Ha! Take That, Forces Of Normality!
Actually, are there such things? We here at BOOJUM! teeter on the edge of reason so often for so long that Conrad is merely guessing.
ANYWAY today's title is, of course - obviously! - a reference to Codeword solutions of yesteryons gone by, so don't expect it to make sense. Join the mental dots, it's splendid exercise for your brain, and do try to keep up. Remember, reality is what's left when you've excluded all the other alternatives.
"Phil gave a weary, wary nod of approval."
Okay, I would now like to channel the spirit of Robert Citino - excellent first name there, by the way - who is a military history expert who knows what he's talking about, rather than Conrad, who makes it up as he goes along and pretends to be clever. What am I talking about? Why, the recent Ukrainian Unpleasantness and the manifest slackness of intellect in describing it. Hang on in there whilst I go jumble those potatoes in the pan.
Okay I'm back now. Here we border on both Current Affairs and Politics, although the latter is mostly mocking Tsar Poutine, which makes it alright. Art!
What do we see here? Yes yes yes, apart from 'laughably unept* invaders', you'll see the word 'Blitzkrieg' being used about their Special Military Operation. You know, 'Special' as in 'They have special needs', to judge from current performance beca
ANYWAY to avoid getting involved in Politics, let Conrad point out that one of Bob Citino's (I can call him 'Bob' because I've bought several of his books) themes is that the Teutons themselves NEVER used the word or concept of 'Blitzkrieg', except when they were taking the mickey out of the Allies. 'Lightning War' simply didn't feature in their military vocabulary. Art!
Bob, looking worryingly cheerful
What they did practice was 'Bewegungskrieg', which might be usefully translated as 'Manoeuvre Warfare', where they worked at the operational level to hit their opponents as hard as possible as quickly as possible - something Tsar Poutine can only aspire to. Frederick The Great - not a nickname Dimya is ever going to be associated with - used to say that the wars fought by the Teutons had to be 'Kurtz und vivend' - 'short and lively' - since they lacked the strategic resources for sustained, attritional warfare.
Fred and his awesome hat
Some of this might strike a chord with the hapless minions currently being blamed by Dimya, because OF COURSE the Assistant Third Undersecretary To The Minister For Siberian Mineral Expropriation is OBVIOUSLY the one responsible for the <heh> 'Special' Military Operation. Which, to use a critical phrase once deployed by ticked-off British press back in 1940, is less a Blitzkrieg and more a Sitzkrieg.
Gosh, we have sailed perilously close to the waters of Politics. Better shut up shop right now and bring in a few Sensible Cannon. Quick nurse, the screams!
The Haul
Your Humble Scribe is on the 08:00 - 16:00 shift, and working from home to boot, which means he finishes work at 16:00:00 on the dot. What to do with all that free time, unfettered by a reliance on Worst Bus? Why, none other than a trot into Royton and the Co-Op to see what remaindered food they have. They've tried that South Canadian trick of shifting stock around to make you wander for longer and buy more shizzle, except it's a small supermarket and a wander lasts only seconds. Still, Your Humble Scribe was delighted to see Marmite-flavoured peanut butter going for half-price. Art!
 |
| Woo. And, indeed, Hoo. |
Mine for only £6 when they should have been £247**.
Bring On The Chilling Effect
Yes, back to one of the BBC's 'Weather Watcher' photographs on the theme of 'Winter'. Art!
Courtesy Cogies Auroras
Conrad prettttttty sure the plural of 'Aurora' is 'Aurorae' but we shall let that slip for the moment. These cloud formations are so freaky that Conrad suspected they were a Bruce Pennington cover design for a book, 'Stratospheric Invaders' or some such. But no, they are real. Lenticular clouds are clouds that look like lentils, it would seem. They typically form over mountain ranges when a standing wave of precipitation forms, leading to a large, lens-like cloud being formed.
Freaky and squeaky!
The 'Mentor' Of 'Torm' Is In The Form
Ha! Get it? We are talking about a college and - O you do.
Time, indeed, for more "Tormentor", which will happen until you learn to appreciate it, and there are still over 20 pages to go, suckers. If you remember, Laura had approached the Bursar with a worry about Luma.
‘Oh
God! I wish I hadn’t asked!’ exclaimed Laura,
never expecting anything quite as dramatic.
Rowell shrugged.
‘It isn’t a secret, just nothing
he mentions. Then two weeks ago another
tragedy happened. He used to tutor a
teenage girl, his daughter’s best friend.
She became something of a substitute for his dead daughter, I
suppose. Then, two weeks ago – you may
have seen the news about the trial -’
‘Stop!’ said Laura, stroking an
errant strand of hair back into place.
‘You’re going to say she’s the girl who was murdered.’
Rowell nodded.
‘I mean, before the accident,
Louis wasn’t a happy dancing carefree chap, but he was an amusing bloke, up for
a laugh. I owe him a big favour or
two. Afterwards his personality changed,
and for the worst. Well, perhaps not the
worst if you want the blunt truth about things.’
Covering her mouth in horror at
what her inquisitiveness uncovered, Laura flushed.
‘Oh, me and my big nose! I wish I hadn’t asked.’
Rowell sighed in sympathy. The genie had been let out of the bottle.
Louis regained enough focus to
exert his familiar baleful reputation in his seminar class, dealing with
Orwell’s factual works – “Decline of the English Murder”, “Homage to Catalonia”
and “Down and Out in Paris and London”.
Louis personally loved the last of these and his own copy looked
dog-eared and careworn through use.
‘Are you feeling better?’ asked
one of the more caring, or daring students.
‘Back to one hundred per cent
b******,’ assured Louis, getting a rare laugh.
‘Don’t all laugh, I’ve been marking essays. Kayleigh – your handwriting has deteriorated
alarmingly. Is your PC broken? Well get
it fixed! I can’t read your scrawl. Sort it out, please.’
Don't worry, no slushy romance between Luma and Laura. At least I don't remember writing any such thing. One supposes time and more extracts will tell.
Shot Down In Flames
You ought to recall that, yesteryon, we were analysing that rather effective sci-fi horror cheapie "Fiend Without A Face" and Jim, of the 'Monster Attacks!' podcast postulated that it's invisible monsters might have had an influence upon "Forbidden Planet". Art!
"Skipper! The blasted thing's invisible!"
Sorry but NO. NO! FP came out in 1956, whilst FWAF came out in 1958. Nice try, but you got the wrong tent.
Finally -
I cannot promise not to refer to the Ukrainian Special Military Unpleasantness in future blogs, because this is the biggest thing in Europe since 1945. We've had internal revolutions within the Warsaw Pact, and the tortuous bloodshed within Former Yugoslavia, yet nothing on this scale. From the other end of Europe it seems like a fantastical make-believe, bar the fact that it's out-and-out war. And all the Commieboos and Krasnaboos who were all "The Ruffian Army is just so monstrously effective and terrifying and -" on Youtube are mysteriously silent all of a sudden.
Besides which, it's just SO satisfying to tweak Dimya's tail and make him cry.
"Why, Conrad, why? Why do you hate me so much?***"
* 'Unept'. Many time worse than 'inept'.
** Possibly some exaggeration here.
*** Take a seat whilst I brew a pot of tea and toast some bread
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