Miks Mitte Eesti Keel?

Ha, I Thought That Would Puzzle You!

"Miks" must be Phoenecian for "Mix" and "Mitte" is Teuton for "With" and "Keel" is part of a ship's hull, so "Eesti" must refer to blokes from the East, right? runs your interpretation.

     WRONG!  O SO WRONG!  O SO VERY WRONG!

     Do you think I got my point across?  I mean, I refrained from using TWO exclamation marks there, because that would be excessive.

     Also, that word "Eesti" should have given you pause, because it's Estonian for 'Estonian', and the whole thing reads "Why No Estonian?" Art!

     Incidentally, if you've not seen the excellent comedy-thriller "Darkness In Tallinn" THEN WE ARE NOT FRIENDS ANY LONGER.  Tallinn, of course - obviously! - being the capital of Estonia.  That picture above is of the State Bank, due to accept back the national gold reserves that had been carried off by the Teutons.

     "Blimey, has he been at the Jeyes Household Cleaning Fluid again?" I hear you quibble.  Pausing only to nod that, yes, there are people suffering from such an addiction, I shall explicate.  Art!

     This, you will recall, is the 'Sling It Out Stout' that I displayed yesteryon, with the suspicion-inducing information that it used 'Upcycled' Coco-pops in the brewing process.  Art!

It can't have been that bad.

     ANYWAY this hellbrew's ingredients were listed in lots of languages, including Swedish and Finnish and also Latvian and Lithuanian.

     But no Estonian.

     Which is odd.  I mean to say, as part of the Hanseatic League back in the Middle Ages, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were Western-focussed and represented the Baltic Republics, until they broke away from the nascent Sinister Union.  It seems that nobody liked the Ruffians back in nineteen twenty-two, either.  Art!

     There you go; south of Finland and east of Sweden (Estonia in blue).  Linguisitcally, the Eestis are able to understand Finnish, which annoyed the Sinisters during the Cold War, because Eestis were able to get Western television programs from across the water.  If you were a Western tourist in Estonia during the Cold War years, then shop staff would take a spiteful delight in serving you before any Ruffian customers.  Not being nice to invasive Slavs seems to have a bit of history behind it, hmmmm?

     Since we seem to be almost dipping our long, mis-shapen and be-taloned toes into the stagnant and unclean waters of Politics, rather than beer, I think this Intro is outro.

     

Tallinn

A Malevolent Marine Monster!

No!  I am not referring to the alien 'Bathies' of John Wyndham's epic "The Kraken Wakes", even if they are monsters and are also marine - look, I think we've got off on the wrong foot.  Let's recap -

     So, the BBC, the font of all that's fit to be writ, has a selection of photographs up that were submitted to the "Underwater Photographer of the Year", and we've been coolly copying them, with a bit of content and comment.  Art!

Swim for your life!

     Photograph courtesy of Lewis Jefferies, who describes this apparition of evil as a compass jellyfish, completely neglecting the fact that it's about to attack and drag it's human victim into the depths, where it will tear them apart with it's gnashing mandibles and

     Hang on, could that be a trick of perspective?  Art!

     Ah.  So.  Wellllll, perhaps he's got gigantic hands?

Old Dog, New Tricks

This week is Week Four in our work rota, meaning that Conrad has to bus it into work, never a fun event, made even less amusing by the endless monsoon rains that lasted all day today.  Your Humble Scribe never remembers what time the Oldham-bound buses are due to arrive at the Springfield Lane bus stop, so -

     What's that?  Look them up on the TfGM website?  ARE YOU INSANE!  It's the most unhelpful and counter-intuitive website ever designed by Hom. Sap. bar none, as you would expect for an entity that involves First Bus.  If First Bus had been in charge of developing the alphabet it would have only three letters, and they'd all be "J".

     So.  Boxing clever, Your Humble Scribe got off at the next stop up, tootled over to the bus stop with it's schedule up and - Art?

Got a photo

     Conrad feels inordinately proud of this achievement.  In the past I'd have scribbled notes in my notebook, which would have been awkward tonight, given the lack of ambient light.  AND I got another 500 steps on my Fitbit.

Time For Your Torment

Luma, our protagonist and grumpy, foul-mouthed lecturer, has been dealing with the scientific analysis of his unwanted 'gift', that being the ability to interact with the spirit world.  Don't forget, we fillet out the swear words; the nerve-shredding terror we leave untouched.

