Like The Charge Of An Electron

Conrad Is Markedly Consistent

Perhaps because, at his age, he is resistant to change and is thus predictable, even being guilty of fuddy-duddyness.  You can definitely bank on him having porridge for breakfast, drinking loose-leaf Darjeeling tea and flying into the most frightful rages imaginable at the merest of reasons.

     Why, you enquire, did I allude to sub-atomic physics?  Because it's one of the crucial plot points in "The Quiet Earth", as scientist Zac Hobson discovers that basic constants in the physical world are fluctuating, including the charge of the electron, which ought to be more stable and predictable than the sun rising tomorrow.  Art!

Definitely not in Kansas any longer ...

     It's a great post-apocalyptic film from the Polite Australians and Conrad gives his thumbs-up, so feel free to hunt it down.
     And so we come to Conrad's Frothing Nitric Ire.  Yes, we are back on the subject of Codewords again SIT BACK DOWN! and we have a lovely long list for you to endure enjoy.  I won't post the whole lot here today as this would be far too much of a good thing, or at least a thing.

"What?  Where!"

     No, Mac, no.  Look, the neighbours need help with their barbecue, can you help?

     <sigh> heart's in the right place - at least it is if he's still human - but a little eager with that flamethrower.

     ANYWAY 

"SKULKED": That's what Mac did when he departed The Mansion; 'to move stealthily so as to avoid notice' and how often do you hear it used?  Very rarely indeed, and most of the time it would be in the electronic pages of this self-same blog.  I still take umbrage at it, mind.  O, and it also used to be the collective noun for a group of foxes, which diverted my rancour momentarily.  Art!

"CHI":  There are two definitions of this in my Collins Concise AND BOTH MAKE ME FURIOUSLY ANGRY!  <short pause to allow blood pressure to fall>

     In the first it refers to the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet, which, if Art will get off his coal-fattened rear -

The spot

     WHAT, DO THEY ASSUME WE ALL WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND LEARNED GREEK ALONGSIDE LATIN!  Then we have the second definition, which refers to a mythical form of energy running through the body (like brandy?) and which is taken directly from the Chinese for 'energy'.

     THIS IS TOO MUCH!  NOW WE NEED TO BE FLUENT IN CHINESE AS WELL  AS GREEK?!

     Conrad is certain you feel his pain.

"OSTIA": What?  What!  We've already had Greek and Chinese, and now they bring up a neighbourhood in the city of Rome.  Art!

     How can they resort* to behaviour this low?  What's next for heaven's sake - SHEREMETYEVO?  CESKE BUJEHOVICE?  TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES?  All real places, by the way.

     I give up, my blood pressure can't take it.  Your Humble Scribe requires a soothing nitromethane cocktail.  Motley!  Break out the bomb-proof cocktail shaker.

Ah, I see the life-giving rains have started once more.  Our dry, parched savannahs will be grateful after all these weeks of drought - no, hang on, that's nonsense, isn't it?

"Rhabdomancy"

Speaking of water any myths - CHI, do keep up! - Conrad looked up this word, which he casually threw into a Facebook post and which absolutely nobody challenged him on, which means people must trust me**.  It is the formal name given to attempting to divine where things are underground, by means of a pair of rods.

     <loud sounds of Tazer being applied repeatedly and with great force>

     BY MEANS OF A PAIR OF RODS

     All utter nonsense, of course.  When tested experimentally rhabdomancers scored no more highly than chance, and who needs a diviner to look for water here in the Pond Of Eden?  You'll hit the water table within inches at present if you take a shovel to it.

     O I say, the skies are clearing.  One wonders what the conquering Roman legions thought of this country and it's weather back in the day.  Speaking of which ...

Last Ditch Defences

Roel Konijndijk would approve of this title and the article which follows.  In case you forgot, he's the Irish classical history expert who sat in judgement on how accurate various films set in the ancient world were.  Art!

     That's Roel preventing his head from exploding with horror at how incredibly inaccurate "300" was.  He castigated many films that tried to denote siege warfare in various silly forms, explaining that you simply need to dig ditches, lots of them.  Rather than molten lead or boiling oil, you should chuck rocks; they're free and effective and don't have any moving parts.

