Copping Out

 Yes, Gentle Reader

No new content for you for New Year's Eve, for several reasons.  First of all, though, we need an aptly click-baity picture to entice the passers-by to pause and peruse.  Art!

     I know it looks like something designed to cut the Terminator's hair.  It is actually a Churchill Mine Plough, which would dig up mines and render them as harmless as potatoes.  In theory.  I don't think I'd like to be a crewman in one of these chariots.

     ANYWAY I have only just sat down to a well-deserved pizza, after having done the weekly shop post-work.  I am back in the office tomorrow, from 08:15 to at least 16:15, so there's no opportunity to work on BOOJUM!  And NO I am not going to get up at 05:30 to create the blog before heading out to the bus stop at 07:10.

     On with the links!

2021

BOOJUM!: The Foggy Foggy Blew (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Brain-Panning (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: USAFunny (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Gun Jesus Snickers (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Rubber Soul (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Don't Look back In Bangor (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: My Life As A Dot (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: A Look Back & Sal No Mobarak! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2013

BOOJUM!: Conrad Predicts - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

LOTHER

I Know What You're Thinking

NO!  I keep telling you, I returned D.A.R.P.A.'s Telepathy Helmet prototype years ago, it was only a <crosses fingers> 'long-term borrow' as they say.

     No, the reason I know what you're thinking is that 1) Conrad's thought processes are dark and mysterious, even to himself, so 2) quite what he means at any given moment has a substantial true/false/gibberish gestalt about it.

     So, what you're thinking is "What on earth is the gin-sodden old hack on about now?"

     Pausing only to point out that 'old' is a hugely subjective judgement issue, I shall explicate.  Art!

Conrad suspects those are a .303 and a .50 calibre Vickers

     Yes, it does look vaguely offensive - in the moral sense, of course it's offensive, it's a Dog Buns tank!

     So, you are wondering if today's title is a mis-spelling, or an alternative spelling, of "LUTHER", you know, because of both Martin and Lex.  Art!

     I presume, hugely, that you don't need to be told whom is whom?  Excellent!

     Also, completely on the wrong track.  Nope, nothing to do with either man.

     'Well, then,' I hear you dubiously retort.  'Variant spelling of "LOTHAIR"?  The Teutonic name?"

     There's an interesting story to go with LOTHAIR.  Lothair II was king of his kingdom of Lotharingia, married to Queen Teutberga, who seems to have either given or taken her name from the Teutoberger Wald (forest to you and I),  and was the daughter of <ahem> 'Boso The Elder'.  Honestly, I'm not making this up.  Art!

     Over time, 'Lotharingia' became 'Lorraine', a bone of contention between Prussia and France.

     O and - WRONG AGAIN!

     No, you see LOTHER is Conrad's admittedly slightly-cheaty way of referring to "Lord Of The Rings".  Which he is watching again, and may come back to bore you with details thereof, since I've been listening to the Director/Writer's Commenatary.

     ANYWAY Conrad and LOTHER go back a long way.  A long, long way.  You see, when Conrad was a mere sprout of a lad, in primary school, our class teacher Mister Walker would spend the last 30 minutes of Friday afternoon reading aloud from a book, and in the last term before we in his class finished primary and moved on to secondary, he - very ambitiously - chose LOTHER.

     To say that Your Humble Scribe was bowled over by this book is an understatement akin to saying Chlorine Triflouride is a bit dangerous to work with.  I don't think we got further than the Barrow Wights, when Tom Bombadil comes to the rescue like a single plump cavalryman, before school finished.

     Naturally I went to Mum and Dad- Art!

             Mum                                                                                      Dad

     - and pestered them to see if I could get the novel out of our local library.

     Well, no.  It was in the Adult section and so they had to sign it out - except that 'it' turned out to be three immense hardbacks.  Art!

     Each was about a foot tall, and, best of all, they came with REAL FOLD-OUT MAPS!  You know how Conrad likes his maps.  The ones in paperback editions are all sketched onto the page, BAH!  What's more, these volumes can't have been loaned out that much, because there were no holes or tears in the maps, which inevitably happens to a much-used map.  Take my FWW map of Ypres, as used by the Royal Engineers - lots of ballpoint pen and highlighter marks and very frayed along the folds.

     If you're curious, and even if you're not, then the three above are available from an Oxfam bookshop, for the not inconsequential sum of £400.