Half a dozen sheets of A4 lay on the lounge floor – damn he still had to get a new coffee table! – with messages scrawled on them.

               ‘You could have stacked them,’ he grumbled, doing just that himself.

               “Hello Louis this is easier than manifesting have you met the Professor yet” he read, carrying the papers into the kitchen. 

               ‘What do you expect, a written response?’  There were no supernatural visitors lurking in the ether, so he didn’t get an answer.  ‘Actually that would make sense.  Hang on.’

               “Marjory” had been scribbled under that first sentence.  Ah, having trouble with her ectoplasm again.  Louis tracked down a red biro, got a hardback book and wrote a reply.

               “Here’s the reply in red, so you can pick it out better.  Yes I have met the Professor, and a starchy old sod he is too” he wrote, making it slow so his script was legible.

               “How come you can see us”.  To which he replied, honestly “No idea and it’s taking a lot of  getting used to”.  No name on that one.

               “Have you met any other spirits yet Louis”.  “Yes.  One stuck in a graveyard, whom has now moved on – should that be Moved On? And I think I may have seen another one today”

               “Do you want a helping hand I am dead good at housework”  which made him laugh.  “??? Thanks but no thanks the neighbours might start to worry”

               “If you want to make lots of money gambling I can help.  Of course you may not want to, which is okay.  Slainte.”  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

               “You looked a proper charlie sitting in that chair with wires all over your head JREF”

               What?  B***** hell, that lab assistant – initials JREF - had been a spirit!  No wonder Paula and Nige thought he was potty, or faking it.  The entity had been too far away, and behind a barrier, for him to pick up on it’s real nature.  “Watch your step, matey and don’t make life difficult for me at college”

     Okay, okay, it's not all nerve-shredding terror.  We can't hit the high notes constantly or you'd get jaded.

Finally -

It's a good job I checked the work rota today, I'd completely forgotten that I'm off on Wednesday, in an attempt to use up as much leave as possible before the next financial year begins.  I nearly typed 'academic' instead of 'financial', too much living in the skin of Louis McMahon one suspects.

Peace, Love, Out.  Yes, Tsar Putin, I am looking at you.

Dimya crying because nobody loves him.

Stop Press: Conrad STILL Hates Musicals

I Don't Expect Any Quibbles About This

Those who challenged me on this matter have long been dispersed on the four winds as radioactive vapours, thank you Remote Nuclear Detonator!  I'm currently working on Russell Brand and Alan Carr, whom have been tipped off about my undying enmity and as a result are constantly on the move.  One day, maties, one day.

     ANYWAY I just thought a reminder was in order, especially since the South Canadians made a fetish out of their IGNOBLE REVOLT AGAINST THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS and came up with that farrago "Hamilton".  See?  I don't even afford it the colour fuschia that I do other media titles.  Art!

This Hamilton I can get behind
(NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!)

     "But Conrad," I hear your querulous voices quaver.  "Surely you need to 

   

     NO!  Do you think I need to eat coal to know it's horrid and unpleasant to the taste?  Should I bathe in lava to understand that, really, it's pretty hot stuff?  Should I have to watch any of the 'Twilight' films to understand that twinkly emo-vampire Young Adult guff is, indeed, utter guff?

     Be off with you.  And your little dog too.

     For your further enlightenment, I can inform you that "The Blues Brothers" and "The Return Of Captain Invincible" are comedies with music.  Do not try and debate with me on these two.  "This Is Spinal Tap" is a documentary about a rock band, that's all.  There was another one about a million people sitting in a muddy field for three days, "Woodsmoke" if I recollect proper, and I only know of that because it was featured in the far, far more entertaining "The Omega Man".  Art!

The music of the Madsen SMG plays on!

     I think that's enough of a stern corrective of an Intro for you, at least 

     DAMN!  I nearly got Russell Brand!

Conrad Is Unsure About This

By now you, gentle reader, ought to be familiar with Your Humble Scribe's incessant quest for interestingly named bottles or cans of beer.  We here at the blog used to have a thing going on with chocolate bars and sweets, which only come out with a new brand very rarely.  Beers, wines and spirits are always coming up with new brands.  So - 

     Quite an eye-catching design, don't you think?  Which is why I purchased it.  However, there is a caveat.  Art!

     "Coco-Pops"?  That disgusting breakfast cereal heavily contaminated with chocolate?  Chocolate?  You know, that stuff that Conrad dislikes almost as much as musicals?  

