TERRORPIN!!

Forgive Me For Such Ghastly Punnery

I was inspired - if that's the right word - by that galumphing great British battle beast the Tortoise Terror Tank Armoured Fighting Vehicle, because I was also aware of a South Canadian equivalent, which was never given a name, so Conrad decided that it was going to be called the <ahem> "Terrorpin", playing on the amphibious reptile theme.  A quick search under South Canadian Super Heavy Tank brought up this - Art!

The T28 - with puny humans for scale

     This monster was designed and built for a similar purpose to Perfidious Albion's A39 Tortoise, namely tackling the Teuton defences of the Seigfried Line. However - and you knew that word was coming - by the time it came off the production line the Siegfried Line was a distant memory and the war in Europe had come to an end.

     Very well, Japan, then! and another however, because a couple of nuclear weapons brought the Second Unpleasantness to an abrupt end.

     ANYWAY the Terrorpin was even heavier than the Tortoise, weighing in at a staggering 95 tons.  Art!

Paging Mister Freud ....

     The armour up front was 12 inches thick, and it sported a bunker-busting 105 mm <hack spit> gun, which would have made anything on the battlefield go away very quickly - that is, if it had ever gotten there.  Art!

     Transportation also a problem; I bet it couldn't pass over most road bridges.  "Ah!  Railway bridges!" I hear you respond.  Ah - no.  No.  It would have destroyed the sleepers and rails it passed over.  Nice try, 4/10.

     Okay, there were only 2 built, only one of which survives today.  Dearie me! fifty per cent unit losses - that's not good.

     Motley, here's an ice-cream.  Turnip and petrol flavour, since you ask.

You Want More Of "Tormentor"?

Once again Conrad asserts that not asking for it to stop is exactly the same as asking for these extracts to begin, at least in his mind.

Thursday was another day normally spent at home, frequently recovering from too much alcohol.  However, after making lists the night before, Louis found he needed to go shopping a day early, and since he tutored Jennifer on Thursday evening he had to do the shopping in the daytime.  Not only that, he splashed out on a pair of shirts and a new pair of trousers.

‘You are looking more cheerful, Mister McMahon,’ observed Walid, the taxi-driver he normally booked to get back home with all the shopping.

‘I shouldn’t be,’ replied Louis.  ‘I go back to work full-time next week.’

Walid made an ambiguous grunt, which might be commiseration or congratulation, helped carry the shopping to the doorstep and accepted the usual tip.  Louis noticed that the Asian never went over the threshold, dismissing it as the discretion of a man who didn’t really know his customer.

 

‘What!  That’s got to the the tenth time you’ve looked at me!’ scolded Louis, catching Jennifer staring at him.

‘You’ve changed.  You seem less stiff and starchy tonight.  Got a girlfriend?’ asked Jennifer.  She saw her mentor’s brows draw together, a frown doubtless preceding a telling-off.  ‘Only asking!  You have changed, you know, enough for me to notice.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to be cheeky,’ she finished, biting her bottom lip in embarassment, looking at the carpet and seeing a shopping receipt under the coffee table.

Louis, almost ready to snap at her for the crack about a girlfriend, felt his heart go out to her as she looked down in painfully sincere regret.  His snappy retort evapourated.

‘I’m going back to lecture at college full-time.  Oh, nothing high-flying or prestigious!’ he laughed when she bounced upright again.  ‘Teaching a class full of petty criminals.  Apparently I’m the only tutor able to cope with them.’

‘You?’ mocked Jennifer.  ‘There’s nothing of you.  And you’re only eight years old!’

              ‘Oh ha,’ replied Louis.  ‘How did you leap to that conclusion?’

              Jennifer groaned at the oldest joke they both knew.

     Here we see Conrad's cunning background planning come into play.  We now know that Luma (to coin a nickname) was born on the 29th of February.  I can't remember if it's made explicit that, thanks to skull damage suffered in the car crash that killed his wife and daughter, he has a metal plate in his skull.  Do either or both of these facts enable him to -

     Ah.  That would be telling*.

Conrad: Positively SEETHING With Rage!

You know how it goes: roll out of bed, attend bathroom, pack bag for work, experience rage of apoplectic proportions, catch Worst Bus (late AGAIN!).  For Lo, we are back on the subject of Codewords again.  I like to leave a few days

 between my ranting and tanting to let the old blood pressure settle down.

"ELIXIR": This, believe it or not, is a genuine medical term, referring to liquids ingested orally, and derives from the Arabic "Al-iksir", itself an arabisation of "exerion", which is Greek for beer "wound-sealing powder".  One such caught my eye thanks to the Terrorpin - Terpin Hydrate.  Art!

     "EMBLAZON": O COME ON!  When was the last time you either read this word or used it in casual conversation?  Never, that's right, because it's the sort of language you'd only find in "Sir Nigel" or "The White Company".  Which were written a century ago about the fourteenth century <gets Collins Concise> "To portray heraldic arms (on shield, notepaper, etc.) and definitely not fit for Codeword solutions".  Art!

All argent and gules

"ASPHYXIA":  Doubtless this one has a Greek root <checks> yup "Asphuxia" meaning "A stopping of the pulse" because you've been strangled, which fate would be FAR TOO GOOD for certain Codeword compilers.  Instead <sounds of the Remote Nuclear Detonator being frenziedly pounded>.  There, I feel so much better!  Art?

     That's all my blood pressure can put up with.  Bah!

"Coumarin"

Another of those words that pop up in Your Humble Scribe's brain for no good reason.  This one arrived whilst travelling home on the 409 bus and at first Conrad thought it was the chemical compound that makes chillis hot - but no, that's capsicum.  According to the CC, it's a white crystalline ester, that smells of vanilla, which is used in perfumes and flavourings.  No doubt much cheaper than Madagascan vanilla.  It comes from the French and was associated with the Tonka-Bean Tree, which sounds suspiciously made-up.  Art!

It's real - colour Conrad confused

Finally -

More training today, with Your Modest Artisan getting access to things like help functions and the rota - the latter QUITE IMPORTANT since it tells me when I'm working at home or in the office, and which shifts I'm on.  Managers are well known for wanting their staff to work, and until I find a job that pays me to drink tea and do crosswords, I'll have to stick with this.

*  Cliffhanger ending courtesy "Flash Gordon"