Or, More Accurately, With Doggy Bark
Edna, you see, gets agitated and whimpery at wildly-different times of the morning. She might be a sluggard and remain abed until 10:00, or, as with today, decide that 06:15 is when everyone else needs to get up and start paying attention to her.
That will end today, as The Mansion is going to be fully-staffed when the travellers return and Your Humble Scribe has the day to himself. Mostly. Art!
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| Queen of all she surveys |
Because that would have been the shortest Intro for years, I feel impelled to answer the question I asked myself this morning: who invented the vending machine, and when? I know, I know, you'd expect the answer to be in the Thirties.
WRONG!
Okay, imagine you are standing in line within the precincts of the temple, and you go to get a cup of holy water and - Dog Buns! The thoughtless and greedy swine ahead of you have guzzled the lot.
Enter the aptly-named Hero Of Alexandria. Art!
Either ingeniously simple or simply ingenious
You dropped a coin in at the top, which landed on a plate, causing it to dip and pull a chain, that unplugged the out spigot and you got your holy water. The plate continued to dip until the coin fell off, at which point the chain dropped the plug back into the out spigot. Enter the vending machine in 100 AD*.
What you might call the "Vending Machine Age" began in the early nineteenth century, with machines that dispensed stamps or newspapers. What really took off were post-card vending machines, from 1880 onwards. The Teutons, with typical thoroughness, realised this was a promising market and retailed chocolate in 1893 from 15,000 machines across the land. Art!
What we now associate most with vending machines, bottled or canned soft drinks, did indeed come to be in the Thirties, with the evillllll Coca-Cola corporation ensuing it's dominance over Hom. Sap. by sucking out the souls provided refrigerated bottles. Art!
Nowadays, nearly a hundred years later, you can probably get vending machines that sell vending machines. I wonder -
This one sells pizzas. Okay. How about -
Mashed potato. Right, this is getting silly, we're going to stop there. Apart from an observation from Jonathan Swift that a man was perfectly entitled to have bottles of poison in his home, but he'd better not "Vend them about like cordials."
More Of The "Other America"
That's the phrase that Kyle, the Geography King, came up with for areas of South Canada so steeped in poverty that they are effectively third-world status. He explained at the beginning of his video that his intent is not to mock or gloat, rather to inform his viewers - including fellow South Canadians - that these are places they will never visit or see themselves. Art!
By far the worst area of rural deprivation is the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Kyle was somewhat stunned to realise that a burned-out bus was indeed a residence, because it had an electricity meter on the side that was active. People live in cars - Art!
As you should so surely know by now, Conrad is reading "Brothers In Arms" by James Holland, about the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry from D-Day onwards. He might come up with a prequel, as they were in at the very beginning of the war up to the very end.
ANYWAY the SRY at this time in 1944 were putting in attacks on the Teuton town of Geilenkirchen. There, the enemy constituted the weather and terrain just as much as the Teutons. Art!
Not the SRY but hopefully you get the idea. The mud was so glutinous and deep that many tanks bogged down and were irretrievable; it speaks volumes to the amount of logistical back-up the Allies had that these tanks were simply abandoned, because once the ground froze they were stuck for good.
Remember this when you get caught in the rain outside on a soggy grass verge; at least nobody is shooting at you whilst you struggle in ankle-deep mud.
"Set In Scotland"
Let us sooth the soul with a look at another Hollywood film location in Scotland, since it ups the word count and there's still plenty left. Art!
Doune castle
As used by the Monty Python team in "Monty Python And The Holy Grail" waaaaay back in 1975. The team were working on a small budget and had to film, light and dress this single castle to look as if it were multiple different locations. Their intent had been to film in different Scottish castles, to which the Scottish authorities, probably highly suspicious about exactly what these bizarre Sassenachs were up to, said "No".
"The Sea Of Sand"
The British survivors are now all being put together as prisoners in the same location, whilst the Italian officer in charge glowers darkly about the insane English.
He plucked a sledgehammer from the side of the Sahariana and strode over to the side of the wretched Black Tank, taking his annoyance out on the friable vehicle until he stood ankle-deep in black glass fragments.
The three British soldiers and Sara were hugely pleased to meet other British survivors, less pleased to hear about the resurgent aliens at Makin Al-Jinni, and both alarmed and inspired by the Doctor's declared intent.
"Doctor Smith seems both headstrong and - I don't know how to put this - excessively well-informed? about these creatures, Miss Smith," observed Roger.
"You don't need to worry about him betraying you or selling out," replied Sarah, snappily. "He would never do that, never!"
Her insistence came from long experience, in the most dire situations imaginable. How easy would it have been for the Doctor - and her and Harry - to have simply abandoned Space Station Nerva and left it to the Wirn. Instead he had put his life in peril, repeatedly, to help humans. And why did the Doctor exist in this particular incarnation? Because he had helped the humans of Metabelis Three escape the thrall of their arachnid slave-masters, at the expense of his own life. Nearly.
"I quite agree," said Albert. "Even if nobody asked me. I trust him."
"So you warned the Eyeties what's going to happen, and they didn't believe you?" asked Roger. Both Albert and the Professor shook their heads.
Feisty young wench, isn't she!
Finally -
As the 'Special Military Operation' in Ukraine grinds on, the Ukrainians are now obviously winning. I calculated that in April the Ruffians held 27% of all Ukraine; with the liberation of Kherson, that total is now down to about 15%, possibly a little less. Thus they have lost nearly half of the territory they controlled at the height of their invasion. Peter The Average is now making noises about how he's willing to negotiate. Too late, mate. You have far less to bargain with than you had before.
Not only that, he's got no way out of this mess. His BFF Trump looks likely to be fitted for an orange jumpsuit in 2023. All Bloaty Gas Tout could do was cross his fingers and hope it would be a long, hard, bitter winter.
Ooops.
How that warms the cockles of my fusion-powered pumping unit.
And with that, we are done!
* Of course, thinking like Conrad, you could always try sticking a long thin rod down the coin slot to get endless free holy water.
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