Sir Sir!

As You Should Surely Know By Now

Your Humble Scribe is busy reading his history of the Guards Armoured Division, and one thing reminds him of their history as in the First Unpleasantness, where there were lots of double-barrelled surnames, and even a triple-barrelled one (can't remember the officer's name, sorry).  Art!

     That strange insignia is the Division's symbol, as copied from it's time as an infantry division during the First Unpleasantness: the Eye.  The senior officers went so far as to run it by veterans of that earlier engagement, who gave it the thumbs-up.

     ANYWAY once again there are double-barrelled surnames like 'Fitzalan-Howard' (twice, there were two brothers in the division) and OH YES! a triple-barrelled one: Lieutenant Colonel Dillwyn-Venables-Llewellyn, whom seems old enough to have been a subaltern in Round One, and is possibly that other triple-barrelled surname I mentioned.  As with their history of that time, there are all sorts of aristocracy involved, for example Lieutenant Colonel the Honourable H.M.L. Kindersley, and Lieutenant Lord E. Fitzmaurice and there were a couple of Sirs in there as well, hence today's title.

     There you go, and I shall surely report back to you as I progress through this work, whether you want same or not.  I'm horrid that way.

     

Standing proudly in front of their wretched Covenanter mobile coffin

     Motley!  Let's play 'Tanks'.  You get in this dustbin and I'll hit it with a spade, you know, to mimic anti-tank fire.

Some People Have ENTIRELY Too Much Time On Their Hands*

Although in this case the resultant cartography is admittedly pretty cool.  What do I refer to?  Why, an article on the font of all that's fit to be writ, the BBC's News webpages.  Art!

Extra-large so you get all the details

     Welcome to the "Atlas Of Imaginary Places" which seems like a laudable work, where the artist and author have spent two years (!) researching the likely physical location of various famous fictional villages, towns and cities.  Take a look at Fictional Wales above; notice The Village from "The Prisoner" and DISREGARD that line in the series where it was alleged to be on the coast of Lithuania.  Further to the East you have locations from the works of Plum (O go on, P. G. Wodehouse) specifically Blandings, where resides the Empress of Blandings (a giant pig, I believe).  Art!

Empress and emperor

     Back in Wales you can see "Torchwood 3"; Conrad uncertain what happened to #1 and #2.  To the West of that there is Llanfairfach, of evil repute in that BBC dramamentary Doctor Who and "The Green Death" and I'd steer clear of it if you're squicked-out by insects.  Or mind-controlling super-computers.  However, Your Humble Scribe fails to recognise a whole lot of these and there is, inevitably, the temptation to go Google a few of them.  "Daily Mail Island"?  "Miss Cackle's"?  "Vermillion"? - surely not from J. G. Ballard's "Vermillion Sands"?

     Be strong, Conrad, resist! because that's a guaranteed way to waste a whole weekend.  Art!

The vile and villainous Village

    Hmmm why are these persimmons giving me Fuzzy Teeth And Tongue?

Whilst On The Subject Of Conflict -

Let's return to the latest edition of "The War Illustrated" because I got a few photographs from it and am reluctant to see them un-used.  You've already seen the front cover, a piper in a kilt leading a unit.  There is a lot more inside, from which I have selected a few choice photographs, and you'll just have to put up with ambient lighting and glare.  Art!

Stop complaining and tilt your neck

     Because the Sinisters were always complaining about doing all the heavy lifting (and where were they in 1939 and 1940?) let us provide evidence of what the UK was doing to help them.  Art!

     In case the caption isn't clear, those are Matilda tanks being railwayed to their port of departure, alongside crated Hurricane fighters.  No shortage of wood there!  These would then be convoyed by the Arctic route to Murmansk, or possibly via sea to Persia, where they'd take the overland route via the Transcaucasus.  The Ruffians quite liked the Matilda, which was reliable and extremely robust, to the extent of putting it in publicity and propaganda pictures.  Art!

Tilt your neck again

     As you can see in the bottom photograph, those Ruffians liked to live dangerously, because quite apart from the Teutons letting fly with a lot of high-velocity bits of metal, lying prone on a tank is simply asking for it to go over a bump and throw you off.  Hopefully far enough away that it doesn't run over you, as what would be left after that could be buried in a matchbox**.  Art!

The Mosquito

     The 'Wooden Wonder' had come into service in September 1942, so having it appear in print just the next month is a bit of a surprise.  Also surprised was the Luftwaffe, which grew to hate and fear the Mozzie, as it was phenomenally fast, armed to the teeth and very robust indeed.  If you have an airframe made out of birch wood then it's very lightweight; and if you hang two whacking big engines on it, then it will go like stink.

Frank's Blanks

For Yea! we are back on the subject of Frank Tinsley and his never-ending stream of ideas for the military, most of which were passing daft - a ramjet that literally rammed the opposition, a 'miniature' tank thirty-two feet long, atomic airliners - and some of which had a touch of utility.  Take these, for example:

     It's an interesting idea, at least at first glance.  The problem is not with deploying such portable defences, it's their profile.  Things that stick up out of the terrain make a wonderful target in modern warfare, which is why trenches exist.  The idea of having two hemispheres that lock together in order to be rolled along by vehicle is a good one; but what would you do if one was destroyed?  Just abandon the other?  And for the unfortunates trundling these bundles of joy along, what if they have to traverse uphill or downhill?  And the kicker is, what happens if or when the front lines move on, because those things look mighty heavy for a bunch of dog-tired soldiers to lift up by ninety degrees.

     3/10 for practicality.  Must try harder.

Finally -

Edna was barking her head off and running around with a squeaky toy, so Conrad strongly suspects that Degsy has returned.  Time to go do the weekly shop***!

*  The irony of this statement is not lost on me

**  And still leave room for plenty of matches.

***  Fun times