The Horror Of Handwriting!

Conrad, Being A Dinosaur

Is fully au fait with handwriting as he does it all the time, just now with fibre-tip pens instead of fountain pens.  There is a sense of wielding an artefact of power when you pick up a fountain pen, weighty and massive as they are compared to other writing implements.  The downside is that they are subject to leaks, especially if the cap comes off.

     ANYWAY one of my intermittent projects at present is reading through an historical document.  Art!

C Company of 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers

     I should point out that this photograph was probably taken in early 1915, as none of the soldiers wear the Brodie pattern helmet.  Also, the house at upper port is still intact; by 1916 such a structure would have been reduced to a few bits of metal and a smear of brickdust.

     ANYWAY many years ago I purchased access to the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, from the Royal Archives at Kew.  This allowed me to look at the diary directly for a month or so, and because I am a dinosaur - did I mention this yet? - I printed the whole thing off.  Thanks to Connexions for allowing me*.  Art!

     Now you understand what I meant by today's title.  One of the battalion's officers was nominated as Intelligence Officer, and amongst his duties was updating the battalion war diary on a daily basis.  You see here the notes from June 1915, when trench warfare had been well-established, and there is frequent mention of maintaining the trenches, as well as being rotated out of line into billets, and sending men to have hot baths or showers.  The instrument used to write seems to have been a pencil, because the Biro was thirty years away.  Art!

Note paper damage

     This, I believe, is the signature of a more senior officer, who has signed off on the diary with the seal of approval.  Probably grateful that he didn't have to sit in a dirty wet dugout writing by the light of a candle stub, keeping a wary eye open for rats or Teuton artillery shells.

     As written one-hundred and eight years ago to the day.  Yes, the handwriting has changed, because another officer has been nominated, and now Conrad has to learn to decipher this crabbed scrawl.  Art!

     There's probably a book to be written about all the tactical symbols used by the BEF over the period of it's involvement in France and Flanders.  Allow me to quote from the 23rd and 24th June June 1915 entries: "Battalion relieved by Essex Regt. and withdrawn to 2nd line trenches at "La Belle Alliance".  One company to trenches "Jock Farm".  Captain AH Spooner, DSO, rejoined Battalion."

     "In 2nd line trenches.  Quiet days spent on cleaning and strengthening trenches.  Relieved Essex Regt in front line trenches.  2 men wounded."

     Not exactly earth-shattering stuff, but it gives you a brief flavour of life in line.

     I should also point out that these digitised pages are of the original diary, and where there are stains or water damage that renders the text unintelligible - that's just tough.  They are important, though, as being primary source material for anyone doing serious research into the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

O Go On Then

Yesterday I posted a mystery photograph from a film, and then refused to tell you which film it was.  Art!

     You can pick up some cues, as I did.  Given the clothing and cars, this is South Canada.  Again, from styles and designs, the Fifties or perhaps the Sixties.  Clearly the townsfolk have ganged up on our fleeing pair, but - they're not bundles of shambling rotten-ness, so it's not a zombie film.

     Give up?

     Okay, okay, it's "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" and a bit of a cheat, since this is a colour publicity still and the film itself is black and white.

A Concatenation Of Calamities

Another tale of woe about the Ruffian economy, as delivered by Joe Blogs.  I swear, the worse the predicament he is about to describe, the cheerier is his greeting, and he has thankfully gone back in front of the camera again.  Let us begin the breakdown of the breakdown.  Art!

     You see, there has been a ban imposed by Bloaty Gas Tout on the export of refined fuels, because there is a shortage of same in Ruffia itself.  This is extremely bad news because this fuel is required by agriculture to bring this year's harvest in.  No fuel, no harvest.

     Unfortunately it's a double-whammy, because such a ban means Ruffia losing $1.8 billion per week, which so far has become minus $4 billion.  Again, Gogol would love this stuff; one of the world's biggest producers of oil is having to ration it.

     What's the significance of the digital price display above?  Simply that the price has remained the same, as it's state-regulated - but it's now being sold in 0.9 litre quantities, not litres.  Art!

    The Kremlin's explanation is that there is planned maintenance being carried out at Ruffian refineries and this explains everything now go away and stop asking difficult questions.  Except it would take incompetents for the ages to schedule simultaneous maintenance and shut down oil refining capacity when Ruffia needs that sweet, sweet oil money like a junkie needs a fix.  Could it be that they're not telling the complete and unalloyed truth?

"City In The Sky"

Alex, who has dwelt in a Bernal Sphere in orbit all his life, is finding that the surface of Planet Earth takes a bit of adapting to.

Order hadn’t broken down in Adelaide.  Instead, the city government, probably operating as a devolved entity from the Federal government, had carefully organised a resource-trawl to harvest materials that could be used or re-used.  Tram rails, steel cables, wheels and axles from cars, and their electrical systems would have been stripped of copper, batteries removed for their lead.  Windows from skyscrapers recovered to reduce the requirement to make new glass, cladding taken away, doors, chairs, tables, all would have been removed.

     So, a carefully-planned operation to generate resources.  Given the long-term inability of major cities like this one to sustain themselves when the world beyond Australia ceased to communicate, the population must have been evacuated, too.  From memory, pre-Big Crash Adelaide had a population of at least a million-and-a-half.  The scattered smoke visible must be from stay-behinds who refused to leave the dead city and who remained there, scavenging as best they could.

     Coming to a respectful pause, the Doctor stood with hands on hips, nodding to himself in admiration: when faced with the slow demise of their civilisation, these humans hadn’t given up, despaired, indulged in anarchy or chaos – no, they had planned and adapted and moved on, creating a devolved population that could survive.  Homo Sapiens!  Truly indomitable! he thought, echoing an earlier expression aboard Nerva.

     "Nerva" is the space station infiltrated by the Wirrn and where this particular story began.

     Better go down and stir the Sunday Stew.  Don't want it to stick!

     It stuck a little, so it's as well I went down as I did.

The Tale Of Ten Taters

Conrad was tasked with obtaining a bag of potatoes when he went forth on his Sunday afternoon stroll into Lesser Sodom.

     Then, at 14:40, after neither the 14:12 or 14:32 turning up, I realised my shopping bag was potato-less and trudged back to the Co-Op to get a bag of tasty tubers.

     Inevitably, as I got to the slidy doors, a 409 went past, a good 12 minutes late.

     <long list of swears redacted by Mister Hand>

     Fortunately, as I stood fulminating at the bus stop, the next one was five minutes early.  Art!

They'd better taste extra-specially nice

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are don.

*  I didn't ask but what they don't know doesn't hurt them.