Be Very Careful!
That faint scent of cooked meat is the rapidly-dissipating vapourous remnants of those who claimed I'd made a spelling mistake. As if!
Which reminds me, Your Humble Scribe distinctly remembers reading about a reference to the above in a Starry Trek novel, centred around Jean Luc Picard I seem to recall. He had by mistake or miscalculation fallen into the Mirror Universe, where they don't do things by halves, where discipline is via Agonizers, and you either bend one's knee to the Empire or lose the leg attached to it. Art!
If you recall, in the original series promotion or transfer between positions within the mirror Imperial Fleet was by - assassination. So when junior officers move on Picard, they firstly vapourise his door sentry, thus when the Captain emerges from his prime pit, he sadly (because he's the real JLC, not some 
I think this is it macho hardman hard-boiled wicked version) notes his sentry's absence, without having even left a whiff behind.
Phasers - for all your heavy-duty cleaning needs!
ANYWAY that has almost nothing to do with what I meant to start banging on about, which was Trinitrotoluene, better known as the abbreviation TNT. Hence today's title THANK YOU SPELLING NAZIS whom are not known for their humour. I only use "TNT" as it's an explosive most people are familiar with, unlike azidoazide azide, and I wanted to use it as a gateway to Nitroglycerin, which most people are probably only aware of as a heart medication.
Ah but. Back in the nineteenth century they used this Devil's sinovial fluid as an explosive, because it is fantastically explosive, and also unfortunately fantastically sensitive to shock. Anecdotally it will go off if you squint hard at it. Of course some people cannot accept this urban legend and want to test it to the breaking point, which is where Adam Savage comes in. Adam has a one-ounce bottle of nitro and he's going to see just how temperamental this joy juice is. Art!
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| A three-foot drop onto concrete |
What was the result? Nothing. So they repeated the experiment and substituted a series of 1/4 inch steel plates instead of soppy old concrete. Net result?
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| The bottle shattered, bangless |
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| Hammer down! |
The results were spectacular, probably a lot more spectacular than Adam or I expected, because - Art!
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| The sad remnants |
We have a couple of slo-mo closeups as the explosion occurred. Art!
Note that the steel plates have vanished. In fact the cameraman caught a pair as they flew high overhead and impacted the ground 75 yards away hard enough to bury themselves. If they had hit any unfortunate out in the open (not very likely as this was a live bomb range) said unfortunate would have been sliced in two.
This was only an ounce. Imagine those accidents where a ton exploded* ...
Road To Ruin
You couldn't use Shakespeare's <hack spit hack spit> line about "Dusty death" in this case, because we are now looking at the well-watered acres (or hectares if you must) of Ruffia, with the Ruffians displaying their enormously variable driving skills. Art!
Here we see one of that breed who treat the commute to work as the Daily Dog Buns! Death Derby. Note that it is raining, that it has been raining heavily and the road is extremely wet, which you can see by the amount of water our DDBDD Driver's car is throwing up, that a blind bend is approaching and our idiot protagonist is not merely overtaking on the wrong side of the road, he's very determinedly staying in it, thank you very much those of you with snivelling notions about the intrinsic value of human life**. There's no visible speedometer in the dashcam here so allow me to explain that DDBDD is travelling WAY too fast for the conditions.
You can tell where this is going, can't you? Art!
It's not clear from this which car is which, as there are three in varying states of disrepair. DDBDD is probably the one half-hidden in the undergrowth. So, not only did they mess up their own day, they destructively harmed at least two other people's days. I hope they got the book - in fact the whole library - thrown at them.
Time For Some Calm Contemplation
Let us soothe the spirits - why yes, I'll have a snifter or two - with matters more elevated than explosions and bad driving. For Lo! I think an astronomy picture is about due. Art?
This is "Moonrise over Jodrell Bank" by Matt Naylor. As the moon rose, so did the sun set, leading to the colour palette you can see here. Technically the radio-telescope is now known as the Lovell Telescope, after Sir Bernard of that moniker. Whichever name one chooses, on a clear day we in the Dark Tower could see the dish at the very limits of the horizon. O, and also the control tower at Manchester Airport, too.
The End At Gallipoli
Yes! I have finally finished "Mlitary Operations Gallipoli Volume 2" which deals with the events over the summer of 1915 at the Dardanelles and the final evacuations in December and January. With howling irony, the simultaneous evacuations from Suvla Bay and Anzac, and the later final one at Helles, were impeccably planned and immaculately executed, without a single casualty. Supplies and stores were left behind (although lots were burned or blown up), yet on both occasions the Turks were firstly caught by surprise and secondly actively deceived. Art!
Wars, as they say, are not won by evacuations. No, yet when an evacuation was anticipated and expected by the Turks, who had vision over all the Allied positions, and whom were frequently separated from the front lines by less than 50 feet, and yet gets away scott-free, that's quite an achievement. Even some of the Teuton press commented in moderate awe.
Of course, I now have to tackle the relevant volumes of "Naval Operations" so my reading is probably only half-way done. O what a chore!
Finally -
Yes, Your Humble Scribe is indeed off today, partly because he's being Chief Chauffeur in the late morning and because his glazzies are being tolchocked in late afternoon down at the Health Centre, so don't expect to get a double post, you literary gannets. It MAY happen if I feel generous and should the gin flow plentifully, just don't count yer vampire chickens till they come home to roost.
Then you must be a DINOSAUR!
* 36,000 times greater. Just so we're clear.
** Yes, it's that steal from James Blish again.
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