     Conrad is tempted ...

     <wallet squeaks in anguish>

     So, in future, if you see LOTHER again, it won't be a mystery to you.

The James Webb Space Telescope

Conrad has enthusiastically reported on this piece of science-fiction kit that started up in serious operation this year.  It is, if you like, a Hubble for the Twenties hopefully through to the Forties.  Yes, it cost £6 billion, but remind me how much money is squandered on the ballfoot game each year?

     ANYWAY the BBC, in it's sorta looking back over the year, brought up some brilliant images created by JWST.  Art!

     This is the famous 'Pillars Of Creation' picture as taken by Hubble.  JWST operates in a different spectrum, so it's view is markedly different.  Art!

     A very different look!  All down to a different spectr - actually better not say that word aloud, Cloudbase are always listening in.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Rather than the sea of space.  O how poetic!

Shadows were lengthening and the sun sinking by the time the Sahariana reached the rendezvous in the wadi.  Tam drove without lights, deeming the jarring and bumping they suffered due to lack of illumination more than compensated by the stealth provided.

Approaching at a crawl, all three were surprised to see another Sahariana parked alongside the Chevrolet.

‘Welcome back!’ greeted Sarah, waving and smiling brightly, an expression which dimmed the instant she saw how dejected the three men were.

‘How did that get here?’ asked Roger, pointing at the newly-arrived desert car.

‘Simple.  I drove it,’ said the Doctor, jumping down from the rear of the Bedford.  ‘What news of your relief column?’

The young officer’s brows darkened.

‘Wiped out.  Either rendered unconscious and taken away or – or drowned in molten glass.’

Sarah shuddered.

‘How horrid!’

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at Roger’s news.

‘ “Molten glass”?  Let me guess, the sands were suddenly rendered liquid?  Hmm.  Yes.  An inducted geo-thermal pulse, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Nobody within earshot understood what this meant, so the Time Lord clarified a little.  Not too much, he didn’t want these humans thinking he was equally a threat.

     Now they're all one big happy party.  Minus the 'happy'.

"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

And, having praised them, praise them again - or so runs the refrain here on the blog, because we like having things rhyme.

     This is actually a work from South Canada, written by notable SC scribe James Agee and illustrated by photographer Walker Evans.  Their brief was to mingle with poor South Canadian sharecropper families during the Great Depression and report on their lives.  Art!

     This is the anti-Waltons.  These people don't have enough money for shoes, let alone a car.  Agee's work has since been recognised as a work of considerable power, illuminating how people mired in poverty retained their pride and dignity as human beings.  It's worth a read but it's not easy going.

Moving Swiftly Along -

We've not had the room nor opportunity to list an entry from "The War Illustrated", so allow me to remedy that.  Art!

     This monstrous piece of ordnance is the 17 pounder anti-tank gun, introduced by Perfidious Albion in 1943 as a counter to the heavier Teuton tanks that were appearing on the battlefield.  You see, This Sceptred Isle was perfectly capable of planning ahead, foreseeing problems and coming up with solutions.  The picture at top shows ones of these beasts in the field; note the comparatively low profile, making it easier to hide and harder to spot.  Well, at least before firing the first shot, because the enormous muzzle-blast instantly threw up a cloud of debris.  At bottom you have a skilled artificer carefully lathing one of these Freudian archetypes into shape.

Finally -

Conrad needs food!  Out of my way!

FTX!

You Know We Have A Pretty Strict SFW Policy Here

So no, that's not some foul acronym as used by guttersnips (which are even worse than guttersnipes), although in future in the scamble market that is crypto-currency it may well become one.  For why? I hear you enquire.  Well, because a boatload of money, at least $7 billion, has gone missing from their accounts.  I know we usually present currency in Pounds Sterling, it's just that with sums this large it doesn't really make a difference.  Art!

     This is Sam's current residence: Fox Hill Prison, in the Bahamas.  It is a giant hovel infested with vermin, including rats, where people sleep six to a cell.  The Bahamanians seem to feel that criminals deserve to languish in misery for being bad, with none of that snowflake nonsense about 'rehabilitating' them; if you do the crime and get caught you are jolly well going to suffer.

