The Hot Seat

Get Ready For A Rip-Snorting Rollicking Rambunctious Rampage Chair

Don't want to get your hopes up.  But fear not!  We might not be whanging on about gigantic nuclear-armed cruise missiles today - though never say never - yet we here at the blog can still entertain and educate about the humble chair.

     I say 'chair' and 'seat' interchangeably, because I can.  Once again, whose blog is it?  Art!

     Here we see a volcano erupting, 1,000,000 years BC ("Before Caledonia").  After uncountable centuries it became extinct, and a city grew up at it's foot, in the shadow of the lava cone.  In fact, the extinct volcano is now a minor exercise in hiking and Conrad knows because he's done it.  Art!

     This is Arthur's Seat, and you're looking at the Venice of the North, Edinburgh, with the Castle and Scott Monument plainly visible.

     You maybe thinking this a bit of a reach.  No!  For Conrad's mind (not necessarily 100% associated with his brain) distinctly remembers in Mallory's "La Morte D'Arthur" that the knights of the Round Table all had their own 'sieges' to perch upon, so in fact Arthur had his own seat.  The word comes from the Old French 'Sege', meaning 'A seat' which is no great surprise as aristos like Ol' Tom liked to play one-up by speaking French (which they tormented with their hideous English accents).  In fact, "Once And Future" - a splendid comic, by the way - explicitly mentions and limns the 'Siege Perilous', a chair that was strictly reserved for those noble and pure enough to seek the Holy Grail.  Were a duplicitous, mendacious and malicious entity such as Conrad to sit upon it, he would be thunderbolted into ash and vapour.  Art!

CAUTION! Not designed for comfort

     I am also minded of a particular variety of chair, as mentioned in the Desk Calendar Crossword collection I undertook last night, to wit: the Sedan Chair.  My Collins Concise defines it thus: "A closed chair for one passenger, carried on poles by two bearers, used in the 17th and 18th centuries".  The great-grandfather of Uber, mayhaps.  Art!

     They were popular across Europe for a century or so, until cities began to expand enormously in size and a sedan taxi became unfeasible.  While they were around the Edinburghers liked them, thanks to the narrow streets of Old Town where carriages could not venture.  Conrad wonders if they ever got as far as Warsaw, because then you could have a chair mounted on poles carried by Poles.

     O, it may not be obvious to you, because you're not as comsoplitian as what Conrad is, but they were invented in the French city of Toulouse.

     No, only joking.  The French city of Sedan.
     Conrad's fertile if unpredictable mind also came up with one of the most uncomfortable seats ever to be graced by a member of Hom. Sap.  Art!

     Yes, it has an industrial and unlovely look to it, which is what foam padding and leather exteriors are for, right?

     Not quite.  Art!

     An Ooo-err Matron moment.  This, you see, is a rocket sled, passenger capacity: One.  Art!

     This is Colonel John Stapp, a South Canadian Air Force officer who volunteered for the rocket sled acceleration project, which was ground-breaking and very very hazardous.  Unmanned sleds had come off the tracks before; a manned one doing that would kill the test subject instantly, thanks to the insane speeds they got up to.  Stapp himself suffered broken ribs, wrists, lost fillings (yes, really)  and temporary blindness caused by bleeding into his eyeball.  Getting up to 630 m.p.h. under 38 gs of acceleration will do that.  BUT he never complained of a sore butt, thanks to the ergonomic design of his seat.  Art!

Now the lost fillings make sense

     I do have a story in reserve as collected from Youtube, which starts with a chair and ends in attempted murder.  You'll have to wait for that one, so make sure you're sitting comfortably .....

     

I Seem To Remember -

A comic verse about a doctor who prescribed utter silence for a patient, who was a politician.  I think.  It's been about five decades.  The doctor went around to visit and collect his fee, only to be told by the senior servant that said patient had burst.  Should have got an advanced fee, doc.  It might have been by Hilaire Belloc, or not.

     ANYWAY I am considering running a sweepstake.  Art!

     How long will it take him to violate the order?  

MINUTES    5    15    30    40    45    50    55    56    57    58    59

HOURS    1    2    3    4    5    6

DAYS    1

      We  shall see!

Conrad Courts Controversy

Well, as much as I ever do.  I was nosying at my "Egypt And Palestine" volumes of the "Official History Of The Great War Military Operations" and I have two volumes of Volume One.  One of them has been re-bound, as has Volume Two.  Volume two has a large and detailed map secreted away in a pouch on the inner cover.  Art!

     This is most definitely Palestine - the map dates from 1924, decades before Israel was a thing.  This is probably the first time anyone's bothered to unfold and look at it for fifty years.

     This is Gaza as of 1924, and you can see it's a road and rail hub for north-south transit.  No apparent harbour facilities that I can see, there might be an anchorage off-shore there.  Lateral communications seem to be limited to tracks, so one can understand why the Ottomans had a considerable garrison there.

     What a difference a century makes, hmmmm?

"City In The Sky"

The TARDIS and travelling party have arrived in New Eucla, a comparatively small but thriving coastal community, established in the aftermath of the Big Crash.

     ‘Time to make an entrance!’ he said, light-heartedly, pausing to clutch Alex’s arm.  ‘Alex, I suspect that there is a sinister influence at work here.  Please don’t comment on anything the locals say, no matter what the temptation.  Take your cue from me.’

     The young engineer looked baffled by this request, but nodded and followed both outside.  Once again he had to wear the bush hat to prevent feeling overwhelmed by Earth.  Which didn’t prevent him from seeing all the way to the horizon, making his eyes lose focus and struggle to make sense of the sheer distance.

     Children had gone running from their net-mending, racing to seek out anyone in authority, shouting out about “Wanderers arriving!”.  The Doctor took his time walking down the shifting sands, looking around him to pick up information about “New Eucla” – a sign hung up outside one of the mostly-glass buildings, one that had horse troughs, hay mangers, a tether rail and a weary horse outside.  Very well, this township was New Eucla, sprung from the decayed ruins of the old hamlet to accommodate what must be a couple of thousand people.  Major occupation: sea-fishing.

Conrad: Still Rancorous, Bilious And Supercilious

I assure you that old age has not muted or mellowed me, my Frothing Nitric Ire has merely been out of the spotlight whilst I plotted world domination and "The Annals Of Urquelomplangia", thank you for asking.  Now, about those Codewords - let the irk get to work!

"CADENZA":  You've got me there.  No idea.  Something heraldic or an Italian dish with mussels and prawns?  Let me consult the CC.  "A virtuoso solo passage occurring near the end of a piece of music, formerly improvised by the soloist."  Art!

     - because I've been listening to "Tubular Bells" and Mike does a version of the "Sailor's Hornpipe" that gradually speeds up to silly levels of performance.

"LAIC": Where you sail a bowte?  <sighs mournfully>.  "Of or involving the laity".  O I get it - Art!

     Yes, they are laity, matey.

"AQUAFABA": A word not present in my Collins Concise.  I had to resort to teh Interwebz <silent shudder>.  What is it?  I don't think you'll guess because I didn't.  Art!

     It's the water left over from cooked chick peas, which can be used as a substitute for egg-white and whipped into meringues.  Hmmm well that's one word definition that I've found useful.

Finally -

Yes, I have finally gotten all the books down from the Book Cave, and the Sekrit Layr is now awash with piles of books.  All I can say is that the Cave is a very efficient method of storing them.  Art!

    So many books!  So little time!