If At First You Don't Succeed -
Well, Conrad would just give up because he has but a limited time upon this earth and can't be bothered wasting it looking for ways to build bridge trestle beams out of wet tofu. Not a winning proposition.
This picture would be my sardonic comment to any South Canadians whom still insist they never lost a war (no, they wrestled a peace-treaty out of North Vietnam and were long gone by 1975), because one side definitely lost.
For Lo! we are back on the topic of the South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness, a war that we have chuntered on about before. It still had cavalry and muzzle-loading cannon, yet it also had observation balloons, telegraph and strategic movement by rail.
It also had the world's first combat submarine. Whilst this is probably boring and mundane to South Canadians, it's not widely known elsewhere, so I thought I'd be didactic about it and inform everyone. Art!
The 'Hunley' with puny humans for scale
This terror of the seas was invented by one Mister H. Hunley, who came up with the thing out of whole cloth. He decided that, to power it, he wasn't going to rely on steam-powered engines or a coal-fired boiler or a mast and sails. No. He was going to have his seven-ton submerged sea-stalker powered by seven men, working a long crank to propel them via propeller. Art!
"The next man to joke about being 'cranky' will be shot!"
It seems to be cruel and unusual punishment to Conrad. Not only did the crew have no vision of what was transpiring outside their sea-going coffin, their endurance was two hours at the most, at which point they asphyxiated. Or, surfaced and opened the conning-towers to let air in, a hazardous undertaking when there were enemy ships about.
On the Hunley's first outing, a sea-trial if you will, the ham-fisted (or -footed) officer in charge accidentally stepped on the 'Dive' pedal whilst the conning-tower hatches were still open. He and two others escaped; the rest drowned.
The Confederacy was stubborn. They retrieved the submarine, decanted the bodies and seawater, and tried again. This time Mr. Hunley himself was aboard the submarine.
Ooops.
There doesn't seem to be any explanation about what sank the Hunley again, only that they needed another eight coffins for the crew.
Did I mention that the Confederacy was stubborn? They also seem to have bought into the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' (no pun intended), so once again the Hunley was raised and decanted, and another eight idiots/patriots/mer-people joined as crew. Art!
As you can see, the submarine would attack Union warships with a dustbin-sized explosive charge on a stick, which occurred in February of 1864, when the Housatonic was rammed outside Charleston, where it was part of the Union naval blockade.
Props to Mr. Hunsley, his submarine blew an enormous great hole in the hull of the Housatonic, under the waterline, and it sank in five minutes.
Unfortunately for the crew of the Hunsley, it appears that the shock wave of the explosion, at no more than 6 feet from their submarine's hull, struck them all dead in an instant.
The Confederacy was stubborn, not stupid. They left the Hunsley where it was, and it lay there for 146 years until recovered. It now sits in a museum, where one can admire it's sleek and rakish lines. Art!
Shock news - South Canada repeals child labour laws!
A tale of derring-do. It's hard to say who came off worst, as yes, the Housatonic was sunk, but only five of it's crew died; whereas the Hunsley also sank and totalled 23 crew gone with her.
Praise Perun!
For those of you unaware, Perun is an Australian vlogger who originally had a small viewership when he posted about computer games.
Come the war in Ukraine, he took to doing Powerpoint presentations about it, using what the buzzword boys call OSINT - 'Open Source Intelligence', meaning that it's freely available to anyone with the wits to know where to look or pay for it. Art!
He's been very coy about showing himself, believing that his mug would only detract from the content. Not sure about that. His pronunciation of Ukrainian and Ruffian names or places is absolutely on-point, thanks to Croatian grandparents. He's very much a 'Cold Equations' kinda chap, not being partisan or biased and going only on the data.
Why mention him here and now? Because he gifted Conrad a modicum of info about the Storm Shadow cruise missile that the Ukes are using like nukes as of right now. Art!
It would appear that this devious little beggar has a two-stage warhead. The primary is a shaped-charge that breaches whatever hardened target Stormzy hits; the second, much larger one, is the thing that rearranges the interior scenery. Utterly devious. No wonder, it was invented by Perfidious Albion. Art!
Thanks, Perun.
"Silence, in Polish!"
So says the long-suffering British RAF squadron commander in "Battle Of Britain" of his insouciant Polish brethren, who all fob him off with "Repeat please" as if they'd no idea what he was talking about. They jolly well did!
ANYWAY it's time to wheel out another couple of bizarre images from Polish film posters before the collapse of Communism. Art!
You wouldn't argue with either of these ladies, would you? DON'T GO THERE with your sordid unarmed-combat fantasies, you disgusting perverts. Glad to see Warrant Officer Ripley standing tall there, more of her in a second or two. Art!
Well well well, what have we here! That title seems awfully like "ORCY", which you will recognise as the Polish equivalent of 'ORCI', that being the Ukrainian for 'ORCS'. The tagline at the bottom translates as "Final Encounter". What's the film? "Aliens" and I only know that because I read the cast names.
Thank heavens that democracy came along and saved us from more of this*!
Rare Real World Retailing
If you have any recall then you know Conrad worked for both the Co-Op and Sainsbury's in their HR departments, for five years in each case, and he got to know their systems and ins and outs pretty well. Art!
This pay cut concerns Asda workers who live in London and whom get a £0.60 hourly supplement to their pay because living in Nodnol is EXPENSIVE. It looks like the owners are trying to cut pay in order to cut corners, having acquired Asda expensively. Caveat Emptor, matey.
Conrad knows that both the Co-Op and Sainsbo's have an allowance for London workers, varying on whether you work in Outer or Inner London. I strongly suspect Tesco and other retailers have a similar pay schedule.
The consequence? Asda workers will vote with their feet and leave, getting jobs with companies who are willing to compensate them adequately. Asda may not have noticed, but employees have a lot more power post-Covid than before. Staff retention and turnover will become significant issues.
There you go, Conrad has spoken. More pontificated, really. You see, I can do 'Sensible' when I have to.
"When Did You Last See Your Money?"
It's an episode of 'Dad's Army' if you must know, and Conrad was somewhat intrigued at the opening. The Walmington-on-sea Home Guard are not privy to the most exciting kit that the British army of the time had access to, so it makes sense that when they acquire that most exotic of firearms, a Thompson Submachine Gun, interest is expressed. Art!
Private Pike, whom has grown up on a diet of South Canadian gangster films, falls in love with the weapon instantly, and seeks to woo it away from his Captain as one would a lover.
There is a lesson here that the British army learned the hard way in the early years of the Second Unpleasantness; the submachine gun, as used by the Teutons in the form of the Mp40, was a jolly handy weapon for close-quarters fighting. Dismissing it as a 'gangster gun' proved to be foolish, and subsequently in 1940 the British paid the South Canadians large sums of money to lay hold of Thompsons at short notice. They were quality pieces of precision engineering and as such did not come cheap, even if the South Canadians were gouging us a bit.
Captain Mainwaring is mistaken in saying the cyclic rate of fire was 650 rounds per minute; it was more like 800 r.p.m. and you could empty a stick magazine very quickly if lacking practice. Also, the models the British laid hands on had a foregrip under the barrel, not a simple block. Art!
The drum magazine was disliked in action as the rounds in it tended to rattle and give your position away.
And now, Vulnavia, time for tea!
* Or is that just me?
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