     It's enough of a dim demesne that Sam Bankman-Fried felt down in the mouth about it, which is only natural when you're used to a $40 million penthouse in an exclusive club, and he (rather petulantly) claimed to be unwell and depressed, so he needed special vegan food and comfy pillows, neither of which he got.  Remember!  Bad in Bahamas means Belaboured!  Art!

     But!  Lucky Sam has only just been extradited back to South Canada, where he probably won't encounter rats and roaches.  He can get bail - IF he ponies up $250 million, which his parents have agreed to underwrite with their house and savings.  If it goes to trial, SBF is facing a sentence of 115 years.  Legal Eagle has a longer analysis of 24 minutes that I may also watch.

     And guess what!  Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, two of SBF's partners in crime, have now been arrested.  Their bail is set at (ha!) only $250,000, and both have pleaded guilty.  Ol' Cas', bless her, was looking at a sentence of 110 years before apparently making a plea bargain, so she might get out of jail only shortly after becoming eligible for a pension.  Art!

     This craggy-faced bruiser is John Ray, a bankruptcy expert (who worked on the Enron case), who is the new CEO of FTX.  It's his job to oversee the bankruptcy process, and try to recover funds for the debtees.  He didn't mince words when speaking to the press about FTX, loudly declaring the whole business organisation to be a complete fraud.

      Here an aside.  Ol' Jo is being paid $1,300 per hour to act as CEO.  Yes, which is still quite modest compared to those modern money-leeches who call themselves 'lawyers', because the ones representing FTX are being paid up to $2,165 per hour for their work.  That's $346,000 in your monthly salary, considerably more than Your Humble Scribe gets, I can assure you.

     Thanks to Joe Blogs for the above outline!  Joe says this case is going to be complex thanks to the sheer amount of money involved, the number of investors who lost out, the incredibly obfuscating structure of FTX and the total lack of records.  We may not see an end to it until 2024.

     There is another question that only SBF can answer: why did he think he could get away with it?  I don't think simple greed is the answer, because otherwise he and his crooked cronies would have flown the coop a year ago, before anything started to go wrong.

Hmmm perhaps

Careful - Here Be Snakes!

Wellllll perhaps in a metaphorical sense.  That'll make more sense in a tad.

     You may remember Ukraine's Snake Island, a small but very strategically important island that sits off their coastline.  The Borcs had invaded and generally infested it until the Ukrainians, in a simply outstanding fashion, gradually blew them to bits until the last survivors fled (what was left of them).  Then the Ukrainians daringly set up their flag in a short venture onto the isle.  Ruffian trolls and fanboys still asserted that the island was really still Ruffian because it -

     O I say, what's this?  Why, it's the daring Will Ripley of CNN.  Art!

     He and his cameraman and a small unit of Ukrainian minders travelled there by small speedboat, the better to evade Ruffian reconnaissance aircraft.  Shame about the Bright Orange colouration.  Art!

     Note large, expensive destroyed Ruffian kit to port.  Will and his mate are the only journalists allowed onto the island since the Ukrainians liberated it, which is a double-edged sword of an achievement, because - Art!

     Due to the amount of Ruffian mines and booby-traps - those metaphorical snakes I mentioned - one has to be EXTREMELY careful about crossing ground.  Will and his mate are following in the footsteps of these soldiers with supreme caution.  Art!

     More destroyed Ruffian kit and a camouflaged Ukrainian bunker.  Art!

     This is getting a bit repetitive - more destroyed Ruffian kit.  You can see why NATO and Ukraine assessed that they lost 1 billion dollars-worth of kit on this stony little outcrop.

     Will and his mate left after an hour, to avoid rougher seas and potential Ruffian responses.

     I think that put us one-up on the Krembots and fanbois.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Continuing with martial themes.  Our plucky protagonists who survived or escaped from Mersa Martuba have witnessed the ghastly end of the British taskforce 'Murraycol'.

‘Can’t we do something, sir?’ asked Tam.  Roger shook his head, hating that they must stay away and isolated.

‘We’re in the middle of miles of sand, Corporal.  The instant we open fire, they’ll drop us into a pit of liquid glass.’

Tam chewed his nails and grimaced at the now departing aliens.

‘Okay.  Let’s get down there and see if anyone escaped or survived,’ ordered Roger.  There was no confidence in his voice.

The lack of expectation was justified.  No survivors remained.  Roger spent a full ten seconds staring at the two Daimlers, trapped like flies in amber, the top of their turrets a good three feet below the surface of their solid tomb, hatches ajar, tyres crushed and melted to sad dark remnants.