     Thus we come to another epic instalment of "Contra Mortui Viventes!".  Art!  O stop whining and put some Sudofed on them.

     As I hope I've made clear, your average legion wouldn't have the time, resources or manpower to construct defences like this, unless they had weeks of warning about an encroaching zombie horde.  What's much more likely is that only one or two of the above would be constructed.  You can see the final obstacle, a ditch, right in front of the earthen berm that has been thrown up from excavations.  Zeds having poor balance, those that step over the edge will plunge head-first to the bottom, to be crushed by those that follow after.  In order to over-top that wall and the palisade there would need to be a positive hill of dead zeds to allow their surviving compatriots to make it.  Whilst all along the legionaries in both upper levels of that tower would be bombarding them with rocks.  In the field there would probably be more than one ditch, too, making things even harder for the zeds.
     Which is not to say they wouldn't eventually prevail, only that it would take a long time and acres of dead zeds, whilst the legion could easily fall back.

     Ah, normality prevails, the sinister grey clouds are rolling back in again.

Finally -

Conrad cannot go into too much detail here, except to say he is enjoying a Penguin Crime Classic by Edmund Crispin, which has a couple of sly allusions to the fact that it's a novel, once referring to the author by name and on another occasion remarking that it's going to be published by Gollancz.  Subtle enough that an editor might well miss them.  Props to Crispin!

The imp himself

*  See what I did there?

**  Heh heh.

Dig For Victoria

This One Will Take A Bit Of Explaining

You weren't going anywhere much, were you? O splendid.  Yesteryon we were elaborating on the untimely death of Lieutenant William Niven, father of David Niven, during the late August attack on Scimitar Hill at Gallipoli (1915).

     You may - perhaps - be forgiven for not recognising the phrase to which I allude, that being "Dig For Victory!" which has ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY in my Brewer's Dictionary* <frowns in annoyance and has recourse to teh Interwebz>.

SQUADRON SCRAMBLE!

     The phrase comes from the very darkest days of the Second Unpleasantness, when This Sceptred Isle stood alone against the Teuton tyranny, apart from Portugal, which was neutral but on our side, and Switzerland, which was neutral and dared anybody to try it on.  The Sinisters were bestest pals with the Teutons, which they HATED to be reminded about forever afterwards.  So, as an island under a variety of siege, we adopted DFV as a guiding principle, in order to reduce the amount of imports needed to feed the civilian population.  Art!

Not as exciting as a squadron scramble, but still vitally important

     Of course, as is typical here, we've spent a lot of time going on about what we're not going on about, and DFV has such 

     ANYWAY back to August 1915 and the aftermath of the Berkshire Yeomanry getting shot to bits in the bitter and protracted battle for Scimitar Hill.  Enter Trooper Fred Potts (meaning he was a cavalryman).  Fred had been seriously injured during the attack on 21/08/1915, yet not enough to prevent him from getting away under cover of darkness.  However, one of his mates, Trooper Andrews, had been more badly injured and couldn't move under his own steam. Fred stayed with him for two days until deciding they couldn't wait any longer.  To try and move upright would be an instant death sentence thanks to Turkish fire, so Fred ensconced his mate on an upturned shovel, and then used this as a kind of mini-sledge to drag him to safety in the British lines.  Art!

Sorry, no photographs

      They both made it safely back, despite those unsporting Turks shooting at them every inch of the way.  Trooper Potts earned a Victoria Cross for this action, which he lived to be given, since unfortunately a lot of these are awarded posthumously.  Art!

     Pottsy is the lad who looks about 16 here.  You can tell these are mounted troops because of their crossed bandoliers.

     Should you examine the plinth in the background of the third photo, then you will see a memorial plaque to those from the Berkshire Yeomanry who fell in this battle, which includes Lieutenant W.E.G. Niven.  Their bodies reside for the most part in Green Hill Cemetery, Gallipoli, where the Turks have taken exemplary care of them ever since - you should check out Kemal Ataturk's speech about British and Commonwealth war dead for someone really being a statesman.  Art!

