the fjords for items like that, perhaps tomorrow.

     O, and since I did mention it in passing, here's a picture of the much mulched Marmite peanut butter.  Art!

     Pip pip!

*  Well, either the case is or I am.