I Have Outsmarted Myself - Again

It Does Happen

Allow me to feel a little gloasty, too, as I had to deal with several hours of having accidentally turned on the 'Filter Keys' function without realising it.  Conrad is unaware of why it would be called 'Filter Keys' when it was actually 'Ridiculously Awkward And Annoying Keys' in function.  It only allows you to use a key once, so if trying to Backspace, or use the Space Bar, it wouldn't work.  It needed the cursor being dragged around the page.  Scrolling keys didn't work unless you tapped the touchpad after scrolling, meaning it would take ten minutes to scroll down a Youtube page.  Art!

     That has nothing to do with anything, I just chose it at random*.

     "Get on with it, you bloviating oaf!" I hear you cry.  Pausing only to point out that oafs do not use words like "Circumlocution" I will indeed proceed.  Art!

     No, your eyes have not gone funny, blue ink from the other side has bled through.  "JEFF BECK" ought not to raise any eyebrows, the question here is what on earth "W.T.W.B." means?  Obviously - of course!- it's there as a handy abbreviation that saved the space and time of writing it out completely.  Except - I cannot remember what it means.

     It's not the title of the book I'm currently reading, which is "Armageddon's Walls" by Peter Oldham - we'll come back to this - which would be AW.  Nor is it an abbreviation for the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion the Lancashire Fusiliers.

     
     "With The -" perhaps?  Welsh Borderers?  Or maybe "What The -" which is what all the Captain Scarlet characters used to exclaim in "TV21" when taken by surprise, somehow always getting cut off before they got to a swea

     ANYWAY it must be a contemporary matter or it wouldn't make sense, even if it doesn't make sense now, so hopefully my deficient memory will get jogged later today, or this is going to annoy me.  At least until I forget about it.

     You know, now might well be the occasion for a little Thinking Time, whilst also walking Edna.  Art!

     AHAH!  Got it!  I did a quick Google and it brought up a page of abbreviations.  Art?

It's a Mexican radio station!

A Blow Out

Keeping up the hilarious puns about 'Blow', AND ALSO WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY ADDLED MINDS THERE IS NO SEX OR DRUGS IN THIS ITEM PERVERTS allow me to explicate as to what "W.T.W.B." really means: "When The Wind Blows", which was an extremely unfunny animated film from that 'Fungus The Bogeyman' chap, Biggs or somesuch.  Art!

     SHOCK HORROR NEWS!  NOOKELAR WAR IS BAD! etcetera.  O, really?  Gosh, I would never have known if dear old Mister Biggs hadn't shown me <a lot of unpleasant irony redacted courtesy of Mister Hand>.  If you want a realllllly horridly convincing film about nuclear war, try "The War Game" or "Threads".

     Then there is the Blowpipe.  No, not the weapon as used by South American tribes to hunt.  Art!

    Instead, this is a weapon as used by Anglo-Saxon tribes to hunt, principal prey being helicopters and low-flying jets.

   Then there is that old sea-shanty, "Blow The Man Down", with the repetitive chorus "Wey hey, blow the man down".  Conrad can only think this refers to the wind, which was a very important propulsive force way back in the age of sail.  Art!

What makes the open sea dangerous?
Mermaids with knives!

"The Big Parade"

Once more we venture into Conrad's mental verbiage that came out of nowhere, and which you can skip if you're not really into films nearly a hundred years old. 

ANYWAY When they arrive at their destination, which is presumed to be Belleau Wood, the company lines up and goes into the attack in two waves.  Art!

     Vidor throws in a few motorbikes to make things look busy.  This encounter is supposed to these South Canadians trial-by-fire, as of midsummer 1918, where they were using General Pershing’s very outdated tactics.  Art!

British or French soldiers would be working in ‘blobs’ or ‘worms’, sections or platoons moving in small columns to present less of a target in enfilade.