Kemal being all Turkish

That Towering Infernal!

<heavy sigh> The 3D Empire State jigsaw puzzle saga continues.  As mentioned before there is no general picture to audit pieces against, only a schematic that merely shows the outlines of pieces from their un-pictured rear.  Art!

     The thing is, those schematics are WRONG.  I knew I'd gotten all the pieces for the next vertical phase, yet they simply didn't fit together when looking at the schematic plan.  Well, that's because the schematic plan was WRONG.  No wonder the previous owner gave up in disgust!  Because the supposedly guiding diagrams are WRONG!

     Did I mention WRONG yet?

Consistently Cross Conrad

I have held off from ladling scalding opprobrium** across the Codeword compilers for fear of boring or repelling readers, but I cannot in all conscience forbear any longer.  My Rage Gland can no longer be neglected!

     This is but a sampling, for I have enough transgressions to completely fill 3 blog posts.  Enow!  Anon!  Forsooth!

"RETROCEDE": Or, in plain English that people can understand, "To give back".  Your Humble Scribe had never EVER encountered this word before, despite having read approximately one million books.  At this point the compilers are looking at 50 years hard labour down the uranium mines when I take over.

Close enough

"PESETA": WHAT!  YOU WHAT!  <long string of swears> and once again the compilers ignore or pretend to forget that the peseta is a long-distant species of currency that has been replaced by the Euro.  WHAT ARE WE SPECIALISTS IN VARIETIES OF OBSOLETE CURRENCY NOW?

"GAWKED": Nope I don't think I'll continue on from this patently unfair gobbledygook even if it's in the Collins Concise and will instead carry on reading a murder mystery featuring Gervaise Fen.  You can sue me if you like***.

"Dimisie" By Dorita Bruce

Ah, the perils of perusing one's "Brewsters Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable" whilst not on a deadline.  Conrad had never heard of 'Dimsie' before today, and has subsequently discovered that she is a fictional Jolly Hockey Sticks schoolgirl whose correct appellate is Dorothy Maitland.  She was, apparently, quite popular amongst a female audience of the Twenties and Thirties.  I wonder if Art can provide us with an image?

     Conrad considers this a fruitful potential future endeavour, where he can bring in these images and mock them.  Dimsie victim of Conrad whimsy, you might say.  All, of course, in the most SFW context imaginable, YOU COLOSSAL PERVERTS.  Thank you so much.

Finally -

Conrad understands that "The Towering Inferno" was an adaptation of two novels, "The Tower" and "The Glass Inferno" from waaaaay back in the Seventies, when the resulting titular tower NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK! was a total of 450 yards high.

     Yes well.  We currently have the Burj Khalifa, which stands at 906 yards high, or just slightly over twice as high as the entirely fictional tower in TTI.  I don't know if Chief O'Halloran was consulted about this.  One suspects not.

     But what can possibly go wrong!

O yes

*  "Of Phrase and Fable", which is a bit clunky to write out in full.

**  "Posh swears" 

***  Address all queries and litigations to Messrs. Duhm, De'Ath and Endall.  Ta very much.

The Towering Infernal

Conrad Narrowed His Eyes, Threateningly

You should know very well by now that Conrad makes the English language jump, dance, cavort and generally behave how he wishes it to, so if I put up a title, then there are NO spelling errors.  My Remote Nuclear Detonator is itching for a new target, so ...

     NO! I do not refer to that classic disaster thriller "The Towering Inferno" which I have never seen to completion <hangs head a little>.  Art!

Both towering and an inferno.  Does what it says on the tin.

     I may see it it's available on Youtube because if

     ANYWAY I am referring once more to my 3D jigsaw construction puzzle of - the Empire State Building.  Recall, if you will, that it has 975 pieces.  Let us have some pictures doing the talking.  Art!

     That's how much I've completed so far, all of 40 pieces.  Note the handy helpful guide that lacks any of the pictorial detail for the pieces, and the box illustrations aren't that helpful either.  Art!

