Minty Python

You Know Conrad

Ever ready with a pun and a cruel jest.  Here's one I prepared earlier; several days earlier, in fact probably a couple of weeks ago after doing the weekly shop and remembering an essential prop.  Art!

     Isn't that the funniest thing since dysentry?  Doubtless John Cleese's solicitors will be in touch to enforce a removal, so cherish this whilst you can.

     Let me also add a BBC news article, which I've been saving up to use with the picture above.  Art!

Python with puny human for scale

     This friendly old female was found by an extremely surprised couple in their suburban house, much to their shock.  To those unlucky enough to live beyond the borders of This Sceptred Isle, we have two native species of snake, the Grass Snake and the Adder, and Conrad has gone through sixty years without seeing either of them.  This snake cannot have been at liberty for long, as our weather would kill it off pretty quickly.  The police delivered it to the RSPCA, who noted her general docility and compatibility with humans, implying she'd been a domestic pet.  

     FYI, snakes are not cold or slimy.  I was allowed to stroke a good natured one when touring the Portland Museum, which was rather like stroking a warm handbag. Art!

Conrad unsure how this will play out

     Okay, that's our unusually short Intro over with.  See, I can be succinct if I try hard.

Roel The Dice!

I shan't ask twice.  For Lo! we are back with Roel Konejndijk, the Irish chap with a Dutch name who works in Scotland, and is An Authority on warfare in the ancient world, and stuff that purports to be set in Ye Olde Times.  Very entertaining and amusing chap, Ol' Roel, and I have gone on record as saying that Edinburgh University should cherish him.  We shall now deal with his take on "The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies".

     For those unaware, this is the climax of "There And Back Again", as Bilbo Baggins also named his book, until the market research people came back and said it didn't do well with the under-30 demographic*.  Art!

Like it says on the tin

     Conrad confesses he's not seen this film himself, so we will just have to trust to Ol' Roel and his sardonic wit.  He does admit that the huge horn NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK THERE would work as a morale-booster and also a signal; the ancient Greeks used a horn to signal an attack, with a single note sounded.  If it wounded again, you retreated.  Simples!  Art?

     This is a shield wall, typically used by defending armies.  Very good.  If it had spears poking out from it, cavalry horses would try to find an alternate route.  However - Art!

     They suddenly slant their shields, meaning the cavalry can now ride over them, which they do.  Art!

     As Ol' Roel points out, this is spectacularly stupid, because the cavalry you ought to have stopped dead is now behind your shield wall and able to wreak bloody execution on the rest of your infantry.  Very bad.  "Whut?" is Roel's confused comment.  Art!

Another shield wall**

     Okay, a perfectly acceptable defensive formation.  However - Art!

     A legion of Elves leap over the shield wall, landing in front of it, which makes absolutely no sense.  Not only have they just left the protection of the shield wall, exposing themselves to pointless danger, they are also at risk of being forced back and then impaled on all those pointy sticks.  Art!

     Roel says this type of formation was used in real life, except normally for cavalry, not foot soldiers.  What it does when used by infantry is to expose the chaps at the front to attack from everyone in front and to either flank.  Very bad!

     Overall 4/10.  Must try harder.

Empire State Human

That would be me.  As you should surely know by now, Your Modest Artisan has been working on putting together a 3D jigsaw puzzle of the Empire State Building, and finally put all the pieces (that I have, anyway) together last night.  Now comes the 3D assembly, which is every bit as difficult as I'd imagined.  Art!

     Here you see the base assembled, with only one piece missing out of a couple of hundred.  The process is neither quick nor easy, as the assembly instructions are garbage.  Art!

     Not a clue about which piece is which colour <sighs heavily>.  Not only that, I discovered there's even more pieces missing than I originally realised.  Art!

     I hope you can make out that a column of five pieces is missing entirely.  Conrad suspects that the overall integrity of the structure won't be affected, which is more a pious hope than reality.  I shall let you know how we get on.

Doing The Derelict

Coming to the end of this series of photographs taken by you the public and put up on the BBC's website on the theme of "Derelict".  Art!

Courtesy Mike Ferguson

     Predictably Mr. Ferguson makes a pun about "Raze to the ground", at which Conrad jibbed HEY I MAKE THE PUNS AROUND HERE thanks very much.  It must have been a mill of some description, producing flour in both plain and self-raising.  Yes, plain, because how else do you get to self-raising?  <sighs heavily>

Finally -

We only need a short one here to hit the Compositional Ton.  Okay, if you were paying attention yesteryon then you know Conrad has been re-reading a story he began about six years ago, which involved the supernatural and eeeeevil and a picture-postcard perfect English country village called Eden Underwood, where our protagonist had settled.  And, unknowingly to himself, had taken on the local white witch as his girlfriend.  

     What do I see on today's BBC News webpages?  Art!

     Niall has observed her kitchen, where every flat surface is covered with various jars and bottles, and the above - well, I don't need fear the Coincidence Hydra, thanks to my armoured underwear.  Which is not quite where we came in, yet close enough.

*  Possibly.  Prove me wrong!

**  This is a wall made of shields.  Let me know if I get too technical