     Here an aside.  I will make an exception for Moser Roth's Dark Chilli Chocolate, which I have been saving in the kitchen cupboards for Lo! these many months, and which is as delicious as I remember it.  HOWEVER I still recall that the Brewdog brand I liked least of all from my Beer Advent Calendar was a chocolate-flavoured one.  

     I have poured out the stout.  This may not end well.  Whether or not it does, Conrad will inevitably keep you updated.

I Believe In Seethe

Okay, after removing countless Codeword compilers thanks to the RND*, I find that their staggeringly inept replacements are committing the same errors.  Perhaps I should work a little higher up the food-chain?  It's a double-edged sword; they annoy me to ATOMIC LEVELS OF DISTRACTION, true enough, yet they also generate content for BOOJUM! which is a help of sorts.  O well let the farrago commence.

"ATAVISM": Hmmmm Conrad only familiar with ATAVISTIC, which has to do with being a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather, as I recall.  Let me consult my Collins Concise.  Ah.  "Reversion to a former type".  So, as a Hom. Sap., if you revert to a former type, you'd be a Neanderthal, like Art.  Yep, knuckle-dragging mouth-breather.  Art!

Oooh, Art's in a snit.  This is his crush, Mara Corday.

"RHEBOK": No!  Not a poorly-spelled trainer; do you want me to go RND on your bottom?  Conrad confesses he was baffled by this one, so once again a resort to the trusty Collins Concise.  It is, so they say, a variety of South African antelope.  OF COURSE IT IS!  HOW COULD WE NOT KNOW THAT!  <sounds of the RND being hammered to the point of destruction>.  Art!

     "STANZAIC": Once again, nothing to do with Stan, that chap who features in Ben Fold's song - 

     ANYWAY this refers to the poetical term 'stanza', and I've never seen it used like this before.  If I can bring in the CC again - "Stanza: a fixed number of verse lines arranged in a definite metrical <hack spit> pattern, forming a unit of a poem."  From which you get 'STANZAIC"

     IS THIS EVEN ENGLISH ANYMORE?  It sounds like Late Byzantine fresco work.  ART!

Stanzas are dull.  Have an Atomic Pangolin instead.

    I shall call a halt there, since my blood pressure is now greater than the interface between Jupiter's atmosphere and it's metallic hydrogen core.

And Now For An Appreciation Of Madonna

HA!  Fooled you!  Conrad detests she whom he calls "The OAP of pop", because she thinks she's still thirty when in fact she qualifies for free public transport (at least here in the UK) because she's so OLD OLD OLD.

     No, we are back at "Tormentor" again, because it's not over until the - er - outsize lady sings.

‘What was that crack about the lab assistant you made? I assumed you were talking about me.’

               ‘Not you, the idiot pulling faces and flicking “V” signs at me.’

               Nige looked at the floor whilst shaking his head.

               ‘Paula and I were the only ones in that booth.’

               ‘Oh!  Oh.’

               ‘What are you trying to pull?’

               ‘Nothing,’ said Louis, realising that he’d already said too much and ought to try silence.  ‘Did you get any results from the tests?’

               Nige contemplated not answering before dismissing that as petty.

               ‘Activity in the Occipital lobe.  Deals with vision.  Nothing unusual.’ 

               ‘There you go then.  Now, I need to get this stuff sorted out for the VP.’

               The science tutor left feeling puzzled.  He’d had to test people before, who were convinced that they had hidden powers, at the behest of Paula.  Failing to corroborate their pseudo-abilities always brought out the worst in them, temper-tantrums, accusations of incompetence, retreat into denial.  McMahon didn’t bother one way or the other.  And what was that tosh about a third person in the booth?

 

It had been a day of ups and downs for Louis.  He sat and wondered about the collection of evil spirits that associated with the now-infamous Morgan.  Oh, and weak-willed mortals who would also do the monster’s bidding.

               Fine, a silver crucifix and bracelet, plus the holy water, would keep malevolent spirits at bay.  How did you keep a hostile human at a distance?

               Hmm – energy, and how to project it.  Bingo! he suddenly thought.  A eureka moment.  In fact Jen would have been proud of him.

               The shrine of flowers at the alleyway entrance had been scaled back by police, leaving a small collection wired to the fencing.  Out of a morbid desire to see what people wrote, Louis went and looked, which was a mistake.  His eyes began to sting and he went home in a hurry.

