YES I KNOW IT'S FROM SHAKESPEARE!
It seemed fitting and we'll get along to discover why shortly, and in the meantime I will clean my hands after voluntarily putting down the Barf of Avon <hack spit>. Which is deliberately ambiguous. Okay, let us deploy the Hilariously Punning Picture for tonight. Art!
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| Man. Tee. Python. |
As you may expect, Your Humble Scribe bought this bottled beer purely on speculation that he'd be able to work it's name into a pun of some sort, and I have. Go on, run them together: ManTeePython. Which is close enough to - Art!
Do NOT speak this name aloud.
Or you'll be knee-deep in parrots
First of all, to explain anything we have to change tracks and bring in Captain James Bigglesworth (DSO, MC and Bar), the literary creation of Captain W. E. Johns, who exhibited typical British pluck and stiff upper lip, a regard for the underdog, quick wits and a streak of ruthlessness. His adventures were enormously popular (even behind the Iron Curtain*) to the extent that the Pythons decided to parody him. Art!
Not this image. This Biggles looks as if he's not taking any cheek.
All well and good, freedom of expression, no sacred cows (nor sheep nor pigs; we shall avoid weasels and sharks altogether), not being precious and all that guff but O Dearie Me! The Pythons proceeded to over-egg the pudding, rather. You have the following Biggles parodies: "Biggles Dictates A Letter" (see picture above); Cardinal Biggles in "The Spanish Inquisition" sketch; "Strangers In The Night"; "Biggles Is Extremely Silly"; "Biggles And The Naughty Things"; "Biggles Goes To See Bruce Springsteen"; "Biggles Combs His Hair". You see where today's title comes from, I hope. For people looking to licentiously and lollardly lampoon a literary lammergeyer, they do seem awfully fond of him. And they also seem suspiciously well clued-up on character detail as well. I think we should be told!
Hmmmmm. Not sure about the 'tache.
Biggles' steed of choice
Motley, book a taxi for the zoo, lay in the glue and bring some balsa wood and feathers, we're going to make a camel fly!
Paging Doctor Freud ...
The good doctor popped his clogs in 1939, or he might have raised his eyebrows at the Teuton tank terror totems, a.k.a. very large, very long gun barrels, which they were well into. And this.
Conrad mentions the above as an intro to a monstrous mobile military metal- malleter which he came across on Youtube just the other evening, dubbed the "FV4005". Art!
FV4005 'Centaur' with puny humans for scale
It looks like a tank to the uninitiated (which is you lot) when in fact it's a self-propelled gun, mounting a gigantic 7.2" gun (183 millimetres for the rest of you benighted metric unfortunates) which is still, 60 years later, the biggest-ever anti-tank gun mounted on a tank. It was intended to lurk one thousand yards, or perhaps two, behind the front lines and pick off Sinister tanks. Given that the round was so large it came in two parts and needed two loaders to get it into the breech, one can only imagine the execution it would have wrought. Art!
The combined weight was 233 pounds, or about 1/10 of a ton, which meant a Centaur could only carry a dozen rounds and needed resupplying by truck, which is a bit dodgy in wartime. However, anything it hit, regardless of where the shell struck, would instantly become scrap metal.
Sadly <weeps quietly> there are no videos extant of this beast during firing trials so we shall have to resort to either our imaginations or computer wargaming. Art!
One Good Thing About Working At Height
At least when it's daylight and not raining, which will become successively less likely as the year wears on, is that you get an excellent view across Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell. This morning, for example, Your Humble Scribe caught sight of a positively sinister meteorological phenomenon, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
One might almost expect to see eldritch creatures a la Stephen King come oozing out of the fog, seeking to suck out the brains of any nearby humans. If this did happen it would only be shoppers, so Hom. Sap. wouldn't have missed much.
Arrrrr! Jim, Lad!
You have to give Robert Newton credit, because for a man with an urbane accent he managed to impress upon the whole world for generations that pirates talked with a West Country accent. For Lo! We are back at Crisis Point, and allow Conrad to illustrate that salient point. Art!
As a mixed force of British regulars, volunteer skirmishers and Indian sepoys set out to seek an audience with the Wali of Smut - SUDDENLY! a force of Spanish infantry lands north of Saint James, which is cause for concern, the Spanish being allies of the <hack spit> French. Cautious negotiations begin, which in Spanish means "Get close enough whilst talking to shoot them". The dirty curs!
Meanwhile, on the north shores the Arab village 'traders' (and occasional pirates and slavers) encounter the wrath of the native Woebetideus, who are thirsting for blood. They may not have modern European muskets and cannon, but there are an awful lot of them, and My! they seem very, very cross. This is the cumulation of a good few moves as they got into position before launching their attack.
A word about the technicalities of "Sharpe Practice" here. Each unit on the table is represented by a card, which goes into a pack that is shuffled. Also present are Flag cards for each faction, which can be used to dodge around rules. There is also a "Tiffin" card, which instantly ends that turn when drawn. So you cannot guarantee when your unit's card is going to come up, or if it will come up at all. This reflects the 'fog of war' rather elegantly. Art!
Tiffin!
It reduces the ability of commanders to have units obey orders impeccably with precision timing exactly to order, and throws a large element of chaos into things, which is a lot more realistic. If annoying and baffling in equal parts for the players!
Finally -
Edna has fled-na. She loitered hopefully whilst I was devouring my steak and ale pie, baked mushrooms, boiled potatoes and sweet corn, until I cold-heartedly banished her from the Sekrit Layr as she is forbidden ANY human food. No, Edna, you cannot even lick the plate, or eat that bit of grungy potato that I cut out <tweaks moustache ends like a Victorian vaudeville villain>.
I suppose I ought to point out that Edna is our dog, not one of our children.
* Perhaps especially behind the Iron Curtain
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