I Don't Mean "Harry" In The Sense Of "Harold"
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| Art - you bafoon! |
I'm too busy to Tazer him right now, he can look forward to that chastisement later. "Persistently carry out attacks on an enemy" it says here.
These chaps are the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team from the 'Loggies', or the Royal Logistic Corps if we're being formal. They were called out to an incident at a vaccine production plant at Wrexham, because a suspicious device had been sent there in the post. The Loggies didn't like their x-rays when they sent the wheelbarrow in to have a nosey, so they blew it up in a controlled explosion. Art!
Here an aside. You, gentle reader, may be wondering why blowing up explosives with an explosion doesn't simply create an even bigger explosion. Well, because they have to be detonated with a primer. You can take a slab of TNT and hit it with a hammer, to absolutely no effect; if you feel daring you can cut small slices off and set them alight, upon which they will simply burn fitfully. The CE will shatter the explosives it targets, preventing them from detonating. Simples!
It transpired that the device had been a fake, bundling a calculator and batteries and miscellaneous paper bumf together to look threatening. The paper bumf included THE NAME AND ADDRESS of the paranoid swivel-eyed loonwaffle who put it together and posted it. He is currently on trial. You can't fix stupid, but you can give it a custodial sentence.
This reminds me of a Reader's Digest abridged novel, a South Canadian policier, where one of the stories concerns a vindictive and homicidal woman who murders her love rival by drowning her in the bath, making it look like an accident. She is careful to make sure nobody sees her entering the house, wears gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints and is generally pretty sly - until, on closing the front door (which locks) she realises she's left her handbag in the bathroom. Ooopsie.
A Joke In Very Bad Taste (And More Of Bombs)
You may move on if you wish. This, by the way, applies to all those 'own-goal' bombers who manage to win a Darwin Award by removing themselves from the gene pool and without managing to inflict harm on anyone else.
So - that twod in Liverpool who blew himself up? There was a delay in giving his name out, which Your Ghoulish Artisan can remedy. Mr. Smith, Edgar Roger Edward Eustace Nigel Stephen.
More - TORMENTOR!
No complaints so far, therefore we shall carry on putting up my utterly brazen self-promotion with more extracts. Let us proceed -
‘King Lear, on DVD.’
He held up the shiny silver disk.
Jennifer looked both impressed and surprised.
‘Wow! I didn’t
know there was a film of it.’
Louis shook his head.
‘Not a film, sweet child. This is a BBC theatrical production. Don’t suddenly look so glum! Big on acting, instead of special effects,
and not a CGI in sight.’
Taking the disk, Jennifer squinted suspiciously at her
tutor. She loved the cinema, and he knew
it from taking her and his daughter there on many an occasion.
‘It isn’t a load of cobblers from the Sixties in black
and white, is it?’
Louis tutted loudly.
‘Language! If
Angela hears you talking like that you’ll be docked a week’s pocket money.’
Jennifer ducked her head down in embarassment, trying
to look up at Louis without him catching her.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured.
‘It’s in colour,’ continued Louis. ‘You may be familiar with some of the
thespians involved. Colin Blakely, Diana
Rigg, Laurence Olivier.’
‘Sir Laurence? And Diana Rigg’s a Dame or an OBE or
something now, isn’t she?’
‘This is before they were famous. No, not really. I am going to lend you this DVD, so you can
see what King Lear looks like when done on stage. Minimal sets and props and - ’
‘No CGI,’ interrupted Jennifer, echoing her tutor.
‘Oh dear. Am I that predictable?’
Conrad is once again cunningly weaving in real life, as he has indeed seen this BBC production, which is real and possibly available for purchase on DVD, if you're one of those masochists who cannot get enough of the Barf Of Avon. Art!
Di and Olly going at it
More Martial Museumry
Another large exhibit from IWM North, just to whet your appetite, and you're going to get it even if un-whetted, because I went to the bother of taking the photos. Art!
This dumpy little diva is a Matilda MK. II, in Caunter desert camouflage, as used in North Africa. You can't tell merely by looking, as you don't have x-ray vision (at least I hope not), but the armour on this thing was 3 inches thick at the front and it shrugged off everything until the Afrika Korps arrived with their 88 mm flak guns in an anti-tank role. Even when withdrawn from service in the Middle East the Ockers still used them in the Far East, as the Japanese didn't have anything capable of stopping them. Art!
As Neil Moran has explained, they weren't fast because their role was to accompany the infantry; they were also very LOUD due to having steel tracks unmuted by rubber. They tip the scales at 25 tons and one wonders 1) how the IWM got them upstairs and 2) if the floor needed reinforcing. I have the museum catalogue and will do a hasty check later on and let you know, whether or no.
Finally -
Still plodding through "Reclaiming History" by Vinnie Bugliosi, and have just gotten to mid-afternoon on 22/11/1963. Lee Harvey Oswald is being interrogated, with the local Homicide and Robbery detectives uneasily sharing these duties with the FBI, who are on the back foot after explaining that they already knew of Oswald as a person of interest. Bureau policy was not to inform local police departments of such matters as they were Need To Know and, in their eyes, the police did not need to know. Art!
Slightly the worse for wear after his arrest
Meanwhile, at 3:30 pm, the autopsy of JFK is about to begin, whilst Lyndon B. Johnson, now the President in a manner he cannot have possibly imagined let alone wanted, has been sworn in and is back in Washington. He refuses to enter the White House - "That would be presumptuous".
One reason Ol' Vinnie goes into such detail is because this is one way to pre-empt the conspiranoid loonwaffles (swivelling eyes an optional extra!) from going "Ah but -". Fascinating if morbid stuff. Art!
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