God, what it must be like, crushed and roasted alive by molten glass!

‘Sir, there’s rifles and tommy guns and grenades in the trucks. Should we get a few?’

‘Aqua,’ said Torrevechio, holding up a dozen canteens by their straps.

‘Yes.  What food you can find, too.’

They didn’t spend long salvaging from the vehicles; the heat radiated and reflected by and from the sand was intense, and they felt like looters.  Roger made sure to unseat a Bren gun from one of the carriers, and a wooden crate full of loaded magazines for the weapon.

     Brrrr not nice thoughts there.  Conrad clearly has a horrid imagination.

You What?

Conrad was perusing the BBC's News website when he came across a sidebar that caused his brow to furrow.  Art!

     Yes, that's a Welsh dragon atop a location sign in Argentina.

     Yes, there is a serious need for teachers fluent in Welsh to teach it in Argentina.

     The reason is that a considerable number of Welsh emigrated to Argentina in the mid-19th century, back when they spoke Welsh as their first language and English as a detested fall-back.  Their descendants kept the language alive and there's more interest in it than ever before.

     Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Finally -

O the torment!  As you should surely know by now, because I never stop harping on about it, Conrad works a long 11-hour day, and one of his motivators and guilty pleasures is getting an Xtra-large Kebab from Tony's Fish & Chips, which is about ten seconds away from my bus stop going home.

     NOT ANY MORE!

    The selfish swine are closed CLOSED I TELL YOU until 03/01/2023.

    Conrad demi-distraught.

Brown Alert!

Let Me Explain

It doesn't matter if you'd rather just crack on, it's my blog and I insist.

     Okay, what has a brown pelt, great big chisel-like incisors, webbed rear feet and a large flat hairless tail?

     No!  Not the Capybarya.  Mind you, not a bad guess.  Art!

Autonomous tank.  Smokin'!

     No, the animal we're talking about here is the North American Beaver.  You never know, the autonomous tank above might end up being called a 'Beaver', especially if it's amphibious.

     Why do I mention one of the staple fur-bearing creatures that propelled the fur trade in South Canada to economic heights hitherto undreamed of?

     Because of that YouTube warrior with a rake, Post 10.  You may recall that his major occupation is to drive around his part of South Canada and unclog drains and culverts with his Mighty Rake.  The bloke doesn't get paid to do this, his monetary compensation comes from his YT videos.  Art!

     

     This is a small lake where the beavers have cut down all the shoreline trees as raw material for constructing dams and clogs.  Said clogs have blocked the culverts draining the lake, meaning it now overflows onto the roadway, and given that it's now winter and very, very cold, the road now has a sheet of solid ice as a decorative overlay.

     Not a problem you experience here in the Pond Of Eden.

     The ice is so thick that you'd need explosives to clear the culvert entrances, not the kind of kit our hero totes around with him.  Let's look at a Brown Alert! from a more temperate time of year.  Art!

     This mound of crud blocks and obscures from sight a culvert, which means that water is going to back up and eventually flood the road.  This is the second time Post 10 and his cameraman have been to this pond, and the beavers clearly remember.  Art!

     Here you see Ol' Po unblocking the culvert, keeping a wary eye around for angry beavers, who have him under observation.  Note how big that beaver dam is, because he's still got a firm foundation to stand on whilst clearing the culvert entrance.  He informs us, the audience, that the brown perils will return and block the entrance again very quickly - their construction material is being left on the bank, after all - but by then the water level in the pond will have fallen significantly.  Art!

     By this point water is now flowing freely into the culvert.  The amount drained away means that the road won't get flooded immediately a storm arrives, so it's okay for a couple of months.  Art!

     That's the culvert outlet; from stagnant to streaming.

     Now you know the reason for today's title.  Conrad wonders what beaver tastes like when roasted?

You Know You're Getting Gouged When -

You end up paying 60x what an item is worth.  OTOH, if there's nobody else who can supply that product, and you're desperate, what choice do you have?

Weep salty tears for us, Dimya

     The inimitable Jake Broe, over on his vlog, brought to my attention a story about the Ruffians doing 'deals' with Iran.  I say 'deal' when in fact it's more akin to Blatantly Taking Advantage.  Let's come up with a picture, Art.

