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Monday, 22 August 2022

Conrad Pontificates Again!

Or, Business As Usual

I did wonder where the morning had gone, until realising that I'd been reading and answering questions on Quora - more of that later - looking at Youtube stories and updates, doing a couple of Codewords and YES you will hear about that later, then finishing off Peter Caddick-Adams "Monte Cassino".  So, Rob - my Sunday best name used when interacting with humans - I told myself, that's where it went.  Art!

"Fury Road" for absolutely no reason

     Here's an interesting bit of statistics.  BOOJUM! has an audience in Ukraine, as seen below.  Art!     


      That's 139 Ukrainians with taste and discretion, as opposed to 3 Ruffians.  To be fair, if the FSB caught a Ruffian reading the blog, it would be a case of Say Hello Gulag within the hour.

     ANYWAY none of that, of course - obviously! - has anything to do with what I was going to bloviate about in this intro, which was a look at how horrid the battles for Monte Cassino were.  Yes, war is essentially an horrid business, but there are degrees to it.  Art!


     The title is a bit of a misnomer, as there was fighting on mountain peaks and ranges all around Cassino, which is where the 'Hellish' bit comes in.  Fighting in mountains adds another layer of misery to combat, firstly because the terrain prevents digging-in unless you have copious explosives and power drills, the latter an item in short supply in an infantryman's backpack.  Secondly, the weather at height is universally worse than at sea level.  Thirdly, there are no roads traversing mountainsides, since nobody is daft enough to get to the top for absolutely no reason.  This means supplies come up either carried by human hand or via mule companies; there were thousands of mules in use behind Allied lines to get supplies delivered.  Art!

A British sangar

     Note how this defensive position has been built upwards using rocks, rather than being dug downward.

     One is minded of another war zone in Italy, during the First Unpleasantness, where they faced the Hapsburg army in the northern mountains, at heights even greater than at Cassino.  Again, trenches had to be excavated out of solid rock by engineers with power tools, and roads had to be blasted and drilled out of the mountainside, as well as a resort to telepherage systems.  Art!


     Back to Cassino.  The Teutons had the advantage of excellent defensive positions, especially after the Abbey was bombed into a giant pile of fantastic fighting positions.  The Allies, on the other hand, could and did call upon immense amounts of air power and artillery, so much so in the former that their bombings severely hampered advances on the ground.

     Reading about miserable, frozen, wet soldiers sitting in sangars with no hot food or dry clothing whilst sitting comfortably in an armchair sipping tea and eating olives and feta makes one OUTSTANDINGLY grateful that they did it so we don't have to.  Art!

The Polish War Cemetery at Cassino
"They gave their today for your tomorrow"


Quora

Conrad is unsure quite how he stumbled across this INCREDIBLY time-consuming site, where people post questions that are answered by other Quora members, known as "Quorans".  Art!



     There doesn't seem to be any kind of filter, so you get some staggeringly stupid questions asked.  For example: "What's 'krya-krya' in Russian?"  It got an answer - 'Quack quack the noise a duck makes'.  That's actually quite sensible compared to some, like "Is Russia going to invade Alaska?"*.

     The thing is, every question and answer leads to more questions and answers, and by the time my 'O I'll just look at it for five minutes' is up I've spent two hours there.


     Just as an aside, to let you know, I may have to venture down to Babylon-Lite because that seeded wholemeal loaf is showing signs of mould after buying it less than a week ago.  The struggle is meal.


More Post-Apocalyptic Telly

This is Number Nine on the list, and once again a series I'd never heard of before: "The Last Man On Earth".  This is a genre with an established history in fiction, all the way back to "The Purple Cloud" in 1901 and seen in cinematic version "The Quiet Earth".  Art!

Yeah, notice how they don't say "Person"

     Let me investigate a little more.  Back in two ticks.

     Okay, it's a comedy.  Hmmmm not sure about that.  The protagonist Mike, as seen above, thinks he's the last man on earth after a devastating global pandemic kills off everybody else.  That's pretty bleak.  Where are the laughs in that?  Ah, you see, he then encounters other survivors and they have all sorts of hilarious japes that include killer cannibals, nuclear power plant meltdowns and feral children.  Also, Mike is quite a bottomhole.  Probably going to give this one a miss as I'm busy watching "Lawrence of Arabia" for now.


And, Speaking Of Violence In The Desert ...

Let's get right back to "The Sea Of Sand" where young Sarah Jane had gotten herself head-over-heels in trouble.  Let's see if The Doctor can do any better.

Nine:  From The Depths

The Doctor pondered mutely whilst driving, trying to reach an understanding of what the garrison at Mersa Martuba had undergone.

     An assault, certainly.  But by Italian 'infernal engines'?  Ridiculous!  The technology involved in creating those vehicles was at least several centuries beyond current human capability.  Then there was the dreadful killing mechanism involved; he wasn't familiar with that, a method that reduced human beings to dessicated bundles of stringy waste.  From what Roger said, a similar fate had befallen the workers at the dig before war even started, a fact that made The Doctor feel even less satisfied.  Manipulation of time vectors could produce a similar end result, except he hadn't felt the slightest hint of interference in the fifth dimension.

     No, there was an alien influence at work here, one that the Time Lords on Gallifrey deemed important enough to diver the TARDIS and have him intervene in.

     "Nincompoops," he muttered to the empty air.  Things would be so much simpler if only they'd given him a clue.  "Hands-off deniability," he huffed.

     The Chevrolet ploughed into the sands that indicated the beginning of the dune sea, and The Doctor slowed the big truck, gradually bringing it to a halt facing back the way he'd come.  You couldn't be too careful - getting back that way in a hurry might be important.

     Conrad reckons that's a touch of Chekhov's Gun right there.  Well, we shall see shortly.


A Memento Of Yesteryon

Yesterday we visited Darling Daughter in Northenden, as a post-event celebration of Your Humble Scribe hitting 61, and I got five packs of Darjeeling Tea, which is most welcome as I can't get a discount on them at Sainsbo's any longer.  I didn't take a photo of them so you'll just have to take this on trust.  I did take one of Sal and Tom, and here it is.  Art!


     Tom looking a right hippy now that he doesn't need to trim either his locks or beard thanks to not having to wear a gas-mask any longer at work**.


Finally -

The weather has proven to be clammy, wet and unpleasant today.  O how grateful Conrad is that we went to the pub yesteryon and got a chance to sit and sup outside.  Mind you, this means the drought is over.  Sal and Tom are hoping the weather holds until late September, when they have their last LARP event of the year, because being wet, cold and muddy never enhances your game.



*  Hint: no.

**  It's a long story.

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