               Half a dozen sheets of A4 lay on the lounge floor – damn he still had to get a new coffee table! – with messages scrawled on them.

Finally -

Conrad is back in the Sinful City, Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, Marineville, The City Under The Sea, Manchester, whichever floats your sea-travelling device.  This means hours of travel on the treacherous and unreliable First Bus, yes, and also lots and lots of steps as counted on the Fitbit.  And perhaps a visit to Forbidden Planet before catching the bus <wallet squeaks in anguish>

*  Not to be confused with the Royal Naval Division

Don't Look Back In Amber

Nope

Not the gem, nor yet the colour.  I refer, of course - obviously! - to the series of novels by Roger Zelazny, which deal with the world of Amber.  All other realities are shadows of Amber, including our own humble Earth, and those of aristocratic Amber blood can move between these realities.  Art!

     One of the interesting physical differences between Amber and other realities is that there are no explosive compounds there.  You can combine the ingredients for gunpowder, but they won't explode.  So, no gunpowder means no firearms; things are limited to swords and pikes.  Until Corwin, the protagonist, discovers that a jeweller's powder from Avalon, one of the Shadow realities, will explode on contact with fire in Amber.  His plot commences ...

     This is the second volume of Ol' Rog's "Chronicles of Amber" and I picked it up in a second-hand bookshop because the title seemed a curious play on "The Guns Of Navarone", and I think that's enough of an Intro to what's supposed to be short on my verbiage.  Onward and upward!

2021

BOOJUM! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Piping Hot Is What It's Not (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: More Of Missiles! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: White Walkers? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: It's A Gas (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: The Name - Only Kidding! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: Spock Drokk Grock (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Today Has A Theme - "Patience" (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

Yes yes yes, the blog began in 2013.  NOT UNTIL JUNE!  So be patient.

The Island Of DEATH!

Please Note: This Is Not About That Video Nasty

In fact, Your Humble Scribe wasn't aware of it's existence until he thought to do a quick Google check, 'just in case'.  O my goodness.  There is indeed a film called "Island Of Death", filmed on Mykonos, which seems to collect every possible sexual offence possible and mix them in with a giant dose of gore.  It was banned everywhere, which means there was doubtless a lucrative market in dodgy videos of dubious quality.  Art!

Odd-looking hat

     I don't think the Greek tourist authorities would have looked on it with any grace or favour quite be

     ANYWAY of course I've rambled on about what we're not talking about today.  You see, the BBC's news website, that font of all that's fit to be writ, had an article with a slightly tabloid headline, which, if Art will put down that nuclear fuel rod -

     Conrad immediately realised that this would be about Gruinard Island, because his skip-like mind ('skip' as in the voluminous container, not the merry hopping action) retains memories of this unenchanting spot from back in the Seventies.  Gruinard Island, you see, was the testing site for an experiment involving anthrax spores, and was chosen because it was remote, small, uninhabited and not easy to get to.  Art!

CAUTION!  These are not tourists

     The test subjects were a flock of sheep, who were downwind when the explosive device was detonated by remote control.  No, they did not develop mutant superpowers: they all died, which counted as a success for the experimenters.  No, it wasn't a sinister plan to corner the mutton and wool market, for we are talking about mid-Second Unpleasantness and fears that the Teutons might stoop to biological warfare.  They never did, but you had to have contingency plans in case Herr Schicklegruber tried it on, the dirty cur.

     What nobody expected was the sheer resilience of Bacillus Anthracis.  Art!

Anthrax spores

     Yes, spores.  "The Seeds Of Death" sounds great, and is indeed one of the Patrick Troughton-era 'Doctor Who' dramamentaries that was put out on video back in the late Eighties, but it's not an accurate description of the hardy little beggars.  Even setting the island alight didn't destroy them.  Under an official Government and Civil Service policy of Ignore It And It'll Go Away, Gruinard Island was left alone until the locals got fed up and active.  We shall gloss over what they did as it was extremely naughty.  It did propel the Gov to properly decontaminate the island with 250 tons of formaldehyde in solution in 1986.  Finally, in 1990 - a whopping forty-eight years after initial contamination - the warning signs came down and you can now gambol or skip (the merry hopping action not the voluminous container) across Gruinard Island, should you feel the need to do so.  Art!

Bad Moon on the rise

     Conrad strongly suspects that Harry Harrison uses the phrase " - anthrax - income tax -" as exampled of what hideous monstrosities are present in an alternative Earth towards the end of "A Trans-Atlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" at which point we have strayed far from the path.  Like we do.