     The Su-35, you see (and I apologise for using dollars) comes in at $85 million each.  Not to mention the air defence systems, which we'll ignore in the interests of brevity.  So, the Ruffians are swapping $2 billion dollars-worth of aircraft for Shahed 136 drones.

     Which cost $20,000 each.

     This tells us that the Ruffians are paying 60 times the market price for these drones, of which about 80% get shot down.  It also tells us that Ruffia cannot manufacture this quite basic drone, thanks to sanctions.  What next - swapping an ICBM for a mangonel?  Art!

     Thanks for the update, Jake, bro.

Speaking Of Manglement ...

This one comes from Quora, where the Original Poster worked in the photo lab of a pharmacy, the lab being a Kodak franchise.  When he started the lab made between 10 to 12% of overall profit.  Over time he and his colleagues, by working their collective bottoms off and going all-out for quality, raised this to over 80% of the whole store's profits.  They were based in London and had business coming from the Midlands, because nobody else achieved quality like theirs.  Art!

     The inevitable happened.  They were bought out by a bigger firm, who decided that cutting corners was the way to go.  Cut cut cut!

     But but but!  There are consequences to actions.  The new owners fired the two counter staff.  Then they fired OP's assistant.  Then they fired OP.  Their idea seemed to be that the last counter assistant could do all the printing of photographs with the scanner.

     Except no.  He wasn't trained to work in the photo lab AT ALL.  He knew nothing about the chemicals or the technical equipment involved, plus he was colour-blind.  Not only that, the scanner's software had been disabled and the motherboard disconnected.  OP was the only person who knew how to remedy both.  Work standards and output plummeted because the two counter staff had done all that work, manually.

     Sooner rather than later, word got out to the customers that OP and his staff had been sacked.  Traffic instantly fell off a cliff.  Six weeks after OP was sacked the shop closed for good.  You can picture the new owners clutching themselves with greed and glee: "Sack four out of five staff and we reduce our wage bill by 80%!"  Art!

"And go out of business shortly after!"

More Of Brighty Lighty

Just as a counterpoint to spectacularly dim managers.  Let us see what the BBC has for us on this one.  Art!

     Courtesy Ulrike Myller.  This is a shipyard on the Kiel Canal at dawn, where you can contrast normal daylight with the actinic lights of artificial illumination.  Bright indeed!

"The Sea Of Sand"

Murraycol is about to be overwhelmed by the bio-vores, who seem adept at manipulating silicon dioxide in ghastly inventive ways.

Showing discretion and sense, the remaining black tanks, three of them, began to reverse.  Not before the second armoured car fired three shots, one hitting a victim squarely in the middle, splitting it in two like a lightbulb.  Bodies, living and dead, tumbled from the shattered halves.  Tracer rounds from the Daimler’s BESA machine-gun began to fall amongst the scattered survivors, bowling over several.

‘Excellente!’ muttered Torrevechio.  Roger felt a brief lifting of his spirits – maybe the column could hold off the aliens!

Unfortunately not.  Once again a great ripple of hot air went up from the column, merely from the rear this time, and the watchers saw both armoured cars completely submerge in a pool of liquid glass that focussed only on them.  The other vehicles of the convoy, with their limp occupants, remained where they were.

Tam broke into an unbroken stream of curses, whilst Torrevechio looked pale.  The gunner looked into Roger’s eyes and the young officer felt the other man’s pity.

‘Sorry,’ said the Italian, in English, shaking his head.

‘Hsst!  Those bloody monsters are coming on again!’ hissed Tam.

The two remaining bio-vore transports disgorged dozens of infantry, who moved forward in widely-dispersed lines.  By the time they reached the lake of glass it had cooled sufficiently for them to cross it.  The unconscious bodies of the helpless British soldiers were unceremoniously dragged away, to be stowed aboard the transports.

     -as mobile batteries for their captors.

Finally -

Conrad is back in the office tomorrow <sigh> another eleven-hour day, and with the weather as it has been, probably a long wet journey down Queensway, to say nothing of the 409 bus stop first thing.

Conradilletante

Ha!  Gotcha There

I was up at 09:30 this morning, and after the traditional day-off maundering about on teh Interwebz, I hailed me hence to the kitchen at 11:00 thinking "O I'll get lots of Intro done before 12 mid-day'.

