Multimule

If It Wasn't A Word Before, It Is Now

Get used to it.  After I take over there will be a whole book of new words and phrases that you'll need to know, and YES there will be tests.  For what it's worth, I shall be merciful and anyone who fails will be given the choice of Total Organ Donation or a life sentence in the uranium mines*.  No, no, don't thank me.

     ANYWAY I have recently been perusing my latest purchase of Peter Caddick-Adam's fine work on the Cassino campaign in Italy during the Second Unpleasantness.  Art!

     Don't laugh.  Ol' Pete was an army officer and served in Bosnia and Iraq on the staff, so he has more right to wear a Brodie-pattern helmet than you or I.

     ANYWAY one point he makes is that the terrain around Cassino was so awful that wheeled or tracked vehicles couldn't negotiate it, so there was enormous demand for mules as transport.  Yes, mules, "The sterile offspring of a donkey and a horse" as the Collins Concise has it.  Art!

     "There's our theme for today!" crowed Conrad.  "Mules!"

     Mulish Footwear.  Conrad had to look this up in the Collins Concise because, as we all know, he has 0% fashion knowledge, which would be into minus figures if he didn't know what a sock and tee-shirt were.  'Mules' are footwear that lack any kind of support to the heel of the wearer, a backless shoe if you will.  Art!

Probably a lot pricier than a proper full shoe

     Not very sensible for This Sceptred Isle, given the amount of rain we experience.

     Let the theme continue!

     In "Para Handy Tales" The Tar - responsible for cooking aboard 'The Vital Spark' - makes the discovery of corned beef, which he serves as often as he can get away with, as it's a lot easier than cooking a beef joint.  MacPhail, the engineer, drolly christens it 'Malleable Mule' which is casting aspersions on Fray Bentos, matey.  Art!

Made of Marvellously Munchable Mule

     But wait - there's more.  For we have the Spinning Mule, which is not an equine affliction equivalent to Mad Cow Disease.  No, it's a piece of industrial machinery for - Art!

     Clearly this was designed to sharpen safety pins by the tens of thousands in order to underpin (do you see what I did th - O you do) the English textile-repair trade 

     IGNORE THAT!  Mister Hand the treacherous appendage has been interfering.  No, the spinning mule was designed and intended to process textiles from fibres into yarns, and was enormously widespread up until the twentieth century.  A few are still in use for work with very expensive textiles like alpaca.

     Whilst on the subject of machinery, say hello to the Mechanical Mule - Art!

     This is the M274 4x4 utility platform, as used by the South Canadian army and Marines, great for gadding about with too much kit for one person to carry.  You could dismount, move the steering wheel backwards and walk behind it, driving it forward if you felt the need to.  Art!

No, it didn't come in a tricycle version, this one is manfully carrying on whilst missing a wheel.  What a trouper.

     And then we have The Mule, that super-powered mutant who threatens to overthrow Hari Seldon's thousand-year plan in Isaac Asimov's "The Foundation".  Art?

     <excuse me, grooving to a corking song by The Doors playing on my i-pod, unsure which one because it's only displaying album titles - ah - 'Spanish Caravan'? possibly.  Very impressive!>

     ANYWAY The Mule is put forward as an existential threat, except - if he's a mule, he cannot breed, can he, so his reign will end when he ends, won't it?  Subtle resistance methods would be to feed him high-cholesterol foods laden with saturated fats, five times a day.  That'd see him off.

     Then, finally - because some of you are whimpering with terror - we have the immortal Bob Blackman, who sang 'Mule Train' on TISWAS.  His gimmick was that, during the chorus, and to emphasise the rhythm and syncopation, he would wallop himself over the head with a tea-tray.  Art!

     Conrad is unaware how they got away with this, except to say it was back in the Eighties, when Health & Safety was less scrupulous, and concussion was acceptable on children's Saturday morning television.

     Corks.  We've gone on about this rather, haven't we?  Bring on a change of subject!

"The Sea Of Sand"

Let's not beat about the carefully-curated topiary.

4) The Sinews of War –

 To everything there is a season, said Captain Dobie to himself.  Ecclesiates, however, did not provide guidance and advice on mysterious and suspicious strangers.

          The Captain heaved a dramatic sigh.  He looked at the framed photograph of his wife on the grimy desktop, hoped that all was well at home, unconsciously rubbed his sternum and looked at the – call them “detainees” – who stood in front of him.

          Corporal Mickleborough had marched the two suspects into the sandbagged mud shack and stated that they had been found out in the desert, alone, sir, with no water or transport, sir, and might they be spies, sir?

          The Captain looked at his paperwork with fond appreciation.  Why, only four months ago he’d been happily doing paperwork for 4^th Corps around Brighton, tabulating march columns.  Now he was out in the hideous trackless wastes of North Africa, baking his brains out, likely to be killed at any moment, and now he had to deal with – with –

          ‘Who are you people, exactly?’ he asked, fiddling with his moustache.  ‘No transport, no paperwork, no documents.  You could be spies.’

     And that's enough of that.  Keeping it short and sweet.

Back To Nature

And the last of the BBC's photographic exhibition on the theme of 'Nature'.  Art!

Courtesy Tom. St. George

     These are underwater caves in Mexico, which look spectacular, and also worryingly dangerous and difficult to access, so there is no prospect of Conrad's colossal bulk being squeezed into them, which will gratify the photographer, who says they are at risk thanks to tourism**.

Go On Then

Another single photograph from "The War Illustrated" because there's not a lot of room left thanks to the ridiculously long Intro.  Honestly, sometimes Conrad wishes we had an editor here, who could lay down the law and co-ordinate input better.  Steve and Oscar just won't cut it.

     ANYWAY 

     This page aptly mentions that these ships - escort carriers - were being used to hunt down Teuton u-boats, and by the time this edition came out the u-boats had lost the battle of the Atlantic.  Shipping losses suffered by the Allies had dropped dramatically, whilst the u-boats were being sunk in forbidding numbers.  Escort carriers, also nicknamed 'Jeep' carriers, were small and had a limited complement of aircraft as compared to the big boys.  However, they could be produced en masse and were, which helped to provide convoys with air cover, and also formed the core of hunter-killer groups that actively sought out u-boats.  Here we see three being readied for launch, which is three times more aircraft carriers than the Teutons had.

Finally -

Finished watching "The Umbrella Academy" Season Three last night, and it tied up most of the loose threads, for which thanks.  We still need another season at least to finalise this new timeline.  Yeah, time-travel is tricky stuff, The Doctor reminds me every time we meet, as if he knows anything about it!

*  PPE = a giant nappy.  Capable of reaching the shoulders, to spare ladies their modesty.

**  Masochists with death wishes.