Disgusting But Dangerless

Gather Round And Hear Of My Fungal Toe!

Come to think of it, 'Fungal Toe' would be a good name for a death-metal band, one who do covers of Black Rebel Motorcycle 

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe had an appointment with the Podiatry Nurse this morning, who examined my scrofulous big toe and declared 'Nothing to worry about, flower' before taking tin shears to it and trimming it back like a hedge.  There were only the two of us present, which was a good thing as toenail trimmings were flying like shrapnel.  Getting one of those in your eye would seriously crimp your day.  Art!

Fungal toe is disgustrous.  Have a shrapnel shell instead

     Here an aside.  Did you know that the shrapnel shell is so-named because it was invented by Lieutenant Shrapnel?  Honestly.  He was a bright-eyed ensign who put his own time and money into developing this novel munition.  Previously the Royal Artillery had spherical shot or canvas bags of 'canister' rounds for use against hostile party guests.  Lt. Shrapnel had the bright idea of filling a spherical case shot with the canister rounds, which would burst at a distance.  The Royal Artillery were delighted with this innovation; their French opponents considerably less so.  Art!

<Lament in French>

     They promoted Shrapnel to Major for his trials and tribulations

     ANYWAY going back even further, Your Humble Scribe had set his alarm for seven in order to have a shower and thus present his toes in their best possible light, which plan was sabotaged by him promptly falling asleep again, and only awakening just in time to make the appointment.

     Here another aside.  'Sabotage' derives from a French word 'Saboter', which meant 'to bungle or otherwise mess things up on purpose'.  There is an urban legend that it referred to Belgian industrial workers retaliating against their employers by hurling one of their wooden sabots (or shoes or clogs) into machinery to halt production.  Art!

     This is stupid for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, imagine a gigantic twenty-ton steam hammer; then imagine how incredibly ineffective a small wooden shoe would be against it in operation, and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

Nope

     Then, too, management would instantly know who was to blame BECAUSE THEY'D BE WALKING AROUND WITH ONLY ONE CLOG.  Way to get both fired and sued!

     Where were we?  O yes, sabots - we've mentioned these before in the context of the Royal Artillery again, because Perfidious Albion invented the Armour-Piercing Discardable Sabot round for anti-tank use in the Second World 'Special' Military Operation.  Art!

     The 'sabot' in this case was a frangible shoe around the armour-piercing projectile, which meant all that surface area to accelerate the core with, focussed on a very small cross-section; the sabot fractured upon firing but stayed held together in the barrel.  The Royal Artillery were delighted with this innovation; their Teuton opponents considerably less so.

     And there we have the tale of my toe.  Motley, strike up those Norwegians and bring out the inverted crosses!

Bring On The Sleazy Underbelly!

Yes yes yes, this may be mixing metaphors.  Once again, whose blog is it?  Okay, another photograph from the BBC's collection of 'LA Noir', which if Art -

Follies

     Skating a little close to the edge here, but notice that these ladies are wearing at least a bit of clothing.  It seems that, as the night wore on, they would wear less and less, from not a lot in the first place.  You can bet every one of these women arrived in Los Angeles intending to become the next big thing in films.  Hmmmm yeah honey you and ten thousand others.  If I recall correctly, David Niven had a chapter in one of his autobiographies dealing with just this subject, which was sad rather than salacious.

'Countdown'

I've created a Google tab for this film but, thanks to gin and old age, cannot remember why.  Art!

     It's the story of an emergency accelerated Moon landing project, created to beat the Sinisters to a lunar landing; only one man will go up, with minimal resources, to rendevous on the lunar surface with a supply capsule.  When Apollo arrives months later, they'll retrieve him.  Since the Sinisters send up civilians, the South Canadians select a civilian, too - see above.  Art!

     

Moon 1 Sinisters 0

    Of course it all goes horribly wrong - if everything went right it would be fifty minutes long - and the original ending would have been a lot bleaker than the one the studio imposed.  You see, the director was Robert Altman, who is known for having his characters talk over each other; the studio were horrified at this and fired him just as he was sitting down to edit it.

     Still unsure why I tabbed it.

Gore And More "Tormentor"

Don't fret so, we've nearly reached the end.  As you ought to recall, Luma was having a showdown with a couple of the possessed.

The second kidnapper, a stranger to Louis, didn’t have a gun.  Only brute strength and speed.  The man rushed at him, arms outstretched, lacing fingers around his neck and began to crush with inhuman strength.

               Black blinds fluttered inwards at the edge of Louis’s vision, accompanied by swarms of electric dots.  No way to draw breath –

               Instead he produced his masquerading mobile phone, the big clunky model that the police had ignored during their search of his house; produced it and gripped the contact switches and rammed the disguised German stun-gun against his attacker.

               The feedback was so intense it hit him almost as hard as the possessed.  Louis found himself grovelling on the ground, drawing breath in great racking whoops and looking at the twitching, convulsing form of his assailant prone on the ground.  Both attackers were hors de combat, for the moment at least.

               Pushing very hard indeed against the ground enabled him to lurch unsteadily across the cold hard pitch and into the bushes, where Yvonne caught him up.

               ‘Get into the car,’ he slurred.  Angela and Dave were there already.  Yvonne helped him stagger into the back seat while Dave got the engine running.

               ‘One of them’s approaching,’ warned Yvonne.

               Dave revved the engine and wound  down his window.  Louis looked to where a rustling in the bushes announced the approach of a spirit.

     So now we know what the exotic Teuton import was.  Curiosity satisfied.

Finally -

More military musings on Dimya's 'O So Special' Military Operation.  Your Humble Scribe was delighted to see a familiar name in "The Daily Beast"'s reporting: Peter Caddick-Adams, described by them as a military historian.  Well, yes, and he also served in the British army as an officer, so knows whereof he talks.  Ol' Pete was not flattering about the Ruffian performance to date.  Let me nick a quote:  “Thus, what Russia did not learn from Syria was how to coordinate an all arms battle (artillery, armor, anti-tank, air defense, infantry, engineers, etc) at high tempo in complex terrain with aircraft of different types, helicopters, airborne and marine troops, with a well-balanced logistics and supply system—which is what they have needed for Ukraine"

     Ol' Pete also points out that Ruffian commanders in Syria got into a very bad habit of chatting to each other via mobiles, which was fine when your opponents have nobody who can speak Ruffian nor any means of intercepting messages.  Against the Ukes this has been a literal death sentence for Ruffian generals.  I think they've now lost eleven, which is half of the number they began this SMO with.  If it carries on at this rate they won't have any commanders for what's left of their army.