Talking Of Deep Waters -

Back to trawling through another BBC page, this time the Underwater Photographer of the Year one, and don't worry, there are lots of photographs left for me to exploit use.  Art!

"Rock Pool Star" courtesy Martin Stevens

     Martin caught this shot in a tidal pool in Cornwall.  That there is a spiny starfish, which is an odd kind of name when you pause to think about it, since there's absolutely NO resemblance to a fish.  The star part - yes, I get that.

Meanwhile, Back In 1943 -

For your information, this is a year after they were testing anthrax on Gruinard, just to put it in context.  Okay, bring on the emptied horses.

     For your information, the Mareth Line had been created by the French in 1938, when Mussolini was casting covetous eyes at Tunisia.  It was a set of defences running inland from the sea to the coastal mountains along the Tunisia-Libyan border.  You can see a few of the defences above, including the utterly obsolete Renault tanks huddled under palm trees.  Why is it here?  Because Rommel's Axis forces, having lost catastrophically at Medenine, had to hold it in order to slow down or stop the Eighth Army.  So the Italians and Teutons would be using French defences in Africa to stop the British.  There.  Glad we got that cleared up.

     Whilst we're on the subject, a little more about the Italian Semovente class of armoured vehicles, as I threatened to do yesteryon.  Art!

Semovente 75/18

     What they did with these was to take the Italian M13/40 tank, remove the turret, replace it with a boxy cupola and stick a 75 m.m. <hack spit> gun in the front, a far larger calibre weapon than the usual 45 m.m. <hack hack spit spit> weapon used in the tank.  "18" is how long the weapon is in muzzle calibres.  Not available in large numbers, it still made an effective armoured vehicle from a pretty rubbish tank.

More More More Of "Tormentor"

You need to recollect that Luma had been undergoing scientific testing at the behest of the Reverned.  It had not gone well.

Paula shivered.  There was a certain air about McMahon that made her uneasy, at a level below conscious analysis.

 

Blithely unaware of the reaction his statement made, Louis went off to sit in on another of Laura’s seminar’s, trying to be unobtrusive whilst ticking boxes on his clipboard.  She managed fairly well, despite having to play down the mock-flirting from one or two of the male students.  After all, she wasn’t a great deal older than them.

               ‘Quite competent,’ he informed her afterwards.  ‘Can’t give more feedback than that until our Review with the VP.’

               Gathering up her papers, Laura nervously straightened her hair.

               ‘I’m really nervous about that!’

               ‘Don’t be!’ reassured Louis.  ‘He tolerates me because I’m dealing with the remedial idiots.  He’ll tolerate you because you come cheap, look good and have potential to improve.’

               Laura stared at him, not sure how to take his comments, and deeming silence to be more diplomatic than trying to deternine exactly what he meant.

               ‘Hey, honesty without tact.  My trademark.’

               ‘I see,’ she replied, non-commitally.

 

Louis sat in his boxy little room behind the desk and made neater notes about Laura’s tutoring skills on a set of pro-formas.  The stuff he’d written in the lesson only made sense to him.

               After a loud knock on the door, which normally never happened since nobody actively sought him out, Nige the scientist came in.

               ‘Hello there,’ greeted Louis.  ‘Only one chair, and I’m sitting on it.  There used to be another but it got nicked when I was still part-time.’

     Yeah, I can't see anyone daring to rip off a curmudgeon like Luma if he was full time and likely to interrupt a chair-theft.

Finally -

Atypically, the day is nice and bright and sunny; it has been since I got up and - O thing of wonder! - so it has remained.  Thus I need to hit the Compositional Ton, visit the bathroom and take Edna for a trot.  The downside to good weather is that all the other dog owners will be taking their domesticated wolves for a trot, too.  What an exciting life I lead! Do you see wh O you do.

Starry Eyed

 Ha.  Sometimes I Slay Me

For Lo! we are going to take another look at astronomical observatories in South Canada, after having a peek at Yerkes and Goldstone.  This is a topic we could keep going for months, since South Canada is a big place, with lots of observatories.  The state of California alone has thirty-five, possibly a consequence of mountains and sea breezes.  Art!

The Lick Observatory LASER BATTLE STATION!

     No, it really is an observatory, they're just doing stuff with lasers and you're seeing the collimation as the beam hits particulates in the atmosphere.  