     Of course that didn't happen.  I had breakfast to make, and then the laundry to sort out, and then OF COURSE - OBVIOUSLY! - there were several vlogs I had to check out as - as - er - Background Information!  Yeah, yeah, background information.  Art!

     That's a Churchill 'Ark' variant being used to bridge an incline too steep for other vehicles.  Nothing to do with anything, I just like the shot.

     ANYWAY yeah, one of those vlogs was from Suchomimus, an expatriate Brit from Nottingham who works in Taiwan and who had concentrated on vlogs about fossils before Peter The Average's Special Idiotic Operation.  Ol' Such has been having trouble with Youtube's algorithms, which reject lots of his stuff for no very clear reason.  He puts links within the content to his Patreon page, which displays the stuff YT won't allow. Art!

     That's Engels air base inside Ruffia getting a right pasting.  Incidentally, 'Engels' refers to Friedrich Engels, a very well-off Teuton socialist philosopher, who could afford to be radical.

     Why am I putting this in the Intro?  Because it has such serious implications for the VDV, the Ruffian air force, since Engels is where they base their Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers.  These are the Ruffian equivalent of the South Canadian's B-52.  Their primary role is to carry nuclear cruise missiles and retarded-delivery nuclear bombs; they are what the geeks like to call the 'air-breathing' part of the nuclear triad, and are frankly slumming it in blowing up Ukrainian apartment blocks.  Art!

Tu-160: a nice-looking bird

The rather less-attractive Tu-95

     There were only 36 Tu-160s and 42 Tu-95s in service when the SIO began, so not a lot of 'airframes' as the geeks like to call them.  There were a couple of 'Bears' (NATO name) damaged earlier in December at Engels, and Ukraine only recently seriously damaged 5 more, with 2 more being less critically banged-up.  Not only that, the Bear stopped being produced ages ago, so any damage cannot be repaired and Hey Pesto! the Ruffians are now down to 34 of them.  Another, Ukrainian source (to be taken with a dose of salts) alleges that 6 Tu-160s were damaged.  If true that's their numbers down to 30.  Art!

Sad?  Hungover?  Constipated?  Only you can tell!

     This is the chap who's going to have to make decisions about his strategic bomber force, which was not that large to begin with at 78 bombers.  If it's down to 64 that's 17% of Ruffia's strategic bombers lost, when they need all they've got because of Bloaty Gas Tout's constant threatening with the Big Nuclear Stick.

     In fact the facts are even worse, because 43 aircrew and base staff became casualties, supposedly because they were in the control tower being briefed, which is the equivalent of 4 bomber crews.  O, the control tower is a shattered remnant, too.  Art!

     Were I Shoggy I'd pull these irreplaceable airframes beyond the Ural Mountains to ensure no more got destroyed.  They should have done this after the earlier Ukrainian attack in December, instead of shrugging and carrying on under Business As Usual.  Well, now their nuclear triad deterrent has been seriously undermined.  Expect Petroleum Pimp to have a minion arrested and imprisoned.

     Yes, this Intro has been about the Special Idiotic Operation.  Once again, whose blog is it?

Conrad's Korean Cooking Continues

Note how I did not resort to the 'hilarious' use of the initial 'K' in any of that title.  Because we have some standards here.  Conrad's had a couple of pork chops sitting in the fridge, maturing, and decided to look and see if there were any decent Korean recipes for same.  Well yes!  Art!

     This is 'Korean BBQ Pork', and we have all the ingredients for it, whoopee ('Seoultown Cooking' always needs something I haven't got).  I would have guessed at some, but not the apple and onion.  It needs to sit overnight before cooking.  I may post a picture of it, even.

More On The Theme Of 'Bright Lights'

Thanks, Auntie Beeb, for making the heavy lifting less heavy.  Art!

Courtesy Ian West.  He comments on the 'Taxi' sign but what Conrad likes about this particular shot are all the different multi-coloured lights in the unfocussed background, implying lots of activity in a bustling city centre.  Definitely in South Canada, yet un-named, so I'm going for New York.

"The Sea Of Sand"

'Murraycol', the small British task force, is going down, but not without a fight.

Aghast, the three occupants of the Sahariana watched from the safety of a hollow in the sands.  The whole column stood immobile, as the deadly black tanks grew larger and larger.

          ‘Why don’t they debus?’ asked Tam.  Torrevechio guessed the question’s meaning and gestured a man touching a hot object.

