Discreet With Concrete

I Can Tell What You're Thinking

Only because you lot are patently transparent when it comes to cogitation, and YES I GAVE D.A.R.P.A. BACK THEIR TELEPATHY HELMET, which, I would like to point out, they didn't even miss.  Either their inventory and auditing is rubbish or they are onto devices that make it totally obsolete, which latter is r

     ANYWAY whilst I have been reading "Armageddon's Walls", an excellent niche work by Peter Oldham, covering British concrete constructions on the Western Front during the First Unpleasantness, guess what came into the public view?  Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete.  Art!

Hmmmm I'll let this one pass, Art

     This is an Eisner-winning Dark Horse publication by Paul Chadwick, about Ron, whose brain is (involuntarily!) transferred into an alien construct that mimics living stone.  It has good reviews, Your Humble Scribe may purchase the trade paperback at some point.  Obviously Ron/Concrete doesn't have problems with structural failure, or at least not in the original 10-volume series from 1986.

     ANYWAY that also reminds me of an Eels track, to wit: "A Daisy Through Concrete", where the song's narrator, lacking footwear of any kind, " - I stumble on a daisy through concrete."  Art!

     Good job it wasn't a nettle, says Conrad.  I think the lyrical intent is that a humble and delicate flower, such as a daisy, can o'ercome the harsh brutality of concrete.  Mr. E also goes on about not waking the dead, although I fail to see what zombies have to do with daisies, or concrete for th

     ANYWAY just to get back on track, AAC was invented back in the Twenties, well after the First Unpleasantness, so it never got used by either side to construct fortifications.  It was prized for being cheaper than normal concrete - O! colour me surprised! - and was manufactured in pre-cast blocks or sheets, which were baked in an autoclave, and which could be cut to fit on-site.  Art!

Funny looking loaf

     The disadvantage of RAAC is that it has a lifetime of about 50 years, meaning that all the structures made with it in the Fifties in This Sceptred Isle, are now liable to abrupt structural failure without warning.  Our noble governments were only informed of this as recently as 1995, and you can't expect a government to expedite matters when it only has 28 years warning, can you?

     Well, Ol' Pete, in both the work above and "Pillboxes On The Western Front", which covers concrete fortifications on both sides, has implicit criticism of RAAC, which he will have long known about, being as he spent decades in the construction industry.  Art!

     This is a Teuton bunker in the Menin-Moorslede area, in a photo taken in 1995.  So it had been around for at least 80 years when this picture was taken.  Art!

     This picture is from 2016, so about a hundred years after construction.  As you can see, it's looking a bit scabby thanks to lichen and mineral leaching, yet still completely intact.

     Now, you may be wondering about the 'Discreet' part of tonight's title.  Well, one of the ways of protecting a bunker or pill-box or observation post was to construct it within an already existing structure, so that it's presence went undetected.  If the opposition suspected that shattered farmhouse ruin actually hid an observation post, then you'd better believe it would rapidly collect several hundred shells to reveal the truth.  Art!

    Perfidious Albion took over this chimney because, from the top of it, you got an excellent view over the Teuton lines.  To protect it, you can see the layer of concrete added on the exterior from halfway up, and they reinforced the inner top of the chimney to protect any observers in there (Fred Dibnah would have his work cut out demolishing this structure).  There are no shell hits on the chimney, which may mean the Teutons were deceived as to it's purpose, or, rather more likely, it's an extremely narrow target that was the very devil to hit.  Art!

     Here it is in 2005, recognised as a protected monument by the Belgians, and now you know that 'Steenbakkery' is the Flemish for 'Brickworks'.  

     Not bad for ninety years on.  Conrad hopes to be as well-preserved as this chimney at that age.

The Horrors Of Handwriting

As you should surely know by now, Your Humble Scribe is definitely a dinosaur when it comes to making records, because I use a pen and paper.  I have advanced from using a fountain pen to a fibre-tip, so that's progress of a sort.  Let me offer you an example of my scrawl.  Art!

     Now, imagine that, instead of sitting at home in a comfy chair, with a pot of tea and a bowl of noodle soup, "Metal Machine Music" playing as background music, you are: sitting in a shattered French farmhouse, with blankets pinned over the windows for blackout; using a pencil stub to write with; have only a candle for illumination; have been marching and fighting for fourteen hours; need to get the Daily Intelligence Report done in legible handwriting because if a senior officer can't read your scrawl, there will be merry Hell to pay.  Art!

     This is the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion the Lancashire Fusiliers, being written up by the Intelligence Officer as of September 1914.  It's clearly written in pencil, and signed by the officer at lower starboard.  As IO it was his responsibility to keep the diary accurate and up to date, with no real diktat about how much detail was included; hence the WD can vary wildly over time as different IOs take on the task.

     This is a sketch map of the battalion in action late September.  I checked the "Official History Military Operations France & Belgium" which does include a couple of lines taken directly from the 2nd's WD.

Kinda Sticking With The Military Theme -

Only if you are even more painfully literal than Conrad, and the only person I can think of offhand who manages that feat is Drax, whom is a splendid role model.  Art!

Battleships

     This one seemed rather easy.  All it requires is the ruthless application of logic.

     I think we'll forego "The Big Parade" in this blog as we've already had a whole lot of First Unpleasantness already.  Tomorrow, I promise you.

"City In The Sky"

Our time-hopping trouble-shooter, the Doctor, is trawling video and text files that charted the beginning of the Big Crash.

He’d played the data on the bank of screens repeatedly, scrolling up and down, zooming in and out.  Then he’d gone over the transcripts of radio communications, flicking over electronically-stored pages for another hour, politely acknowledging her presence to make sure she didn’t think he was ignoring her.  Then, without warning, he asked about the American’s Downstairs presence.

     ‘How jokey is it?’ he asked, looking amused.

     ‘They aren’t at Carlsbad.  They sent their shuttle down to Minera, in Texas, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.  I – we – think it’s a joke about storing things.’

     ‘Yes, it is – the old Cold War Carlsbad storage initiative.  I see!  So, the Americans put a set of components into long-term preserved storage in – an abandoned mine?  Enough component parts to reconstruct an entire shuttle if not two or three, and – Gulf of Mexico – oil industry – they also had equipment to begin refining petroleum into a high-efficiency rocket fuel?’

     Devi frowned, convinced the stranger had been teasing her.

     ‘You knew all along!’

     Steepling his fingers, the Doctor looked benignly at her.

     ‘Not at all.  Merely an educated guess.’  He smiled winningly.  ‘Do carry on!’

     Yes, carry on, Doctor*.

You Could Make It Up -

And it would be more credible.  Apparently there was a televised debate on Ruffian television about how the state had 'banned' both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer".  You may have heard of these.  Conrad is definitely NOT going to see the B film and may - only may - see Oppy when it gets streamed.  Art!

Banned! O the horror!!

     They were purportedly banned because they don't espouse traditional Ruffian values - torture, murder and robbery, one presumes - until one presenter let slip that they'd never been offered for distribution or viewing in Ruffia.

     Ooooopsie.  Expect a visit from the FSB and never to be heard of again.

     Except - both films have been pirated and are playing to packed cinemas, especially the B film.  Whereas the otiose and objectionable Ruffian propaganda film about the Special Idiotic Operation is playing to empty houses.  There's a lesson for Bloaty Gas Tout there.  Art!

He has piles**?

*  Do you see wh - O you do.

**  Not atomic ones.