How To Split A Hair Into 127 Parts

Tricky, But It Can Be Done

I think you'll find that you need an obsidian blade so fine you can't see the end with your unaided vision, with micro-gearing, and a powerful microscope.  Steady hands, too.  Yes yes yes, I know the record is only 18 parts which happens to be 35 years ago and technology has improved since then.

Sorry.  Couldn't resist

     ANYWAY once again we have dived down a rabbit hole that was itself an adjunct of another rabbit hole, because the hair-splitting is entirely metaphorical.  What I wanted to do was focus on an early scene in "The Recruit" which is Episode Seven of Series Six of "Dad's Army", where we visit Captain Mainwaring in hospital, the victim of surgery to cure his ingrowing toenails.  Art!

     Here we see the salient point: he is reading a newspaper and remarks about how well the British were doing in the desert.

     CONRAD IMMEDIATELY BECOMES INTERESTED IN THIS DETAIL.

     As you should surely know by now, Your Humble Scribe can bore at Olympic level on the campaign in North Africa, and will do so if given even the slightest encouragement.  So, what date can this be?  Don't forget, in "My British Buddy" we met South Canadian soldiers, who only arrived in This Sceptred Isle at the end of January 1942.  Thus after that date.  We don't see any snow or ice present in this episode, so Spring has arrived.  No mention of El Alamein, so before July 1942.

Lack of snow, don't you know

     Well now, young snappers of whip, Conrad has a solution here - the Battle of Gazala.  This began in May of 1942 when the Axis forces beat Perfidious Albion to the punch and attacked first, and May in This Sceptred Isle can be pretty chilly still, as Corporal Jones remarks.  Art!

Happy shiny ordnance.  And people.

     Alan Moorehead covered this battle in his excellent "Desert Trilogy" and pointed out the relentlessly positive propaganda drivel put out in the British press about the battle - hence Captain Mainwaring's confident yet completely incorrect assumption - because things went very badly wrong for Perfidious Albion as the battle progressed.

     Yes, to answer your question, I have had a nosy and no, there doesn't seem to be any reference to what date the DA episodes are supposed to be set in.  Google away to your heart's content if you want to prove me wrong.

     Of course, I may be overthinking this a little ...

Martin's Mucky Midden Manoeuvring 

Rejoice that the inestimable Martin Zero goes poking around in dirty, wet, muddy, dark and smelly places so that you don't have to, and that he presents videos of his excursions so you, too, can experience claustrophobic subterranean workings.  He and his compatriots were exploring what is known locally as "The Devil's Hole" NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK! and needed to access it via the River Medlock.  Art!

     That's a rather dis-chuffed Martin in the rain - which will become important later on.  They stroll off into the Medlock and negotiate a padlocked entry grill - taking care to not show how - and into stage one.  Art!

     You can see it's dark, cramped and very damp.  What you can't see is the treacherous river bed underfoot, full of rocks and boulders and very slippy, too.  Not only that, it was very deep on the starboard side, so they kept away from that.  Art!

     The other urbexers had been here before and placed the ladder, as the top of that wet, slimy brickwork is a good eight feet high and impossible to scale otherwise.  Martin noted with a touch of trepidation that a concrete arch had been erected under the original stone and brickwork, seemingly in order to reinforce the tunnel roof and walls.  Art!

     What you see as the 'ceiling' here is actually the floor of the old Park Bridge Iron Works and it's not in good shape.  It might be difficult to detect via the image but Martin said the ceiling had a visible sag to it.  A little un-nerving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqx2zFWNmns

     That's the link to Martin's video.  I shall call a halt here as they have a lot further to go.  A lot further, and equally unpleasant.

Conrad: Still Consistent

And ANGRY!  O so ANGRY!  Did I mention that I was ANGRY yet?  Well I am, and for the usual reasons: the Codeword compilers are being a bunch of bottoms again.  For example:

"GEISHA": A five-letter word that has three vowels and ends in one of them.  Do you have any idea how difficult this kind of word is to parse and solve?  VERY DIFFICULT! because it's JAPANESE NOT ENGLISH as I should not need to point out.  But have still done so, because I am thorough <with the proper English pronunciation>.  They are, or were, as Conrad isn't sure if they're extinct or not, professional companions for men, trained in the arts of music, dance and casual chat.  Art!

A giggle of geishas?

"MATINS": NO!  Not a mis-spelling of MATINEES.  "The first of the seven canonical hours of prayer" and something you will only ever find in historical romances like "The White Company" so it's a good job I've read it, isn't it?  CAN YOU GET ANY MORE OBSCURANTIST!* 

Chattin's at matins

"JOCOSE": Or to be in good humour.  Which you can take it, I am NOT.  Fortunately this word occurs at several points in "Para Handy Tales" and I have been going on about same of late, so yes I recognised it.  YET THESE ARE TALES FROM WELL OVER A CENTURY AGO.  I think you both see my point and appreciate why I am so liverish.  Art!

My salvation

Finally -

Conrad has bestirred himself to a commitment; he is going to be travelling into the office in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell to work at his still coyly un-named employer next week.  Part of doing this is carrying my works laptop both into and out of the office, which means a new rucksack is needed, for my old one's straps are about to part company with the sack, and the new one is both inconveniently small and inconveniently small.  Yes, the same thing twice, because it's a pain.  SO!  I bought a new rucksack, which is more like a sack with  zips.  Art!

     Big enough to hold a body.  Er - so I'm told.

     And with that, we are done!

*  An comment not a challenge.  Ta.