Mister Smug looking pleased with himself after some other poor sap assembled it.

 
     They proudly assert that this is the front and this is the back, so you don't get to see the sides at ground level, nor a top-down view of the horizontal parts.  Perhaps there was a helpful schematic that the original owner lost?  And whilst I am sorting through the pieces for the ground floor section, there are these many pieces to sort through.  Art!

     Your Humble Scribe thinks this one may take a long time to complete.  O well nothing worthwhile ever came easy, and there are only 935 pieces to dig through.  Hence today's title.

     And wouldn't you know it, TTI is not available for free on Youtube.

     Motley!  Get the Lego and I'll get some petrol and we'll have our very own Tower-o-Fire.

Conrad Plays Detective

Not so much 'Whodunnit' as 'Where and when it was done'.  I had been reading about that revered actor and raconteur Sir David Niven - Art!

   I think it was in a list of people born on St David's Day, and they mentioned that his father, a Major in the Berkshire Yeomanry, had been killed at Gallipoli in August 1915.

     Oho.  You know Conrad.  He could not let this opportunity to do a bit of fact-checking pass by.  First of all, was there such a regiment?

There certainly was, you can see them against the Brigade they were in, as "2/1/Berks Yeo".  Since Conrad only finished reading the Official History of the Gallipoli campaign, the relevant volume was still on my shelves.  Thus a recourse to the Order Of Battle at the end and - Art!

     So it was the First Battalion who served at Gallipoli.  Note that, although they and all their fellow battalions were cavalry, they all served as dismounted infantry, because there was simply no way for horse cavalry to serve on the peninsula.

     The Berkshires were part of a costly and unsuccessful battle that took place on 21/08/1915, where they were involved in an attempt to seize Scimitar Hill from the Turks.  It was a horribly mis-managed affair, and this is when Lieutenant William Niven would have been killed; though seen as a badly-planned and staff-deficient defeat on the British & Commonwealth side, the German accounts mention 'ferocious hand-to-hand fighting' and it seemed a lot more in the balance to them.  Art!

     37 is pretty old for a Lieutenant; there's got to be a story about that in the records.  For another day, perhaps.  And remember, young David was only 5 when this happened.

     

The Stork Of The Town

Or

Coming To Grief

You'll see.

For Lo! we have another Honourable Mention from the Darwin Awards, this time a tale from the land of the Teutons, wherein there is a zoo known as the Greifswald Zoo.  Art!

     One of their star performers is a stork called 'Luise' whom is reliably cheeky and greedy, and will steal visitor's sausages if same are not carefully guarded.  This fame may have a bearing on what happened late one night in July, when a thief broke into the park, got into the stork enclosure and attempted to make off with Luise.

     

     Luise objected to this laying-on of hands, and protested loudly in bird.  Her fellow storks, listening intently, then proceeded to mob and attack the thief with such force that he fell over, breaking an arm and leg.  The zoo, feeling both maliciously amused and magnanimous, decided not to press charges; Luise's feelings on the subject are unknown.

     And there you have the source of two terrible title puns.

Only Here For The Beer (Can)

It's pretty much a given that Your Humble Scribe is the only person who will scan the beers, wines and spirits aisles of a supermarket to see which one he can use to generate blog content.  Hence the following - Art!

     Why they called it "Clairvoyance" I don't know, because that's the French for "Clear-seeing" and it was as cloudy as a wet summer's day in Manchester.  Striking illustration on the can, mind.  O - the beer?  Rather a grapefruity taste to it, like one of Brewdog's variants.

"Redemption Ark" By Alastair Reynolds

Conrad rather suspected by the time we were at Page 400 (out of 640) that there was no way to wrap this story up conclusively, and that the star-smashing space opera stuff was going to require a sequel, which it appears is entirely true.  There is another novel in this series called "Absolution Gap" which completes the trilogy.  Well, Conrad still isn't sure that he's read the first in this series ("Revelation Space") so a short excursion to Abebooks may be called for.  Art!

A big spaceship*.