          ‘The sand got turned to – well, it must be glass, mustn’t it?  Molten glass is ferociously hot.  Must be waiting for it to cool down, but they have to get moving before those things get here.’

          Hurry up!  Hurry up! Roger shouted to himself.  He groaned in despair as the visible occupants of the vehicles began to slump over, victims of the paralysing rays from the now nearby black tanks.  Tam began to swear furiously under his breath.

          The turret of one armoured car slowly turned to face an approaching black tank, and the gun fired.  The two-pounder gun was similar to that used by the Doctor to destroy the unmanned Sentinel and it shattered the black tank apart in a cloud of black glass fragments, followed by streaks of flashing light as tracer bullets smashed into the remainders.  Nothing moved in the acre of brittle shards left behind.

          ‘Nice one!’ exulted Tam. ‘That’s the stuff to give ‘em.’

     Ah, Tam, just wait.

Daimler AC

The Haul

Conrad has to confess he did a little book shopping on Christmas Eve, purely for my greedy selfish self and nobody else.  Art!

     From top port: "Battle Of The Atlantic" by Bernard Ireland.  The author's name sounds familiar, I may have another of his works in the book mountain.  The battle of the Atlantic was the only thing that truly worried Churchill, because This Sceptred Isle could NOT afford to lose it, or even draw it.

     'Sapper', for your information, is the creator of the character 'Bulldog Drummond', and that's the extent of my knowledge about him.  Or even her.  I shall have to go off and Google and remedy my ignorance.

     "Machine Gunner" is an account of the Machine Gun Corps, who were formed in 1915 and disbanded the second the First Unpleasantness ended.  There is a bronze statue erected <ahem> in their memory which I cannot post as it's a full-size nude male.  Use your filthy imaginations!

     "The Art Of War" is from China circa 500 BC.  Note that it makes no claim to be the version by Sun Tzu.  It will make interesting reading, as the publication date is about the time Han China came into conflict with Koryo Korea.

Finally -

Watched an incredibly gory Christmas film called 'Violent Night' yesterday, which lived up to it's name after the first 20 minutes.  Starring the mighty David Harbour and the ever-excellent John Leguizamo.  NSFW or children.  Art!

What The Ruck!

First Of All

WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!  I refer, of course - obviously! - to the noble rucksack, which name is of Teuton origin meaning 'Backpack' so now we are better informed than we were five minutes ago.  Art!*

Yes, it's been Photoshopped

     I know what you're thinking- because Conrad is shrewd and you lot are painfully predictable - and no, that's not a rucksack.  Nor is it real.  Hmmmm it does remind me about a real TANK, mind you, the Ontos.  Art!

So many guns!

     This is the M50 Ontos Tank Destroyer.  Given it's firepower one presumes it would destroy bunkers, buildings, bridges and pretty much anything it aimed at, not merely tanks.

ANYWAY having a rucksack as the first picture would automatically mean Facebook loaded that first, and whilst I can spin a fascinating tale about rucksacks, they aren't the most magnificent of images.  Check it out - Art!

Newbie to port, vet to starboard

The vet has been around for a good few years.  One problem it has is the zips, which need coaxing to shut properly.  This can be a tad fraught if one is desperately dashing for the bus.  There used to be a bottom compartment, which had the opposite problem - it would gradually unzip itself as the ruck was being carried, thus you lost whatever was stored there.  Conrad left a bag of Opal Fruits in there, as emergency anti-hypoglycemia blood-sugar boosters, and forgot about them for two weeks.  When Your Absent-minded Scribe remembered and opened it up, the bag had split and shed it's contents, which formed a sticky mess smeared all over the bottom of the compartment, because, wouldn't you know it, the zip hadn't failed.  So the bottom bit got scissored off, and it looks perfectly acceptable now.  Art!

Oldham Bus Station.  Note unyielding stone floor.

     The ruck has an inner drawstring that I didn't bother using, until one evening in OBS my works laptop fell out of the ruck, flat onto the solid stony flags of the station floor.  An Oops! moment.  Fortunately for all concerned it still worked afterwards.  Then one afternoon, as I hauled bottom homewards, the single strap I had the ruck held by came out of it's retainer and another Oops! moment.  This time, thanks to lots of hard-edged bits also being present, a noticeable dint was added to the laptop.  It still worked but it's resale value has depreciated a lot.

