That's A Relier!

And Then Some

Imagine, if you will, a person mighty in the land, who sees an opportunity to seize power and usurp the very highest possible position by force, overthrowing the legitimate leader.

      No!  Nothing to do with a certain orange gentleman plotting sedition - after all, he didn't succeed.

     Whom I refer to, gentle reader, is Darius I of the Persian Empire, also known to history as Darius The Great.  Art!

     Now, Ol' Daz does get something of a bad press in the West, as he was the one who decided those pesky quarrelling Greek city-states needed to pay attention to him, and suffered kind of defeats when he took them on.  However, for the Persian Empire he was the real deal, establishing a road network, harmonising weights and measures, creating administrative satrapies, and generally ruling the various subjugated nations with a light touch, which may surprise you.  As long as you paid your taxes and did your national service, Darius would allow his satraps considerable leeway.  Art!

     Except his ascent to power was via intrigue, politics, impostors and quite a bit of bloodshed.  You see, when Cyrus the Emperor died, it was his son Cambyses who inherited the Persian throne.  Ol' Cammy was what people at the time called a 'despot', which in modern parlance is a 'bottomhole', whom the populace detested to no small extent.  He went campaigning in Egypt with his brother, Bardiya, for Oooooh simply ages and ages.  Along the way he had his brother murdered in secret, because - bottomhole, remember?

     This created a problem, because whilst Cammy was absent in Egypt, an imposter arose back home, called Guamata, claiming to be Bardiya.   This is an occupational hazard for despots, who usually campaign abroad with one eye looking over their shoulder.  Cammy set off back home, only to die Under Mysterious Circumstances before he got anywhere near.  Probably committed suicide by stabbing himself in the back of the head twenty-seven times.  Art!

Cammy gets slammy

     The fake Bardiya a.k.a. Guamata, thus had the throne all to himself for a good seven months, which proved to be one month too many, since a group of suspicious Persian nobles to the number of seven had discovered he was an imposter.  They thus conspired together to get close to Guamata and do him in.  Before he could flee with the palace treasury, they cornered him and stabbed him to death.  Darius was one of the secret seven.  Art!

Art!

     Taking up the reins of power, Darius endured a fractious empire with many rebellions and revolts for his first year on the throne.  Ten, in fact.  However, he had a large and loyal army and finished off the revolts by executing nine more imposters.
     This is where we come the the Behistun Inscription, which Conrad had not heard of before yesterday.  It is a huge relief sculpture at Behistun, carved into the side of a mountain, telling the story of how Darius came to power and crushed the rebellious treacherous imposters, with a portrayal of Darius trampling Guamata underfoot.  You know kings and emperors in those days, they liked to put it about how mighty they were, and also point out that they'd won, bigly, which also meant their reign was totally legit.  Art!

     Ol' Daz is the larger figure to port, using Guamata as a rug.

     The sculpture is 15 yards high and 25 yards wide, standing 100 yards above the ground, making it very awkward to access; positively dangerous, in fact, given how narrow the ledge beneath it is.  The reason for this is that the mountainside was cut away to allow for inscriptions and to allow Ol' Daz to be seen in all his glory.  Nonetheless, a British officer took it upon himself to get a close look at the different languages.  Art!

     Now we know more than we did five minutes ago.  And you're welcome.

"Going For A Song"

Conrad is, once again, unable to explain why this television program popped up in the festering backwaters of his mind.  Personally I hated it when it came on and it seemed the very epitomy of 'Boredom' as seen in the Collins Concise Dictionary.  Art!

     The Dog Buns! thing ran for 12 years.  It is, rather bizarrely, described as a 'Game Show' on Wikipedia, although anything less like 'Jeopardy' or 'Celebrity Squares' would be hard to find.  The idea was that an antique McGuffin would be brought out in front of a panel of experts, who would value and date it, after which the resident expert would boost the sheer adrenaline rush by explaining the real date and value.  Art!

"The War Illustrated"

Back to matters martial in March, matey, and a few select photographs from Issue 176.  Art!

     More of the boring yet essential logistics that succour the war machine.  At top you can see the pipeline installed to run from 'an Italian port' - operational security means no names - to the South Canadian 5th Army on the western side of the Italian peninsula.  Doing it this way is far more efficient that running convoys of tankers or trucks.

     At bottom you can see the inflowing fuel being decanted into jerrycans.  Conrad guesses that there's about 6 tons of fuel being stored there, with nothing camouflaged or under cover, so either it's a long way behind the front lines, or they live with a permanent combat air patrol overhead.

Let's Hear It For The - 

Whatever.  Yes, another oddity from the advertising sidebars of "The Daily Beast".  No, I'm not going to take the easy way out and click on the link.  That's what they WANT you do to.  Art!

     Dispenser of the world's smallest pieces of chewing gum?  Slow-release popping corn dispenser?  Chick-pea dizzifier?  Only you can tell!

<short inelegant pause as I eat and drink some tea>

"City In The Sky"

We have jumped from the TARDIS in orbit to aliens on the ground, hidden in the vast and empty Australian outback, and up to no good.  In fact, up to very bad.

Their current focus concerned the microbot remedial programme underway in the Northern Hemisphere.  Progress was slow,  like all Lithoi strategies.  That was genetic inheritance for you.

     Deep in the bowels of both the earth and their ship, a small group of the senior reptilians were gathered to discuss how the removal of radioactive fallout was faring.  Their conversation consisted of short bursts of “speech” – computer modulated variations on hissing and clicking – and long pauses in between.  What might have been a thirty minute session amongst humans went on for over eight hours between the Lithoi, despite their computer communication’s predictive speech modelling.  Genetics, again.

     Finally, the first item on their agenda, that of the microbots, had been resolved.  Uniform agreement was that the schedule for rehabilitation was on track, due for completion in one hundred Earth years.  One of the unforeseen side effects of the clean-up was that human communities were beginning to thrive again.  A cull loomed in the future, discussion reserved to another meeting.

     The second agenda item concerned the locals, humans and wildlife both.

     ‘The wild dogs have continued to evolve beyond baseline intelligence,’ warned Arkan 22.  ‘I present evidence.’

     Swivelling his head to one side brought his collar into line with the wall monitor, which obediently came on.

     By jingo, beware the evolved dingo!

Finally -

Edna had been for her check-up at the vets, which has to be spelled out as V-E-T otherwise she knows what you're talking about (never mind evolved dingoes, watch out for the Border Terrier!).  Once outside at the car, she lay on her side and refused to get in, having to be loaded in like a shopping bag.

     All being well, she now feels entitled to treats, and also anything she can reach on my plate.

     NO!  Nothing till the porridge bowl tomorrow morning, madam!