Finally -

I have been watching more episodes of "Dad's Army" from that charity-shop DVD purchase, and idly noted that these episodes are 50 years old, supposedly set in a period 80 years ago, and wondered if audiences today could make heads or tails of them?  You'd have to make sense of the Home Guard and This Sceptred Isle in the summer of 1940 onwards, and what an ARP warden was, also what blackout was and - 

     Well, it makes me laugh.  Which is what's important**.

Our stalwart defenders

*  Over two miles long, FYI

**  Keep your apprentice World Dictator sweet.

Our Traditional Look Back

Less In Anger, More In Wonder

As in "I wonder who on earth thought this nonsense up!" and then I realise that it was myself, Conrad, and what a strange chap I must have been all those years ago.  And possibly up to the present day. Art!

In my dreams

     I have assembled exactly 38 pieces of the 975, and am missing two from the street that goes around the base, meaning a trawl through over 900 pieces to find the two missing ones.  I know they exist, that base section is the only part the original owner had completed.  I WILL NOT BE BEATEN!

     Anyway, on with the show.

2020

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2020/08/feeling-little-saw.html

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-thing-is.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/08/tart-revolution-without-me.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/08/english-breakfast-tea-at-tiffays.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/08/one-bite-at-cherry.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/08/doctor-mccoy-with-medical-toy.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/08/conrad-lied.html

2013

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2013/08/project-damnation-first-day.html

Herman

Okay, Today We Have A Theme

This used to be a lot more common in the early days of BOOJUM! and we've not had one for ages.  Not only that, I've no idea how many words I can generate on this theme, so it may come to an inauspicious end; you know Conrad, always trying to wing it.  So!  Let the scrivel begin.

     

Oy!  Later for you.

Actually I'll let Art's rank incompetence stand, because it's far more appealing than 

"HERMANEUTICS": This is what started the whole thing off, and is another of those words that pop up in my mind for no good reason.  Of course - obviously!- I had to look it up.  Well, it's real.  My Collins Concise defines it as: "The science of interpretation, especially as it refers to Scripture" and it has a second meaning when applied to philosophy, "Discussion of the purpose of life".

Close enough, I suppose

     Perhaps we should have led with that picture.  Next!

"ARMINIUS": I already know what you're thinking and BE PATIENT! Okay, this chap was a Germanic tribal leader who served in the Roman army, learned Latin (the poor swine!) and who nursed a burning hatred of Roman invaders. The Romans were seeking to expand their empire east of the Rhine and Arminius pretended to be a faithful adviser to the Roman governor, Varus.  He negotiated an alliance with various other Germanic tribes (very difficult to manage as they all hated each other) and then lied about a rebellion that had broken out.  Varus led three legions and scads of auxiliaries into a giant ambush that annihilated all 20,000 of them.  It was one of, if not the, worst disasters Rome ever suffered.  Art!

Roman tourists meet the locals

     The Romans, unusually for them, accepted that going east of the Rhine was, indeed, a bridge too far (that - that sounds familiar, don't you think?) and kept on the western side.  Okay, let me explain that "ARMINIUS" is the Latinised version of "HERMAN".

"HERMAN'S HERMITS": A blast from the distant past, you may say.  This hot beat combo hailed from Manchester, which rather surprised Your Humble Scribe, as I'd heard their name but always thought they hailed from The City Of Sin (London, if we're being formal).  They made it big in South Canada from 1964 to 1968 and were then big in their home country (This Sceptred Isle in BOOJUM! parlance) from 1968 to 1971.  "I'm Into Something Good" is the only one of their hits I'm going to name*.  Art!

They also made films, something you can blame The Beatles for starting

"HERMAN MUNSTER":  Now for you.  This character, from the South Canadian sitcom "The Munsters", was made up to resemble the Universal version of Frankenstein's monster, and since Universal held the rights to that look, and Boris Karloff's daughter still does, one wonders how they got away with it.  Art!

Not a face made for smiling

     Actor Fred Gwynne was cast in the part because he's a great tall lad anyway, made taller still by the prosthetic skull attachment and block-soled boots.  Art!

