By The Time You Read This -

I Will Be Hard At Work

  - chained to a laptop whose keys glow red-hot from the ceaseless pounding they take as I grind my teeth to powder at the inhumanity of having to work on a Saturday.  Yes yes yes I did get Thursday off, that's not the point.  The point is - actually I forget what the point is, Conrad merely had to let off plasma.  The froth of superheated gaseous elements, not the blood product.

     ANYWAY for this Intro I am reverting to the photographs I took from "The War Illustrated" because the next issue is 148, date of publication 19th February 1943, and we've still not ogled all the pictures for issue 147, which is very lax of me.  Art!

     It's always good when you start with a map.  This one jumps the gun, rather, as it's from April onwards, when the Axis in North Africa had only weeks to the end.  You can get a sense of how little strategic depth their Tunis-head possessed, whilst it was simultaneously being throttled by air and sea.

     ANYWAY back to TWI, and the photographs, which I can tell you're dying to see.  Art!

     These are shots of Tripoli, the Italian capital of occupied Libya, and a major port in it's own right.  Losing this meant additional strain on the already parlous Axis logistics, conversely helping the Allies, since they now had a large port that supplies could be shipped to in bulk, before being trucked up to the front lines.

     With that thought uppermost, what you see above are supplies being unloaded at Algiers and, below, at Bone.  This unglamourous yet vital work is being done by the Pioneer Corps; what you can't read because of Idiot Camera in the blurb about Algiers is that each man works a 12 hour shift, dealing with five tons of supplies in that time.  So a single company of (guesstimating) one hundred men, swapping with another company for the second shift, could move 1,000 tons of supplies in a day.  In the lower photograph you can see boxes of small arms ammunition, compact but very heavy boxes, being moved on a roller race for ease and efficiency.  Art!

Not in Kansas any more

     These two pictures show the difference between mountainous Tunisia and the endless flat wastes of Libya and Egypt; and that yes, it was a lot wetter in Tunisia than the Quatarra Depression.  You can see mountains in the distance in the bottom photo, nicely framed behind a burning Panzer Mk. III, which is being approached far too closely by a curious South Canadian soldier.  IT'S ON FIRE MATEY and what are tanks full of?  Yes, fuel and ammunition.  Wider would be wiser.  Finally - Art!

The Polite Australians request you surrender at your earliest convenience

     The Kiwis were redoubtable foes, though they tended to be much better-behaved than the Ockers, who were holy terrors when out of the line.  That last photograph purports to show the ugly, robust, reliable Marmon-Harrington armoured car under artillery fire.  Conrad suspects this may be a staged photo from Chetwyn's Circus.

    

     There we go, all caught up before tomorrow.

The Two Towers

Yes yes yes, I know, shades of Tolkein.  Those of you who bother to read this scrivel will remember that Your Humble Scribe works on the Eighteenth Floor of the Dark Tower, in The City Under The Sea (it really has been that wet of late), and if Art can put down his plate from the grate* -

     Taken on a day without rain <gasps in muted incomprehension>.

     Thanks to an involuntary move-around to different desks <shakes fist at Ask HR> Conrad came face to facade with another tower.  Art!

By Jove it looks grim!

     I think that grimness is an artefact caused by dirty windows.  Maybe not.  The pointy bit at top is unclear of provenance, possibly a lightning rod, perhaps an ecclesiastical sigil.  Make up a story of no more than 150 words about it by this time tomorrow.

     There you have it, another sinister part of Manchester's skyline.

Aurochs

Look, it's not my fault that random words or phrases pop up in my mind on a frequent basis, it's merely the consequence of having a mind like a skip.  This time I had an inkling of what an 'Aurochs' was; cattle, I believe?  Art!

Battle cattle!

     This beastie is the ancestor of today's domestic cattle, and was significantly larger than your average Bessie; the proportions in the picture above are close enough as they are long extinct and all we have to go upon are skeletal remains.  Since the last one only choked it in 1627, their behaviour had been noted.  It was unwise to annoy them, since they had no fear of Hom. Sap, were deceptively quick on their hooves, carried two in-built pig-stickers and liked to get into rucks.

     And now we are better-informed than we were five minutes ago.

Talking Of Throwbacks - "Tormentor"-time!

We begin with a bedroom scene and  WASH OUT YOUR DISGUSTING IMAGINATIONS! because I know what you lot are like.

“Hello Louis can we come to visit you” read the message written in toothpaste on his bathroom mirror.

‘Depends on who you are,’ he mumbled to himself.  ‘And the answer is no, unless you learn to

write in a neater medium.’

 Five minutes later Louis tucked himself up under the duvet covers in his room and coughed nervously.

               ‘Ah – I’m ready to see any spirits who happen to be nearby.’

               Nothing visible occurred, not that he could see, but the sense of a change taking place swept across his skin.  From the shadows in a corner, he spotted movement, a tall dark shape emerging  from the formless darkness.  The hairs on his arms bristled temporarily in fright before he recognised the well-upholstered gentleman from St. Aidan’s cemetery;.

               ‘Well inducted, Louis!  I don’t think we need worry excessively about you and yours.’

               ‘Thanks,’ replied Louis, sourly.  ‘You don’t know how much that heartens me.’  He reached under the pillow to the Secret Weapon.

               ‘Oh, you won’t need that,’ the spirit rebuffed.  ‘I’ll stay out of reach just to satisfy you.’  Taking it’s hat off, the spirit took a seat on the chair by the dresser.  ‘There we are.’

               ‘Okay, I think I worked out why I don’t see spirits everywhere, for the simple reason that I never go anywhere.  College, home, supermarket, with an occasional visit to the cemetery for good measure.’

               The elegant man nodded his head in acknowledgement.

               ‘Correct.  Oh, forgive me for being snobbish, but it is so much easier dealing with an educated man!’

               This wit was lost on Louis.

               ‘Verbius.  Anton Verbius, the last seer I encountered.  A Lithuanian peasant.  An unfortunate soul – oh, no pun intended – who lacked any education at all.  Diligent and honest and god-fearing, but intellect was not his strong point.’

               Louis made a mental note: keep a notebook to hand at all times, in order to make a record of what the spirits said, because every time they answered his questions, their answers created more questions.

     Very mundane.  Next time, Luma, leave out a bit of scrap paper and a pen.

Finally -

When I've finished typing this lot up I shall go see how the Beef Stew With Chick Peas is doing.  The last one was especially tasty, perhaps thanks to the mustard coating the meat got, so I've added mustard this time, too.  Yes, bright yellow American squeezy mustard, because the genuine Colman's mustard powder was £3.00 for a small tin.  Outrageous!

Approximate size of the Millionaire's Mustard

*  He garnishes his coal with ashes <horrified shudder>