Chopping And Changing

As Should Be Amply Clear By Now

Your Humble Scribe's mind is liable to throw up odd words or phrases for no good reason, or even a bad one.  Thus it was yesteryon that Brain came up with "Moschops" out of a clear blue sky.  Now, I know what you're thinking - and no, the DARPA Prototype Telepathy Helmet is back with it's rightful owners - out of sheer perspicacity.  Art!

Mossy chops indeed

     "Ho ho," I can hear you un-amusedly laughing.  "Moustaches, hmmm?"

    WRONG!

     No, for I refer, of course - obviously! - to the dinocephalian therapsid 'Moschops', a dinosaur that lived about 250 million years ago.  Art!

Mossy with puny human for scale

     They were herbivores, for your information, dining on tough plants that other herbivores scorned to scoff, hence the mouthful of teeth.  It is suspected they may have been semi-acquatic, living partly in water to help offset their weight, the big fat biffers.  Art!

     They had a very thick skull, because it was designed to take considerable punishment, and the theory goes that they literally butted heads to dominate each other.  This was recently confirmed by synchrotron scanning, which is another name for magic.

     Their name comes from the Greek for 'calf-face', so one can only punder and rename them 'Moos-chops'.  But never 'Moosechops' because that would be silly.

     Right, time to get back to work and make people cry on the phones*. Motley, I want you to sprint across the field with a few cattle in it**.

More Of "The Sweats"

As men's adventure magazines were known back in the day.  As with the sci-fi pulp magazines, these seem to have relied on eye-catching salacious pictures to entice an audience in, being just on this side of SFW, with titles like "My Escape From The She-Demons Of Lust!".  Art!

This is unusual -

     - since the wildlife threats were usually sharks or snakes, or ladies not wearing a lot, although crabs and otters also featured.  Hey, don't knock it, a giant otter has great big pointy teeth!  Sadly the sub-titles on that image above have been cropped out of the clip; from what I can see it refers to 'Fire ants' (?) eating someone alive, not sure what the word ending in "S" was - 'Humans' perhaps?  Ah!  "Victims" - so "Fire ants eat victims alive".  Well, they would, wouldn't they - that means they're nice and fresh.

Through The Door With "Tormentor"

I say that because Luma's door has already been a plot point and will be again.  Once again, let me warn you that this is not our usual light and frothy nonsense, if you can call flamethrowers and nuclear weapons either frothy or light.

‘Christ Almighty, what a way to go round the twist,’ he muttered, making the spirit twitch again.

‘Please, don’t talk like that.’

‘**** off!’ he snapped.  ‘I don’t have to accommodate going insane.’  He stopped for breath.  ‘I am now going downstairs to drink myself senseless.  Keep away from me.’

The spirit-copy made a face exactly like Jennifer when she was embarrassed.  Louis stared.  How the hell could his mind conjure up something like this?  Exactly how raving mad did you have to be to conjure up dead surrogate daughters?

‘Ah – you can’t drink yourself silly.  I poured all your whisky down the sink.’

That stopped him before he reached the bedroom door.

‘No.  No, you didn’t do that.  I did.  Without realising it.’

The copy shook it’s head.

‘Your rationalising is getting a bit silly, isn’t it?  Don’t I deserve a thank-you at least for cleaning up the paint?’

Ah yes, the paint.

‘There’s nothing you can say that would prove I’m not mad.’  The words came out weakly, instead of defiantly.

‘What about clearing up the glass?  Getting rid of those sleeping tablets?’

‘Just proof that I’m insane – doing things without being aware.’

The spirit moved over the floor in a fashion nearly like walking, holding out a hand.

‘Just touch me, Luma.  Touch my hand and still say I’m not real.’

He struggled with fear and curiosity.

‘I promise not to harm you, Luma.  That’s why I got rid of the glass and drugs and alcohol, because you were going to kill yourself with them.’

     Ah, a spirit wise before her time, hmmmm?

My Slimy Stew Will Make You Spew

Your Humble Scribe got busy on Sunday on making the usual stew that does for lunch during the week, and what's this at the bottom of the veg drawer? but a packet of okra that I'd bought and forgotten.  Some were past retrieval and got binned; the rest went into the casserole.  Art!

Delicious and disgusting simultaneously, no mean feat

     The thing is, okra's sap is verrrrry sticky, and every time I lifted my fork from the bowl above, long strands of glop dangled beneath it, reminiscent of <disgusting analogy deleted in the interests of good taste - redaction courtesy Mister Hand> ever open up the tissue after doing this.  Conrad is going to have to master the art of eating without looking.

Hop To It!

Yes, more on your predecessor's poisoned pint.  The Regency and Victorian governments imposed a heavy tax on both malt and yeast, essential ingredients in brewing beer, so of course - obviously! - the brewers tried way to get around this with much cheaper ingredients.

     Enter Quassia.  Art!

     This is a South American plant that is frequently grown for it's attractiveness alone.  It is also a source of incredibly bitter extracts - Angostura Bitters use it to get that fabulous bitterness - and was used as a cheap alternative to hops by the British breweries, since it was hardly taxed at all.  Ho ho ho! thought the brewers, we've got one over on those snivelling customers who purchase our product -

     Maybe not, chaps, maybe not.  We'll come back to this one.

You may have noticed a lack of seething hatred directed at Codeword compilers, because the triple MEN versions I've just completed were entirely reasonable and I've not done any more since those.  It just goes to show they can do it when motivated by imminent threat of Remote Nuclear Detonation.

A Manager's best friend

Back To "The War Illustrated"

I hope you don't mind us going with matters martial, and even if you do - whose blog is it?  Precisely.

     I should point out that the articles and photographs as seen in TWI are all weeks, if not months, out of date, and deliberately so; you don't want to give your opponent any useful contemporary information for free.  So - Art!

"Where now is Rommel's arrogant army"
(Either dead, prisoner or running away, actually)

     This is one of the gloasting montage sequences that TWI was delighted to run, after three years of very mixed fortune with plenty of defeat larded into the mix.  This issue is dated 11/12/1942, and the subject matter is weeks old - as I mentioned above.  Let's have a closer look at this montage.  Art!

     Looking at the upper port, we see TWI gloasting about a completely destroyed Panzer Mk. III, where the turret and glacis have been blasted clear of the tank hull itself.  Either the internally-stowed ammunition exploded, or sappers from either side have used explosives to render it unto scrap iron.

     The second picture rather grimly yet primly shows a dead Italian gunner at the breech of his anti-tank gun.  Note the complete lack of a gun-shield to protect the crew, something only the Japanese did as well.  Note, too, that all the ammunition boxes are empty, but there are no shell casings lying about; Conrad suspects the position has been tidied up for the camera.  Note also that the wheels have been removed from the a/t gun to lower it's profile, also meaning it couldn't be easily removed by a prime mover.

Finally -

Ooops!  WAY over the Compositional Ton, so we'll end things here.  Nobody on Facebook has yet answered my question about strawberries.

*  WITH HAPPINESS if management ever get to read this.

**  Which in reality is the MURDER MEADOW full of KILLER KOWS.