Manchester Arndale Centre.  Note unyielding tiled floors.

     The newbie doesn't need to hold a laptop so it's smaller stature shouldn't be a problem.  'Kings Will Dream' FYI is an upmarket brand; it should have cost £25 but Conrad snapped it up for £10 thanks to a discount offer.  For someone who has to deal all day long with items gone astray, having one turn up in record time at Christmas gives one an echo of "It's A Wonderful Life".  If Conrad had tear ducts they might get a bit of a workout.

     

Make It Jake

If you've been following the blog with any consistency, you'll already know that one vlogger I watch faithfully is Jake Broe, ex-English teacher in South Korea and more recently a Nuclear Missile Operations Officer in the South Canadian Air Force.  Before covering the war** in Ukraine he used to do financial analysis, which skill he has now brought to bear in an interesting way to show how truly fornicated the Ruffians are.  Art!

Also visible: the top of Jake's smiley head

     Let me point out that NATO and South Canada combined outspend Russia by SEVENTEEN times.  Jake also did a telling breakdown of how much support for Ukraine is costing South Canadian taxpayers.  Art!

     As Justin Bronk put it, half the Ruffian army has been destroyed without a single South Canadian serviceman suffering more than RSI thanks to working a keyboard about logistical support.  The 148,245,000 is how many taxpayers are affected.  This total, coincidentally, is nearly the same as the population of Ruffia; I wonder how much each of them are paying?

     

45 Billion Reasons Why Russia Just Lost - YouTube

     There's the link to Jake's vlog should you wish to check him out.

On The Theme Of 'Bright Lights'

I confess I've missed a few of these out, because they were boring.  Not this one.  Art!

     Courtesy Angela Haworth.  This is from an autumn festival in Montreal, a light and sound show at the Botanical Gardens.  Conrad is impressed by whatever this gadget is; presumably it's not spraying out superheated steam or venomous vapours as there's no fencing and a small child is messing around with it.  Or - it's far larger than it appears and that's actually a fully-grown adult.

"The Sea Of Sand"

The investigative column of light military vehicles sent from Thirteen Corps HQ to find out what's been going on at Mersa Martuba have run into trouble.

For Murraycol, the end was swift and frightening.  Lieutenant Murray, riding in his Jeep, began to lead the column forward until a sudden enormous jolt hit them, accompanied by an incredibly intense blast of heat.

          Briefly the Lieutenant wondered if he’d been hit by a shell, until he realised his arms and legs were still attached and intact.  An appaling stink struck his nostrils, a compound of acrid chemicals, burnt metal and burning rubber.  The Jeep engine raced wildly, then stalled.

          Murray stepped out of the Jeep, realising that the whole car had dropped into the – and then he hopped back into the Jeep, cradling the smoking heel of his boot, and the tender sole of his foot.

          ‘We’re sitting in a load of glass, sir!’ exclaimed the amazed driver.  Lieutenant Murray examined the still-hot crust on the bottom of his boot sole and looked out across the smooth, hot surface.  Leaning over the side of the Jeep caused him to break out in a sweat caused by the heat radiating off the surface. 

          His car had sunk up to the middle of the axles into the glass.  The tyres were smoking and stinking, and the paint bubbled and flaked from the bodywork.  Looking behind, his heart sank at the sight of every other vehicle in the column mired in the vast saucer of glass.

     The day's not going well for them, is it?

Some People Have Far Too Much Time On Their Hands

Yes, I know how bitterly ironic that is, coming from a chap who spends an hour and a half daily creating words of wit, wisdom, wonder and whimsy.  It's not as if you have to pay to read this scrivel, is it?

     ANYWAY you should, faithful reader, be aware that Conrad occasionally goes over a Lego sculpture, in awe at the ability of a person to work out the details of a dinosaur or volcano -

Courtesy J D Brick Productions

     - or the battleship 'Bismark' in 1/150th scale.  The only thing missing is how many pieces there are; I asked on the vlog but haven't had an answer.  Art!

With puny human arm for scale

Super-duper superstructure

     The tricky bit where superstructure has to be mated with the hull.

Success!

Finally -

We shall call it quits there, as Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom are due to arrive shortly and Conrad needs a good face-scrape to look even slightly presentable.

Pip pip!

* Now back from his holiday

**  Go on. sue me, Bloaty Gas Tout!