Because Tomatoes Are So Passë, Cassie
Your Humble Scribe continues to chortle his way through "Dad's Army" Series Six on that charity shop DVD, and was both amused and impressed that the episode he watched last night featured what appeared to be either a real Smith Gun, or a convincing facsimile of same.
Conrad now realises he has to explain to you snapping whippers exactly what a Smith Gun was, hmmmm? Art!
This gadget was bodged-up in the dark days of 1940, when it looked as if Teuton tourists in tanks were about to arrive within days. It was a smoothbore 3" gun, and you see it ready for action above. Art!
It could be towed, you see, when horizontal - note the towing lug on the gun muzzle.
The thing was, it came into service in 1941, by which time the Teuton tourists were turning east to best the beast, and not looking to invade Perfidious Albion. The Home Guard, who were issued hundreds of them, rather took the improvised article to heart, and overlooked the odd case of ammunition exploding prematurely and rendering crew-members suddenly dead.
"But - the onions?" I hear you querulously query. Yes yes yes, patience or I'll turn you into patients!
This particular episode of DA is called "We Know Our Onions" where the platoon have been sent on a proficiency course and have been doing dismally. In their final test they have to scale an electric fence - without setting it off - to acquire a set of inert bombs for their Smith Gun. Art!
That's their platoon transport, full of onions that Private Walker ('The Spiv') had sold to Hodges.
The previous day it had taken them five hours to get over a similar electric fence; on this day they had fifteen minutes.
FIFTEEN MINUTES!
Sergeant Wilson ('The Patrician') then recalls that the Smith Gun is a smoothbore weapon. It will fire anything you can put down the barrel. 'Bits of metal, sir!' enthuses Corporal Jones. He is dissuaded from this course of action because the gun will be firing at a platoon of Regulars, who are to feint an advance.
What hits horribly hard yet is non-lethal? Yes, an onion. Art!
The Regulars, pummelled with high-speed root vegetables, flee, and the platoon is awarded twelve stars by their delighted examiner, for sheer ingenuity and improvisation.
Smith Gun in travelling mode
(The right wheel, acting as base, is flat)
A Display Of Relentless Logic
As you should surely know by now, Conrad hates and detests logic, except when he doesn't and instead applies it, usually to boost his own ego. Let us now examine how Conrad parses and cracks a Codeword SIT BACK DOWN! Art?
As you can see, we have "I" and "L" already. So, what can "11" be? If it's a vowel then it can't be "E" or "A" because it only occurs four times. Statistics, dear boy, statistics. Could it be "O" or "U"? No, because they can only make nonsense words. So, 11 must be a consonant. If that's so, then "20" must be a vowel. It only appears five times, so, again, not "A" or "E". We already have "I" so it can only be "O" or "U". It doesn't appear in any pairs nor end a word, so Conrad favours "U" and works on that principle. Yes, it might have been "Y", except it doesn't end any words, so that one's on the back-burner's back-burner. Your Modest Artisan then does a quick run through the alphabet and finds that PUPA works. If that's correct then "4" could very well be "M" and "18" be "Y" for IMPLY. A moment of whatnottery as this means 1 Down is _ _ IUMP_, until this resolves as TRIUMPH. Thus we have deduced U, P, A, M, Y, T, R and H. Art!
Perhaps now you understand why Conrad seethes with volcanic hatred for compilers who use ridiculously obscure words like NONET.
Hmmmm after all that forensic etymology I can't really hold forth on why Codeword compilers will become an endangered species after I take over, can I? Let us move on to pastures new.
Chopper Chick Is Upside Down
Metaphorically*. Conrad caught an interesting Youtube video featuring Vernice Armour, the first black female South Canadian combat pilot, who flew Cobra gunships in Iraq for fun. She was explaining how very little of what you see in films as regards helicopters is correct or accurate. She cut "San Andreas" a bit of slack when The Rock was hanging out of his helichopter. Art!
She explained that the majority of 'wind shear' (the downward air thrust by the blades) is actually at the last third of the blades, so Dwayne could have hung on there. However -
Nope
Vernice explains, several times, that a helicopter CANNOT manoeuvre like a fixed-wing aircraft, and this includes flying at ninety degrees to the horizontal. The rotors wouldn't generate enough lift and it would fall out of the sky. Because that would result in a film about seven minutes long, the crew went with unrealistic physics. Bad aerodynamics, good screen presence.
We'll come back to this, Vernice has a great screen presence.
Vernice and her ride
I Missed A Trick
You know how I was blathering on about Alastair Reynold's "Redemption Ark" last week? How could I have foregone the chance to blather on even more about another Ark in space, namely from that premier British dramamentary series "Doctor Who" and "The Ark In Space". Ark! - sorry, sorry - Art!
It crawled out of the woodwork
You may not know, but the later story "Revenge Of The Cybermen" used the same sets as TAIS, which the BBC loved, because it saved them money. Conrad forgets what hokey old nonsense they used to justify this. "It all happens in the far future so it might be like this!" their defence, one assumes.
Finally -
Hmmm it seems that the advent of September has brought an immediate chill in the air. Your Humble Scribe donned a cardigan for the first time in ages, and had to shut the window in my Sekrit Layr thanks to a cold wind a-blowing. We thus seem to have progressed straight from Spring to Slutch to Autumn, season of mists, fogs, bogs and dogs. Probably also frogs, given how wet it is going to become.
édes álmok! (which is Hungarian for 'sweet dreams')* That word is so useful in getting me out of literary trouble!
No comments:
Post a Comment