Ha! The Perils Of Punctuation
There hasn't really been any great drama today, unless you count the cat that stopped on the opposite side of the road to warily watch Edna and myself as we took a constitutional. Hardly the stuff of exciting discourse.
No, what I really mean is a liquid called "Dramamine", which seems to be the most peculiarly inappropriate label possible. Art!
Variant name
Also -
The reason I bring this up is that, in the first season intro to "Better Call Saul", we see our favourite sleazy attorney pouring himself a glass of spirits, which he tops up with tonic water and - Dramamine. Which is supposed to combat the effects of nausea, and would thus be better titled "Dramaless" in my opinion. Your Humble Scribe is willing to bet folding money that there are contra-indications if you consume this chemical on the back of a pint of whisky, O yes indeed!
That's not all. Since it's a chemical compound, it can be marketed under different names, one of which is - Art!
CORONER: We pronounce a verdict of death by misadventure.
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Can you explain why the decedent weighed over 195 pounds at the time of their death, yet was only 120 pounds when treatment began?
CORONER: Yes. Their physician prescribed a Gravol per day.
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Gravel?
CORONER: Yes, that's what they thought, too.
Motley, we're going to test this Dramamine stuff. Just neck a handful of tablets and we'll send you on a 36-hour non-stop rollercoaster ride.
Testing to destruction!
Gastroliths
Swallowing stones deliberately is not a valid biological choice for Hom. Sap. although there are animals that carry out this odd act for perfectly sensible reasons. The stones are known as "Gastroliths" because "Stomach Stones" isn't cool enough and biologists and paleontologists do so love to spit out Latin whenever they get the chance. Art!
From a Pleisosaur
The idea is that a stomach full of stones is better able to crush and separate the ingested elements of an herbivore's diet, all the more essential if said animal doesn't have efficient grinding, chewing teeth. The defeated food is then shunted further down the bowels for processing, at which point this item can end, as we're NOT going into the subject of coprolites.
There will now be a short break whilst I go lay in some beer*. Please be patient.
Remember Gunpowder?
Of course you do! A mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and potassium nitrate, all mixed together. Not stuff to mistreat since there are various ways to set it off. A few days ago the South Canadian police in Los Angeles were impounding almost a ton of illegal fireworks, the major component of which would have been gunpowder. Art!
This is the truck they were being loaded into. It's unclear what's what in the cargo bay and whether there's a sealed-off section behind the cab. Notice that there's no roof; in case of accidental explosion the idea would be to direct the energy from same upwards as much as possible, rather than confining it and having it omni-directional. Art!
When it went BANG. Remember, gentle reader, that gunpowder can be detonated thanks to static electricity, not simply a naked flame. There doesn't seem to be any flame source, so - it may have been a spark caused by friction. The explosion destroyed the truck, injured 17 people and wrecked nearby cars and houses. No information has been released about where the explosives were being stored; judging by the overhead drone footage this is a residential neighbourhood, so the consequences of a ton of gunpowder going off in someone's shed is sobering indeed.
How very grim. Let us immediately change to lighter and frothier matters - Lithium Wafer Battery Design Astronomy Photographer Of The Year!
APOTY
I can't be bothered to type that out every time the title or subject comes up, so make do with that. Art!
This is the Dolphin's Head Nebula, as taken by Yovin Yahathugoda. It's less dramatic appellation is Sh2-308, which has absolutely no poetry about itself. What is it? A shell of gasses that were blown off the outer layers of that bright star in the middle, which now form a cosmic bubble 60 light years across. Radiation gives the hydrogen in the nebula it's nice blue colouring.
FYI still further, it was created about 70,000 years ago, at a time when your our ancestors were learning to scrawl painted daubs on cave walls. At some point it will go supernova, so if you are both immortal and interested in astronomy you may see it go BANG.
A Quart In A Pint Pot
Conrad is not sure he heard right as the gin had flowed in rivers and the window was open, meaning a lot of traffic noise, BUT he is almost sure he heard the following mentioned during a list of the vehicles booked to appear at the "We Have Ways" festival in September: "A seventeen-pounder porteë".
Hmmmm. First of all, allow Your Humble Scribe to explain what a 'portee' was. This was a bit of Perfidious Albion's kit during the war in North Africa, where an anti-tank gun was mounted on the back of a lorry for mobility. Art!
It was possible to fire from the back of the truck, although the idea was to dismount the gun and move the portee out of the way, thus minimising the gun as a target. This was rarely done, making the portee a large and vulnerable target. That above is the two-pounder version. There was a six-pounder iteration - Art!
I have never heard of nor seen a seventeen-pounder portee, and strongly suspect none ever existed, as the seventeen-pounder was an enormous gun which would have needed an equally enormous lorry. Art!
With puny humans for scale 
About the right size
Finally -
The orgy of book-buying has been a little slow in getting going, since Jonathan Ware's "Jocks, Dragons And Sospans" is unavailable anywhere, not even on Abebooks. One presumes the hardback edition has sold out it's print run, yet not quickly enough to justify either a re-print or an early appearance of the paperback. I will persevere, gentle reader, I will persevere!
* Not like that! <mutters despairingly>
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