     ANYWAY this place has quite the history behind it, being constructed with funds supplied by Mister Lick, who was quite the business mogul, back in 1877.  As you can kind of see here, it sits atop a mountain - Mount Hamilton.  Let's get a better picture.  Art!

     It is currently staffed and run by the University Of California Observatory - see, my intro to the Intro was accurate after all - and can claim to have been the first astronomy site after Galileo to discover a new Jovian satellite, in 1892.  Amalthea, if you were feeling curious.  Not bad after a pause of two hundred and eighty-two years.

     One of the incidental features of the site is it's access road, which Mister Lick wanted to be a splendid example of South Canadian artisanship.  Art!

     You are now looking at Highway 130, which was initially carved out of the mountainside in 1876, back when everything had to be hauled up in carts and wagons drawn by horses.  Because poor Dobbin couldn't manage a steep gradient, the road's incline is very gentle, meaning that it meanders all over the place - hence the hairpin bends you see above.  There are enough of them to have Highway 130 closed down if it snows.  Well, that's a trade-off; the mountain top position keeps the telescopes away from light and smoke pollution and meteorological turbulence (not a phrase you expected to see today) above the peak is very low.

     There you have it.  Hamilton's Lick is looking slick.

NOW The Seething Apoplectic Rage

I bet you can't wait, can you?  Today's afternoon post was already over the Compositional Ton without including the righteous rancour of your ranting writer, critiquing Codewords.  Fret no more!  Conrad is here with that vein in his temple a-throbbing like a bass drum and I shall type until the red mist comes down.

"LUCENT": Er - what?  Conrad hasn't come across this word before.  I'm guessing that it has roots in Latin, because "LUCID".  Allow me to consult my Collins Concise.  Ah, close.  "Brilliant, shining or transparent"  After the Latin "Lucere" for 'Shining'.  Yeahhhhhhh right.

"I have a very shiny axe!"

"ALLEGRO":  This one was confusing because a seven-letter that ends in "O"?  Besides which, the car went out of production a good thirty years ago, and was an inferior design poorly constructed.  It was derided at the time as an unreliable rust-bucket, which stuck, whether true or not (hint: true).  WHAT ARE WE ALL VEHICLE HISTORIANS NOW?

The mobile blister itself

"EXPLICATE":  Conrad only includes this because he's thinking of you, gentle reader, and your lack of familiarity with long words.  Of course he regularly uses this word himself to answer your baffled questions about what on earth I'm waffling on about.  So IF you read BOOJUM! then you'll know what I'm talking about.  And if you don't, then that's your descendants ticket to either the organ banks or the uranium mines.

"Explicate" is dull.  Have an atomic-powered tank instead.

     I shall have to stop there in order for my blood pressure to fall.  Also, the red mist is making it difficult to see the keyboard

Back To 1943 Again

Yes, more of "The War Illustrated" since I've already taken the photographs and you'll just have to put up with them, even if we've already had TANK.  Once again, whose blog is it?  Precisely.  Art!

     They are referring, of course - obviously! - to North Africa, not Lincolnshire.  You see pilots trying to purchase goods from a local, probably frustrated that not everybody in the worlds speaks ENGLISH The Queen Of Languages.  Next to that is a squadron Intelligence Officer listening to aircrew immediately after an operation, when memories are at their freshest.  That chap with the stick?  He's cutting notches in it to keep score of Axis victims; it's also a tentpole so if the squadron is too successful they're going to have a canvas coverall.  To starboard of that is a humble, trusty yet practically obsolete Hurricane getting bombed-up in preparation for making someone's day truly awful.  Bottom picture shows pilots returning from a sortie, with their planes waaaay in the background.  These shots are most likely in Libya, thanks to the flatness of terrain in that last picture; Tunisia is a lot hillier and mountainous.

     Here we see the 'Priest' Self-Propelled Gun.  Despite what you might think IT IS NOT A TANK!  It's the hull of an old and out-of-date Lee tank, which has had the top taken off so a South Canadian 105 m.m. <hack spit> howitzer can be placed within.  It got the name because the sponson that used to house the 75 m.m. <hack hack spit spit> now resembles a pulpit.  There was another version called the 'Sexton' which had a British 25 pounder gun, which makes more sense as the British Army already used 25 pounder guns, so no need for different ammunition and spare parts.  The idea behind an SPG* is that it puts artillery on tracks, enabling it to keep up with the rest of the armour, and gives it a certain degree of protection.  And that burning vehicle in the last photograph is NOT A TANK either; it's an Italian Semovente assault gun.  I may explain the difference later**.

