A Couple Of Years Ago -
This would have aroused exactly zero attention. For now, it's unusual because I've not baked anything since September and my patently brazen attempt to curry favour with the new department. Before then? Probably a year and half previously. Conrad unsure if it will be done in time for a photograph here. Probably not. I should point out that it's a vegan cake with no eggs or butter HOW CAN THIS BE! and is the first such I've made. Art!
An M18 tank-destroyer
Because the Vegan Society website that displayed the recipe didn't have any pictures, before you ask.
ANYWAY the M18 - not going to apologise for changing subjects completely, keep up do, it's good for you - was one of those peculiar South Canadian concepts of the Second Unpleasantness that never lasted beyond 1945. To the uninitiated it looks like a tank, because it has tracks and a turret.
WRONG!
Their job was to lie in wait and ambush enemy tanks, and then to scurry off at high speed into safety and protection. Art!
Note the open turret, which saved a couple of tons of cast steel. Their armour was also quite thin, because - not intended to indulge in stand-up fights - okay you remember? Sneaky-peeky keenie-meenie, shoot in butt and scuttle keenly. Though they did tend to mount pretty powerful bundooks, meaning you might shot them and shell them, it was tricky to quell them.
Right, off downstairs from my Sekrit Layr to turn the cake around by 1800, as we don't want it to burn, it is after all a b <REDACTED>g Daughter. Chin chin, Anais Nin*!
A Christmas Carroll
Caroll O'Connor, that is! Ha - do you see wh O you do. Yes I did threaten to come back to Carroll, as he was an interesting character who had a long dramatic lifespan. Unlike his brash or boorish characters, he was a very educated man, who graduated in English literature (how the irony burns!) and Irish history, at University College Dublin, and he also gained a Masters in Speech. So, no dumb bunny but in fact a pretty cultured chap who taught English professionally before his thespian days. Art!
Here you have an actor's challenge and charm; Archie Bunker, a graceless right-wing buffoon who was the polar opposite of Carroll, who had the problem of delivering CONVINCINGLY polemic utterly anathema to himself. Did he manage? Well, "All In The Family" ran for nine years, and Carroll won the Emmy for his role four times, so - yeah. Pretty emphatically yeah.
Your Humble Scribe has still not seen it. One of these days I may very well do so. Just so you know.
Yes, that Rob Reiner**.
I should point out, shameless promoter of all things Perfidious Albion, that AITF was actually the South Canadian version of a British comedy, "Till Death Do Us Part", where Warren Mitchell played the boorish bigot Alf Garnett. Another instance of a decent chap playing a mini-monster.
Okay, Time For A Little Torment
Or, Conrad still continues to promote his darker side (yes I have a darker side!) because nobody has either the courage or boredom to shout "Stop!", which is of course - obviously! - exactly the same as saying "I love it and keep on doing it".
‘That’s
for punching me son,’ shouted the man, holding the bat back over his right
shoulder. ‘JESUS!’ he howled as Louis,
by happy chance now at the right level, reached out and crushed a testicle
between finger and thumb, feeling it squash like a grape. The bat came up, striking Louis’ chin,
leaving him reeling against the door frame as the assailant staggered down the
garden path, clutching himself.
A car, engine revving, had parked
on the road, facing back up
By the time Louis got back
indoors, his next-door neighbour had emerged.
‘I’ve called the police, and my
son got their registration from his upstairs room.’
‘Thanks,’ croaked Louis, trying
to rub his bruised shoulder and simultaneously acknowledge the act.
‘Stupid *******. Haven’t they seen the news?’ growled the
neighbour.
The news had more than Louis expected – police were said to be actively seeking a blond man seen near the scene of the crime on the night of Thursday last, wearing a shell-suit top and combat trousers. The television article had a phone number for members of the public to contact if they had any information to pass on.
Briefly he toyed with the idea of
making a phone call from a nearby telephone box, then gave it up as too
risky. No sooner had he got pen and
paper than the police arrived, summonsed by the next door neighbour.
That Luma, hmmmm? Quite dangerous in close-quarter fighting when you consider he's a college lecturer. Conrad thinks he missed out a bit of plot detail as we never hear of any consequences of Luma being walloped with a baseball bat. No doubt an editor would have pounced on this and rejected the MSS.
Them Killer Kanuckistanians
It is a truth universally acknowledged that, in peacetime, the Canuckistanians are some of the friendliest and most accommodating people on the planet. Polite, low gun crime, faithful adherents to THE QUEEN and so on.
However!
When things come to conflict, they are some of the most unstoppable bloodthirsty carnage-hounds in existence. They become, if you like, anti-Canuckistanians. If you so much as blink in acknowledgement, Conrad will happily enthral you with hours of First and Second Unpleasantness testimony.
ANYWAY we are back to Canuckistanian Squadron-Leader William Barker. He flew a Camel in the First Unpleasantness, which you surely remember from Biggles. Art!
"But - but - these are not Bactians!" expostulated the biologist
I should explain that the Camel scout was known as such because it had a 'hump' that housed it's twin machine guns.
Most unusually, Mister Barker flew his Sopwith Camel in Italy, as part of the aerial support for the British contingent that fought there, so his opponents were Austro-Hungarians rather than green-blooded Teutons. You will also note, thanks to his Wiki archive, that his kills were usually recorded as being genuinely achieved, with the dates and names of his unfortunate victims being front and centre. Unlike some. Albert Ball I'm looking at you.
Our modest hero and his braying beast
Finally -
That cake's been out of the oven for an hour or so. I have, of course - obviously! - lain a cloth over it, which is rather presumptuous, as Jenny our cat cannot go over and poke around out of feline curiosity. Nor could she have gone and licked the margarine greasing off the cake tin.
ANYWAY what I wanted to end with was a painting altogether in the style of Charles Marion Russell, except it isn't. Art!
"Leave no man behind"
An ethos you find in the more elite military units. This is, allegedly, by Charles Schreyvogel, whom we will be investigating more fully, O Boy Yes.
Tot siens!
* Not really sure who this is, but a rhyme is a rhyme
** Famous Hollywood director, with a lot of experience in acting roles, too, which is unusual for a suit
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