     The company’s first losses are to snipers, nothing dramatic, no glorious death scenes, just doughs dropping dead all of a sudden.  There’s a short fire-fight with dispirited Teuton troops, who give up quite quickly, which is not unrealistic, as their morale by this point was rather poor.

     Then come the Teuton machine-gun teams, who were picked troops whose morale was nothing less than excellent, to the extent that they would die with their guns.  Art!

     This is actually a South Canadian M1917, and not the Teuton MG08/15, a laughably-named ‘light machine gun’ that tipped the scales at 40 lb, which they would have been using more often than the original massive MG08.  Whilst a modern audience wouldn’t notice or give half a hoot, never mind two, in 1925 there would have been a lot of veterans who would scowl at the screen, elbow the wife and –

     But I digress.

Let's Have A Light And Frothy Moment

That is to say, as light and frothy as BOOJUM! gets.  I promise there won't be any zombies, atom bombs or tanks in this item.  Art!

     This is the harvest that lay underneath my Big Chair in the Sekrit Layr.  Yes, that is a fossilized miniature spring roll.  As for the Carlsberg can; I've not had any for a good six months.

     I was hoping to turn up a book, which happened to be hiding behind the War Diary A4 binder, itself propped up against the radiator.

     Conrad shudders to consider what might be hiding under the bed.

"City In The Sky"

Ace, being an attractive young woman, has had to endure Alex staring at her legs as she straightened her tights.  Had he not seen women's legs before? she asked.

     ‘Not really, no.  Our standard issue is a single-piece coverall, everybody wears one.  I was puzzled at those things on your legs.  They don’t seem thick enough to insulate properly.  And why do you wear a kilt?’

     Once more the isolated society of Arc One came back to Ace’s realisation. 

     ‘This - ’ with a mock-curtsey ‘ – is a skirt, not a kilt.  Decorative female clothing, not intended to be worked in.  The tights are a fashion item.  They make a statement.’

     Unsure of whether he was being made fun of or not, Alex tried listening.

     ‘Not literally!  Blimey, you people really are refugees from fashion, aren’t you!’

     He shrugged.

     ‘We’re a functional lot, Ace.  Stuff like fashion didn’t make it up here.  Maybe when we get back Downstairs you can advise us.’

     The young woman sneered in amused contempt.  Ace, Fashion Director for Arcology One – no, she didn’t think so!

     ‘Who or what is the Carlsbad Crew?’ asked Ace, when she’d laced up her Doc Martens properly.

 

     ‘The “Carlsbad Crew” is a bit of a joke,’ explained Devi, looking at the Doctor with a mixture of awe and alarm.  He’d spent two hours exhaustively examining the old, upsetting data logs of the Great Northern War’s outbreak, never commenting aloud yet unarguably looking for an indefinable act or event.  

     Ah, do you see the subtle segue between speakers there?  What an author!  Which is, admittedly, a trifle ambiguous.

Pretty As A -

Conrad is pretty sure he's not missing anything, and that the BBC News website has gotten rid of photographic competitions for the last six months.  I am guessing that this is the visible fallout from a vicious and protracted battle between senior managers, some of whom believe that photo competitions bring a new and vital spark to the Beeb, and those who have not yet accepted that there is this mysterious entity called "Teh Interwebz", and have only just (with bad grace) agreed that television is here to stay.  I still remember bookmarking a page of photo collections on the BBC News archive site, coming back to it a few weeks later, only to discover it no longer existed.  

     ANYWAY I am taking advantage of a temporary hiatus in this policy to post a photograph from a collection of same.  Art!

Courtesy Patricia De Melo Moreira

     This is the Porguguese ship 'Sangre', taking part in the Tall Ships Race in Lisbon.  Very brooding backdrop you've got there, Pat.

Finally -

Forsooth, I am royally glad Edna and I went walkies earlier, when there was fleecy cloud cover and a nice breeze.  It looks wicked hot out there now.

*  O go on then.  It's "Time Trap" from 2017.