Are We Sitting Comfortably?

Then I shall begin.  Up to Page 50 of "Tormentor" so far, thus only another 30 pages to go.  Is that a sigh of disappointment I hear? O it was your bowels frothing.  Go drink milk.

The Powerpoint display had taken him several hours to compile.  Mostly random images, with the target ones thrown in at random points in the series.  The hypothesis was that such stimulation would cause relevant neurone activity in the subject’s brain, which they could detect thanks to the sensors.

               For the second part of the test, McMahon had to predict which one of nine squares would be selected by the computer at random, indicating his selection by touching the screen.

               Feeling slightly bored, Nige paid close attention to McMahon, who got progressively angrier and more visibly annoyed as the session went on.

               ‘Someone’s getting narked that their so-called abilities don’t transfer to the lab,’ he commented sourly, getting a dig in at Paula. 

               ‘Do try and remain professional,’ she shot back.

               When Nige spoke through the microphone to inform their test subject that the test was over, McMahon couldn’t get out of the room quickly enough.

               ‘You ought to teach your assistant some bloody manners!’ he snapped, slamming the door  on his way out.

               Paula stared at Nige apologetically.

               ‘He can’t mean you, can he?  Oh dear, why is it always the quiet ones who turn out to be nutters.’

               Louis ran into the two science staff in the canteen.  He finished his meal before making his way over to them.

               ‘I have now calmed down,’ he benevolently informed them. 

               ‘Oh good.  I thought you might have damaged the hinges on the door,’ commented Nige, sarcastically.  ‘People get like that when we don’t prove they have ESP.’

               ‘Nige!’ scolded Paula, between forkfuls of food.  ‘Don’t gloat.’

               ‘ESP?  I could care less what you discovered, it was how your lab assistant behaved.  Was he supposed to be winding me up? I’m surprised you could concentrate with him acting like that.’

               He got up and moved off, dropping the dirty cutlery and crocks in the wash bins.

 

               Behind him, Nige and Paula exchanged looks of blank incomprehension.

               ‘Lab assistant?’ they both said, simultaneously.  Nige stared after the lecturer.  Playing mind games, eh?

     Gosh what can this possibly mean?

Finally -

O go on, even if I need to go get a meal.  A Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle.

*  NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH AN S.P.V. - 'Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle'

**  Or not.  I'm horrid that way.

Sorry, Busy Winning At Wordle

Just To Redeem Myself

For I failed to get those last two solutions in Wednesday's Cryptic Crossword <brief bout of sobbing> even if I did crack the Codeword in record time <drum roll and cymbal crash> and do you know I think we need the i-pod played via the giant monitor once again.  

     Talking of drum rolls, let's have a bit of clickbait art.  Art!

     For your information, that's Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, performing on their track "One Of These Days" which remains one of my favourite tracks ever.  And it's nearly as old as I am*.

     ANYWAY we begin this Intro because I'd marked a page in my Collins Concise at "Tambourine", because I'd seen one atop a speaker when the Mavs were playing, and it stuck in my mind because that's how my mind works**.  Art!

     It's defined as "A percussion instrument consisting of a single drumhead of skin stretched across a circular wooden frame hung with pairs of metal disks that jingle when it is struck or shaken."   Yes yes yes, what I wanted to know is where the name comes from.  Ah. Middle Flemish 'Tambourijn' meaning a little drum, which itself comes from Old French 'Tambourin' meaning a little drum.  Or you could have 'Tabor', which is the earlier Old French for a small drum.  Or -

     - you could have Mount Tabor, the noted Biblical peak in Israel.  One supposes you could go so far as to play a tabor on the mountain.  Then you might want to have a go at Geoffrey Tambor - 

     It's hard to resist the urge to rap out a tarradiddle on his bonce, isn't it?  And no, you can't carve a square yard of his skin out to make a Tamborine.  That would be in shocking bad taste.  Unless 

     NO!  Again, shockingly bad taste.

     Okay, enough Intro for one afternoon.  I wonder if a track by The Drums will come up on the i-pod?

Meanwhile Back In 1943

Yes, a return to "The War Illustrated" and the late February edition.  Don't forget, the articles tend to be at least a month behind the real date, so that the Axis weren't able to glean any useful information from them.  Art!

