No! Nothing To Do With The Doors
Although that track of theirs is very catchy and they are one of the few bands to go around without a guitarist, since Ray M
ANYWAY Conrad was struck by inspiration last night, after finishing "The Short Stories Of Sherlock Holmes" -
I know, I know, nothing to do with Sherlock. Sue me.
Here an aside, and no complaining. Conrad distinctly remembered a sinister clue in one of the short stories, where "We we " is left scribbled upon a wall by a vanished victim. The poor perished person had tried to write "We were murdered" but was poisoned by gas inhalation before they could complete the sentence. Yet this scene didn't appear in any of the short stories. Could Conrad be wrong?
No, before you ask. Said scene takes place on the last page out of 1336 pages, so the old grey cells are still at least partially functioning. Art!
Okay, it's a beacon, not a pyre. Sue me.
What you see here is the primary beacon of Gondor's chain of same. It's an adjunct of Minas Tirith, close to the city, which is why you see a stairway carved into the mountain and a chamber for the guards who have rather fallen down on their job. There are a chain of these beacons atop the mountains that stretch all the way to Rohan, meaning the alarm can be raised in a matter of minutes, rather than the days it would take even the swiftest rider. Art!
Conrad, of course, cannot resist looking at the logistics of maintaining these beacons. First of all, note the name of this mountain range - "White Mountains", definitely not "Misty Mountains". meaning that if the beacons are lit, visibility is going to be good. The beacon chain has to be manned at all times, by at least two people in order that they can take shifts. Art!
Here you see one such outpost. Note the hovel that's their accommodation. One can imagine them being posted there for weeks on end, if not months. They might have ready access to water but they will definitely need provisions, perhaps necessitating a supply convoy that services all these garrisons. If that is the case they might well have to do duty there for a whole year. What a miserable prospect!
Note, too, the sheer size of that timber pile. There must be a couple of tons of wood there and this site is well above the tree line, so it's not like the watchmen can just nip down and cut down a few trees to replace rotting logs. Conrad suspects that the wood has been soaked in pitch or oil to both preserve it and render it weatherproof. The wood was probably hewn (a very Tolkein-esque word!) on the lower slopes, then trimmed and dragged by mule teams up to the pinnacle, mules being better on mountains than horses. Art!
You can see why they're called the 'White Mountains'. Conditions on a peak like this must necessitate sound shelter with a permanent fire going, or your watchmen are going to be corpsicles. Not only that, they'd have to be in a more sheltered position than sitting right on the mountain top, so it would take a minute or two to light the beacon. Art!
"Aragorn sat, brooding moodily."
Did I say 'minutes'? Note that night has fallen and there's a new day by the time Ol' Strider catches sight of the bonfire. Conrad supposes this is to add in a bit of dramatic tension on the part of Ol' Pete.
Mule teams, pitch, oil, multiple watchmen on rotation, supply convoys; quite an effort has been put into maintaining these beacons, with the saving grace that they work when needed.
Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...
Conrad Cooks Ukrainian
We all know that Conrad is not averse to attractive young ladies, so let me introduce you to Khrystyna. Art!
As the label says, she is a Ukrainian living in Kyiv, who posts videos of life in the capital. The other factor we all know about Conrad is that he is not averse to food, so he was interested in a vlog Khrystyna posted of her making an 'Olivier Salad', because she's not going to call it a Ruffian Salad, is she?
Well I was inspired. Art!
This is Conrad's version using up a chorizo that had been languishing in the fridge for months. It's not bad, actually, which is a good thing because even using half-quantities, there is tons of it.
How Ab -
Back to Ol' Sher and "The Lion's Mane", wherein a private school is mentioned, amongst the subjects being taught is mathematics, and consequently, 'Surds'. Conrad was intrigued enough by the word to look it up. My CC states: "A number containing an irrational root, such as 2√3". Yes. Well, glad we got that cleared up, then.
Then there is the Lion's Mane itself, a species of jellyfish that grows to enormous size. Art!
With puny human for scale
Their tentacles can extend up to 120 feet. Ol' Coney got their size right, but their tentacles are not the living wires of death that he exaggerated for the plot. If you get stung by one IT WILL HURT! but The Grim Reaper won't be at your elbow sharpening his scythe with a whetstone, unless you happen to have an allergic reaction. In which case your will had better be up to date.
More Roel!
I hear you cry. He's the expert in medieval and ancient history who's taking a look at how accurately various battles are as depicted in cinema and television. Art!
Roel has always maintained the importance of defensive ditches in any kind of defensive setting, and to his delight when the French storm an English castle, there IS A DITCH! Art?
Happy happy Roel
The English use long poles to push the ladders away, and also deploy a curious whirling wheel that has rocks attached to it via ropes. Roel points out that this isn't impossible, but it would be just as effective to throw the rocks, because the besiegers are so densely packed that you couldn't miss. Art!
The Wheel Of Possible Harm
Then there's the 'murder hole' that does have an established history, just not in the way they have it here. The enormous stone ball used is also inaccurate. Art!
Murder-holes were, in reality, used to drop large rocks vertically from an overhead position, usually in a keep.
Due to ditch.
Their attention returned to the
approaching bio-vore vehicle. The A13’s
gun fired, muzzle blast causing the camouflage netting to bulge outwards like a
balloon. A glowing tracer in the shell’s
base drifted with what seemed astonishing slowness, until it hit the vehicle
low down in the middle.
Unlike
previous black tanks, this one did not blow apart. The shell hit, and the vehicle jerked to a
stop, but it wasn’t destroyed. The big
flat turret began to turn, until a second shell hit the blind cockpit, smashing
it open.
Bio-vores
began to jump purposefully from the rear doors of the tank, wielding
weapons. Sarah counted at least twenty –
they moved and ducked for cover too much for her counting to be accurate. Several carried large pieces of equipment
which they began to set up behind their immobilised transport.
‘Take
that, you barstards!’ shouted Davey, beginning to fire his Vickers machine-gun. He fired without stopping, shifting the fall
of bullets by watching the tracers or spurts of sand thrown up where the
bullets landed. The bio-vores avoided
grouping or offering easy targets, having learnt or recalled skirmish skills not needed for centuries. They still began to suffer injury under the
relentless fire.
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