With puny humans for scale

     Herman is enormous, enormously strong, very naive and very good-natured, these latter two qualities definitely not poached from the Universal model. 

"HERMANN GOERING": Conrad is going to avoid the cliche years of Ol' Fatty's tenure during the Second Unpleasantness and instead refer to his career in the First Unpleasantness, when he was slim enough to fit into a fighter plane.

     Like nearly all pilots of that event, he began in the infantry and 'transferred' himself, on his own initiative, into the air force, which is not what nearly all other pilots of that even did.  He moved from bombers to fighters and achieved a total of at least 17 and possibly 22 kills, making him a much-decorated ace.  Art!

     He ended up - and you're probably waaay ahead of me here - as OC of the "Flying Circus" which was formally known as Jagdgeschwader 1, formerly led by Richthofen and nothing AT ALL do do with a certain British comedy program.  I know, I know, I was reaching a little with this one as there are two "N"s in his first  name.  Yes, well how many famous Hermans are there to write about?

Here he is looking very severe.  And thin.

"HERMAN MELVILLE": A proper single-N Herman for you.  In case you missed it, he was a South Canadian who wrote novels in the nineteenth century, which were not well-liked at the time.  He had to get a proper job in order to survive, which is an unfortunately common occurrence for authors.  Of course, once he was dead people suddenly discovered how great he was, which must have been a comfort to his starving widow and orphans, hmmm?

Hermie, probably worrying about the rent

     ANYWAY his best-known work, which is nowadays regarded as a classic, is of course - obviously! - "Moby Dick".  Conrad started reading an edition from the library many years ago, in the days when I conscientiously picked one 'improving' novel amongst the usual clutter of military history and sci-fi, and this was the first book I gave up on.  Just not for me.  It's rare for me to pick up a novel I don't like; however, since MB I no longer feel the challenge to finish them.  In the bin they go!  Art!

NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!

     He wrote other novels, too, which I'm not going to list here*.  Next!

Conrad Is A Tad Unsure About This -

I did cast around for other notable Hermans and I bet you can guess ahead of time which one came up at the top of Google, can't you?  Art!

Pee-Wee Herman, lest you be unaware

     I mean, yes, he's famous (and possibly infamous, for reasons too seedy to go into here and still stay SFW) and he is a 'Herman' but it's a surname, not a first name.  O well, we like to ring the changes here.  It stays.

Finally -

It took a bit of digging but we have hit the Compositional Ton whilst remaining faithfully on the topic of Herman.  Doubtless once I have posted this I shall discover scads of intriguing and interesting characters called "Herman".  Too late now.

*  Because I'm fickle like that.

Contra Mortui Viventes!

Yes, We Are Back To Romans Versus Zombies

Or

By The Pricking All Over Me, Something Wicked This Way Comes

We've covered the various types of Roman troops in a legion, and their weapons, and one or two of the heavier missile artillery weapons, and now we've begun to look at the types of field defences a legion might throw up if it knew a zombie horde was en route.  Art!

     A humble legion in the field wouldn't have the time to construct all these defences, unless they had considerably advanced warning.  Still, they'd use some of these methods.  We have already mentioned the iron spikes projecting at an angle, mounted on a wooden shaft, and I've just managed to find a picture of one, hooray!  At?

     You can see these deployed at extreme starboard in the colour picture.  Next are tiers of sharpened branches facing toward the enemy.  A cannier foe than a zombie horde might try to uproot or burn these; our mindless murderous meatbags will simply shuffle forwards and impale themselves on these gardens of gore.  Once fixed in place their equally mindless compatriots will march over them and crush them to a filthy black pulp.  Given time and enough zeds, they would overwhelm these physical barriers, and bimble their way into the moat.  Art!

     

     From the diagram above you can see that there were river sources that the Romans could use at Alesia to keep a current running in their moat, meaning that the zeds would be swept downstream from wherever they were attacking.  Those that managed to stay upright would then encounter the moat's muddy bottom, and get stuck in place.  Even those that managed to stay upright and free from ankle-deep mud would be significantly slowed down, thus becoming an easy target for legionaries on the higher ground.

