A Challenge!

No, Nothing To Do With The Tank

Of either iteration, which is to say the Second Unpleasantness version or the contemporary Mighty Mobile Metal Monster - you know, the one that frightens the opposition because it's 1) Huge and 2) Loud.  Art!

Challengers!

     No, this Intro is going to be a test to see how much I can spin out a single photograph and a rather humdrum subject, by way of tangents, diversions, asides and other sundry word-count enhancers, such as the previous part of this sentence.  Art!

     

     These are my now-retired slippers, which have given faithful service until the sole has worn away at heel and toe.  Conrad now has recourse only to his Skechers - which are also hole-enabled - and his Grinch slippers, which are eminently not waterproof.  No.  This is not weather for sandals.

     This hasn't taken us far, so allow me to go off on a tangentially-related subject.  Art!

     Yes yes yes, it refers to 'shoe' not 'slipper', sue me.  How many songs are there about holes in footwear that I can pick and choose from the selection of titles?  Hmmmm?  

     ANYWAY let us wheel out the relevant lyrics.

 I looked to the sky

Suspiciously poetic phrasing there, frankly

Where an elephant's eye

Was looking at me

DRUGS 'R' BAD MKAY and this is proof

Where is the elephant's other eye?  Is it a cyclopean pachyderm?  Art!

From a bubblegum tree

This is not as barmy as it might look.  'Chicle', the base for chewing gum, comes from a tree

And all that I knew

The hole in my shoe

Was letting in water (letting in water)

Buddy, I feel your pain.

HOWEVER - that word again - perhaps go to a cobbler instead of whinging tunefully?

          Shoe, slipper or Skecher, in our climate whichever you wear means soggy socks and damp skin.  That's how 'trench foot' gets you.  Whale oil for the troops!

     Art?

     You may be wondering what this walking collection of pustules and buboes has to do with today's Intro.  Well, underneath that unprepossessing exterior is Peter Gabriel, at the time lead singer of Genesis, in costume for "The Colony Of Slippermen", a song from that bonkers prog classic "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway".  I defy you to make sense of either album or song.

     Next up, quiver in fear at the most ruthless dictator in the "Star Wars" canon, who has planets blow up on a whim.  Art!

Grand Moff Tarkin

     Actor Sir Peter Cushing found his dress boots as provided by the costumiers to be far too uncomfortable to wear.  In fact - you might say 'Ol' Moff Tarkin - his dogs were barking'.  Except he'd probably have Darth Vader bisect you vertically for being cheeky. 

     ANYWAY Sir Pete had a novel solution.  Art!

     He wore slippers and was only in shot from the waist up.  I dunno, a world-destroying dictator visibly wearing slippers might make him even more terrifying.

     Right, I think that totals about 500 words, which is not bad for a tatty old pair of has-been footwear.

"The Aeneid"

Your Humble Scribe is better-informed about this work now that I've read the Introduction.  It's about the travels of pre-Roman adventurer Aeneas, from Troy (yes, that Troy) , who got involved with strife in the ancient world, eventually ending up founding Rome, like you accidentally do on a Tuesday.  Art!

     That's Dido at port, matey's love interest, and that's Aeneas himself, though I suspect that armour is more imagination that actual.  The opening line is one I've heard before yet never knew the attribution: "I sing of arms and of the man".  What captured Conrad's interest is that the translator, one David West, had the bright idea of making a poem into a prose work.  This works for me as I cordially detest poetry.

     You may hear more of this.  We'll see.

Serendipity

Conrad isn't bothered about the Coincidence Hydra, since my armour-plated underwear keeps my hairy white hindquarters intact.  Until or unless it invests in borazon-tipped teeth.

     You may recall a few days ago, when we used the coastal town of Bangor in Northern Island as the punchline to a pun.  Art!

     No smoking, alcohol or snorting allowed, one presumes.

"City In The Sky"

Terry, the transplanted native from New Eucla, has been working to earn his keep aboard Arcology One.

Ace, the strange and beguiling girl who came along with Doctor Smith, had vanished to do work Downstairs, leaving him amidst twelve thousand strangers.  They put him to work securing the sphere’s small and spindly cattle in a set of pens, making sure they were tethered at each hoof to sturdy sub-surface girders.  After that he’d been given a giant syringe full of an odd-smelling glue, and been sent out across Arc One to glue things flat against surfaces.  On a couple of occasions the Doctor’s travelling magic box had appeared but he’d either been on sleep-shift or it had gone again within seconds.  

     Not this time, though.  Now that he’d emptied his glue syringe Terry decided work was over for this shift and that he’d go see the Doctor and scrounge a lift Downstairs, since the little man seemed to hop to and from orbit like a taxi service.

     He found the small man sitting on a wicker chair, staring moodily into the distance.  This stillness stood out as unusual amongst the hustle of Arc One’s busy broods of workers.

     ‘Hi there, Doc,’ he began, causing the other man’s eyes to swivel in his direction.

     ‘Please.  “Doctor”, “Doctor Smith”, or even “Doctor John Smith”, but not “Doc”.  I am not an American mid-Western gunslinger,’ came the mild protest.  ‘Are you coping?’

     Terry shrugged.

     ‘So far.  They don’t know what to make of me, quite.  What’s boring and everyday to me is strange and fascinating to them, and vice versa.’  He took a seat in an empty chair, then leaned closer.  ‘What I wanted to ask is, could you take me back Downstairs in your magic travel-gadget?’

      Hmmmm I don't think calling the T.A.R.D.I.S. a 'magic travel gadget' is going to go down very well.  Be more diplomatic, young man!

"The War Illustrated Edition 187"

I do have an item I'm reserving from this issue, but otherwise we are nearly at the end of any more items, as the back cover is now the item.  Art!

     Here you see three Shermans, two of which are the 'Firefly' variant mounting the 17 pounder anti-tank gun, detectable thanks to the much longer barrel and the turret radio being mounted in a bustle on the turret rear.  They have a nice prominent aircraft recognition symbol painted on the engine deck, which ought to be about twice as big and in flashing dayglo neon, because pilots beginning an attack at 300 m.p.h. from 4,000 feet up need all the warning possible.  Like any tank in warfare, they have accumulated impedimenta to add to crew comforts and the longer they survive in the campaign, the more 'swag' will be added.

Just Barely Non-Lethal

Cast your glazzies over this brace of bad boys.  Art!

     These are small one-shot weapons with a range of 10 feet, delivering three times the pepper-spray equivalent of that formidable-looking gun we've already mentioned.  At ten feet you'd be hard put to miss your target and one presumes the tactic will be to go for the face, because even a person wearing a hat and mask still needs their eyes.  Unless they have goggles, in which case do they have wipers? because I bet this stuff sticks like glue.

A Day Late

Conrad follows "AfricanStalingrad" on Twitter, because if you want to know anything about the latter months of the Second Unpleasantness in Tunisia, he's your man.  He rashly posted a picture of his man-cave, which was bulging at the seams with books, maps, scrolls, notepads and printed data, all about Tunisia in 1943.  Art!

     The locals treat him with a kind of bemused tolerance.  'Eccentric British Dude' about sums up their opinion.

     What the heck, a chap's got to have a hobby!