     Can you say "Staged" for the cover photograph?  'Make it look cheery and convincing, chaps, and I'll make you famous.'  Plus a map of the Eastern Front, because the Ruffians get sniffy and annoyed if you don't mention them at least once, emo pansies that they are (this will upset Tsar Putin).  Art!

     The unglamourous yet vital work of the Royal Engineers.  They are laying a road in the top picture, where either none existed previously, or was only a dirt track.  The sheer volume of traffic a modern army requires meant that anything less than a proper metalled road would be ground to powder.  You can see a mobile crane putting concrete base-blocks into position in the inset photo, and the finished product four days later.  The REs got so good at building bridges that the Axis and then Teutons destroyed to slow pursuit that, really, they might as well not have bothered.

     

     This is Malta, one of the most bombed places on the planet up until late 1942, even more bombed than the Sinisters.  It was able to hold out and keep sinking Axis supply ships because of the following -

     These are the captains of what the Maltese called the "Santa Maria Convoy", and which history buffs like myself call "Operation Pedestal".  There were fourteen supply ships and a tanker with a massive naval escort; only five of the supply ships and the tanker got into harbour at Valetta, which was enough to keep the island fed for another couple of months.  If someone did a treatment of Op Pedestal the studio heads would reject it as being unbelievable.  A story for another day, perhaps.

Am I Still Seething?

But of course!  However, expressing my rancour can wait.  We are going to have another extract from "Tormentor".  Hopefully filleted of all the swears.  Let us proceed -

Monday morning meant a cosy little chat with Rowell about Laura.

               ‘Ongoing review,’ was how Rowell described it.

               ‘Fishing,’ riposted Louis.

               ‘Just verbal feedback about how she’s doing.’

               ‘Adjusting.  Her lectures are sound enough.  Needs experience for seminars.’

               ‘That’ll come with time.  Good.  Oh, I hear you’re mixing more with the staff.  Not going soft on us, are you?’

               ‘I’d give you the finger if I gave a toss,’ replied Louis.

               ‘That’s my boy!’ chortled Rowell, ignoring the normal relationship between a Vice Principal and a lecturer.  After all, where would he find another lecturer with the attitude capable of dealing with the DTO class.

               ‘If that’s all?  I have to go and mix.’

               He did, too.  The two scientists, Paula and Nige, were waiting for him in a booked room over in the Science Block, one where they sat behind a glass screened booth and communicated via microphone.  Their lab assistant stood behind and watched the dials and Louis.  He presumed that the third pair of eyes were to be kept on him, and avoid any kinds of trickery during the experiements.  Paula festooned him with wires that led behind him, hooked up to monitors of various sorts. 

 

               Nige Watts didn’t expect any kind of results from the tests.  As far as he was concerned, the entire field of parapsychology was complete nonsense.  None of the so-called “effects” were ever replicated, if they ever existed in the first place.  On the other hand, Paula did have a fascination with areas like ESP.  The vicar’s hints about why he wanted a test made her curious enough to agree, and now here Nige was, wasting an hour on Monday that he could have used marking papers.  The only unusual thing about McMahon was his date of birth, February the Twenty Ninth, which made him technically only eight years old.  Faintly amusing, if you liked an anachronism like that.

               ‘We’re going to bring up various images on the computer monitor in front of you, Mister McMahon, and track the electrical activity of your brain.  Quite straightforward.’

     Science versus Luma.  Who's going to win?  Of course - obviously! - I know, and you lot will just have to wait.

Now The Rancour

Actually more like Now The Anchor, as we're going to be putting up another Underwater Photographer of the Year picture.  Yes yes yes, we'll get to Conrad's Frothing Nitric Ire another time, do keep up.  Art!

"Best Buddies" courtesy Dan Bolt

     These freaky-looking fishes are "Yarrell's Blennies", whom Dan's diving companion discovered hiding in a rocky crevice.  One excited wave over later and Dan got this picture.  These fish are not common and favour very precise locales, often at depth, so Dan was fortunate indeed in coming across a brace of them.  He said they were delicious he was lucky.

Finally -

Hmmmm I have only 400 steps on my Fitbit today, which is a consequence of it being Saturday - no work to walk to, you see.  Given that the weather is actually decent FOR A CHANGE Your Humble Scribe had better volunteer to take Edna walkies, up to The Summit and back.  That works out at roughly 2,000 steps.  Onward and upward!

*  Two hundred and forty seven at last count.

**  "Works" is stretching a tad.  It is more concise than "bumbles along in an inexplicable random fashion with many detours before destination"