Mule Train

No!  Nothing To Do With That Skull-Battering Div From TISWAS

Not yet about the song itself, not even if it was featured in "The Blues Brothers", that epic ground-(and police car)breaking cinema verite documentary. Which gives me an excuse to throw up a picture or two from it.  Art!

     Here an aside.  Conrad saw it from half-way through at the Hacienda, where the music was so loud you couldn't hear the dialogue, which didn't stop me from enjoying the car drop sequence.

     ANYWAY It may surprise you to know that mules still have a role to play in modern warfare, specifically mountain warfare.  Peter Caddick-Adams, a military historian who knows a thing or two, describes how essential they were to the Allies in Italy during the Second Unpleasantness.  Art!

British, Indian, New Zealanders, Poles, Germans, Americans, Free French, Canadian, Italians - 

     The mule, you see, is stronger than a horse yet has the endurance of a donkey, can carry 200 pounds (mass not currency) and go for miles and hours without rest.  They require less food than either horse or donkey, are better behaved when under burden, shrug off vermin and disease and have a very tough hide that serves well to mitigate bad weather - and the weather in Italy could be very, very bad.  They were excellent at handling a load up steep, narrow, twisting mountain tracks and equally adept at hoofing it through mud that stopped even the redoubtable Jeep.  Art!

     "Where is all this leading, O Snowy-Haired Penman?" I hear you query.

     O I thought you'd never ask!

     Normally we abruptly switch topic in an Intro, from how to shell peas to building your very own thorium reactor, for instance.  Today, we merely shift the emphasis slightly.  Art!

     Yes, another edition of "The War Illustrated", Number 172.  January 21st 1944.  The reason the muleteer here has a dusky skin is because he's Indian, and the Indian Army had mule companies to cope with mountainous regions like the North-West Frontier.  

     You can see the injured Tommy busy smoking a fag and probably feeling quite grateful to have a leg wound that's going to get him out of the front lines for a few weeks, and just behind the muleteer's head is the battle-bowler bestrewn bonce of another bloke.  Note that all involved retain their helmets - it's obviously not entirely safe, even well behind the front lines.  Art!

     This is a very interesting montage.  You see an officer from the Royal Navy having come ashore to be introduced to the Partisan's liberated shoreline, being greeted by ardent children and a bit of pro-Russian graffiti.  At bottom are the coffins of Teuton soldiers killed by Partisans.

     Despite Tito, the Partisan leader, being a staunch Communist, Perfidious Albion decided that anyone who killed Teutons in quantity had the right stuff, and backed him with arms and trainers.  Not only that, the RAF could support the Partisans thanks to Yugoslavia being but a jump, skip and hop away from their airbases in Italy.

     Motley!  I'll be the muleskinner and you can be the mule, with a twenty second head start.

An Eerie Silence

Had fallen on Victoria Station's Metro platforms this morning as Your Humble Scribe hustled past on his way to work.  The entrance had been taped-off and Metro staff in hi-viz vests were chatting to members of the public.

     Okay, that was at 08:30 this morning.  Surely the minor technical interruption would have been remedied by the time I left my toils?

     Well, no.  Art!

     I had a natter with one of the staff as I passed by - you know Conrad, surpassingly nosy - and he said that a load of overhead cabling had fallen down the night before, so no trams were traversing the city centre through Victoria.  Might not get fixed until Wednesday.  Art!

     It's not very clear, but that bright yellow blob is a variety of repair vehicle, and directly above it is a stopped tram.

     Fingers crossed it gets fixed in time for me to tram it home on Wednesday for the weekly shop.  That's important!

A Raucous Row Was Raised

Apparently because Manchester In The City won a Tribble, they were going to drive around the centre of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell in an open-top bus.  Conrad only hopes it's not one from First - another twenty-five minute wait for a bus this afternoon AGAIN with tons of extra passengers because of no trams - because they'll end up in Bradford at 22:37, at which point the driver will leave because his shift's finished.  Art!

    This above meant that the streets were thronged with fans wearing the ballfoot club's colours; Conrad naively wondered if The Manchester United fans avoiding the whole thing wouldn't cause a lack of crowds, but what do I know.

"City In The Sky"

We've jumped forward a good thirty years into the future, and the grand-daughter of Sir Richard Branson has just come into her majority.  She has plans.

     Standing and looking out of the one-way glass windows, the suite’s occupier didn’t even bother to look around.  His suit was functional, not expensive, but his importance could be judged by the sheer size of the office, the fact that it wasn’t shared with anyone else, and the cyber-implant behind his right ear.  His mahogany and teak desk would also have cost as much as the lease on the entire floor, if it hadn’t been a family heirloom.

     ‘Welcome, Ms Branson,’ said the man, raising an arm in greeting.  ‘And escort.’

     Virginia Branson, inheritor of her grandfather’s estate, paused only briefly before the stranger turned around.

     ‘You guessed I’d be here,’ she said.  Her page-boy bob danced briefly, conveying her sense of annoyance and importance.  ‘Not bad.’

     Daniel Harris turned from the window to face her.  He smiled.

     ‘No, I didn’t guess.  I knew you’d arrive today.  Your eighteenth birthday.  Before you speak, I know what you’ve come to say as well.  Look at the flip-chart.’

     All eyes in the group flicked over to the paper sheets.  A bold hand had written on it in purple highlighter: “I WANT TO SHUT DOWN THAT MONEY-PIT IN THE SKY”.

     For the first time that day, Virginia Branson looked unsure.

    O come on!  Admit that's a good pun - "Virginia".

My Interest Is Piqued

The BBC has a sidebar story up about the Scottish Islands of Barra and Vatersay, which have been without a permanent doctor for a whole year.  These places are beautiful and picturesque and also isolated.  The 'hospital' in Castlebay on Barra is a three bed affair that can only stabilise serious cases until an air ambulance from the mainland gets there, which can take hours.  Art!

     As one of the locals, Ishbel Maclean, informed the reporter, most people on the islands are involved in farming or work at sea, both potentially risky occupations.  Her own dad was badly injured when a tractor wheel he was working on blew up, and it took 6 hours to helicopter him to Glasgow.

     What struck Your Humble Scribe was the village of Castlebay, because the name's derivation is obvious.  Art!

    Why on earth would you build a castle out there in the bay of an island over 50 miles from the mainland?  I think this needs a bit of digging.

Finally -

I forgot my flask this morning <sad face> and had to do with a left-over Serco mug that had obviously had tea left standing in it for weeks, since there was a noxious-looking circle of blackened scum left around it*.  There's no washing-up liquid nor sponges nor scrubbers, so I resorted to boiling water and scratching it clean with my spoon - sorry, that should be 'My Spoon' as there are none in the office.   Home working cannot come soon enough!

*  I eat month-old Kim Chi, a bit of blackened scum doesn't bother me.