     Motley, would you like some strawberries and ice cream*?

Conrad's Suspicions Confirmed

No!  Not that "Strictly Come Dancing" is a colossal sham that they only pretended to record and broadcast, because they knew how annoyed it would render Your Humble Scribe**.

     No, what I refer to, of course - obviously! - is the absence of any mention of the First Unpleasantness in any of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's written works.  Even in those novels and short stories written during the war, you won't find any mention.  Conrad noticed this in one work that was published in 1915, and an article on the Western Front Association's website further confirms it.

https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/pg-wodehouse-the-real-jeeves-and-his-great-war/

     Link to said article.  I don't know if Plum consciously decided to avoid any description of an exceedingly grim event in what were, after all, light and frothy stories, yet the marked absence indicates this to be so.  Art!

The impeccably-cast duo of Jeeves and W.

     Plum's inspiration for the gentleman's gentleman came from a cricketer, one Percy Jeeves, whom he had seen play, and whose name he recalled.

     Conrad's imagination is tickled by the sheer certainty that both J & W would have seen active service in the First Unpleasantness, and he is going to go to sleep tonight musing what branch of the services they would have been in.

Plum having fun with mockery

     Perhaps some other diligent author has already penned a mock-biography of our heroic duo?  This bears  looking into.  I shall let you know.

ZAIBATSU!

Another word, like KREPLACH! that sounds as if you're swearing in a foreign language.  It's Japanese and I'm unsure if it's in my Collins Concise; just allow me a second to check - it is!  "The group or combines compromising a few wealthy families that controls business, industry and finance in Japan".  Art!

No, sir, ripping off "Blade Runner" is not an 'homage'!

     The reason I bring this term up is that it was prevalent throughout cyberpunk from the Eighties onwards, with the implication that these monstrously powerful commercial entities were more powerful than governments.

     Then came the crash of 2008.  The so-called 'tiger economies' rolled over and died, and the concept of all-conquering zaibatsu (unsure of the plural) ought to have died with them.  Conrad not sufficiently motivated to do the research involved, although it would be an interesting theme for an ambitious post-grad, don't you think?

Done right

     Sic transit gloria mundi and all that.  Another prime example would be Weyland-Yutani, the "Company" that the Nostromo's crew talk about in disparaging tones.

     Just a quick warning shot across your bows: Conrad is working tomorrow so this single novel post is all you're going to get, because if I have to work on a Saturday then you can share some of my woe.

Speaking Of Which -

My friend Richard, the one who lives in Storrs not Spain, is running his annual 'Crisis Point' game, which was postponed from April to mid-September.  You probably don't recall my last After Action Report on these events.  They involve a very large game or set of games, set up on an enormous playing area at the local school's central hall.  They are played over a weekend and chaps from across This Sceptred Isle turn up to play, as well as some small locals.  Art!

     This still is from CP 2018 and features what seems to be a civil war in Andreivia, that conflict-torn ex-Soviet nation on the shores of the Black Sea, invented by Richard so he could field all sorts of Warsaw Pact kit that never worked together in real life.

     This year's CP is set in the Woebetide Islands, an island chain in the Indian Ocean, and concerns the natives, pirates, English and French parties all jockeying for loot, plunder and grog.  Richard has been busy constructing terrain and painting soldiery, and I think we can have a sample of his hard work present.  Art!

     This is an example of an early-eighteenth century rocket in action, and frankly it looks as dangerous to it's users as it's enemies.  You have to roll to see which direction it heads in once launched, so there is a possibility of a blue-on-blue ...

     There you have a scenery test, with a couple of bridges over a river, which, knowing Richard, will have a terribly punning name.  Conrad inevitably gets his factions into terrible trouble, regardless of the time period, so expect to read about my forces 'falling gallantly in defence of <insert treasure, VIP or geographical feature>"

     Because I plan to be out all day on Saturday and Sunday you may get very brief BOOJUM!s or none at all.  Shocking I know!

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are well and truly done!

*  Keeping it off-guard

**  This is still my working hypothesis.