Mincing

Yes, It's An Ambiguous Title

Come on, are you surprised?  A straight line is the shortest route between two points, and is also the most boring one, which is why we here at BOOJUM! feel free to oscillate wildly* between different viewpoints, often in the same paragraph.

     So! you might interpret today's title as meaning those who walk with small steps or effeminately, and - you'd be wrong.  Art!

The Brain from Louvain

    Whilst talking of French, or Walloon in Belgium, this is where 'Mincing' ultimately derives from: "Mincier", meaning "To diminish" and transmuted over time into cutting things up into small pieces, such as the length of one's stride, as with Hercule above.  Conrad, with Size 11 feet and 6' 1" in height, is never going to be able to mince, although he can trip over his own leg ends on occasion.  Art!

After

Before

     Indisputably a lot smaller, nicht wahr?  Now, having delivered a picture of minced meat, we then come to the topic of mincemeat, which is not the same at all.  O noes.  Art!

     This is mincemeat, which of course - obviously! - contains no meat at all in it's present form.  Waaaaay back in the fourteenth century it had a lot of minced beef in it, alongside the currants, sugar, almonds, peel and spices.  Over the centuries the meat content dwindled, until there is only beef suet present (what looks like rice grains in the above photo).

     Here an aside.  Before the diagnosis, Your Humble Scribe could easily sit down and polish off a whole six-pack of mince pies, followed up by a whole Christmas pudding with brandy butter and a nice big slice of Christmas cake <eyes glaze over in sucrose-induced haze>.

     ANYWAY that has nothing to do with what I'm typing about now on the night of 30th April 2024, if only posting on 1st May 2024.  Art!

     Yes, that is a corpse.  He is wearing the uniform of an officer in the Royal Marines, and his body washed up on the Mediterranean coastline of Phalangist Spain during the Second Unpleasantness, together with a briefcase full of Top Secret documents, on 30th April 1943.  The documents were copied and passed on to the resident Teuton Abwehr agents in Spain, who in turn passed them on to Berlin.  The documents contained tangential confirmation that the Allies were planning to invade both Sardinia and Greece, with only a token feint attack on Sicily.  Defenders were allocated to the two former destinations, with Sicily being neglected.  Art!

Psych!

     IT WAS ALL A CON.

     There never was a 'Major Martin' of the Royal Marines.  The body was that of a civilian suicide victim, who was dressed to look the part.  His pockets and wallet were filled with incidental impedimenta, to fill out the background story.  His body was carried in a refrigerated compartment aboard the submarine HMS Seraph, until cast adrift in the small hours of 30th April.  The British embassy in Spain was sent supposedly 'Urgent' messages about recovering the body and briefcase, which the Spaniards intercepted and decoded.  Art!

     How effective was Operation MINCEMEAT?  Well, it convinced the Teutons if not the Romans, and ensured attention at the very least was split between three targets, two of which were bogus.  Thus Operation HUSKY, the actual invasion of Sicily, was unopposed at sea and in the air.  So, MINCEMEAT helped in the invasion, yet it wasn't the war-winning wonder wiffle that it has been made to appear after the Second Unpleasantness.

     You can take a couple of things away from this tale: firstly, that Perfidious Albion can be quite ruthless in pursuit of it's goals, and secondly that people mistake a talent at cricket for being effete popinjays, because the British also invented and play rugby.

     

Whilst On The Military Theme

You may be aware of Al Murray as a comedian, playing the role of Pub Landlord up and down This Sceptred Isle, and indeed Conrad has a DVD of exactly that.

     However - that word again! - Al is actually a graduate of Oxford University, with a degree in Modern History, and is one half of the podcast team "We Have Ways -" alongside proper historian James Holland.  He has a keen interest in all things Second Unpleasantness and has only just put up this picture on Twitter.  Art!

     Why would he be worried about having mislaid or lost it?  Because it's a modern classic that doesn't appear to have been reprinted since the Seventies, if that.  Art!

     This is the LOWEST priced volume on Abebooks.  Art!

     This is the cheapest on E-Bay.  Plus, £10 P & P for a small paperback book?  Someone is taking the mickey.  If I'm paying that much for it they'd better send it by unicorn courier covered by a squadron of Hawkmen and escorted by Challenger 2s, thank you very much.

I Told You, It's A Scamble

Coinrad - do you see wh O you do - is referring, as if you cannot guess, to crypto-currency, which had a bad year in 2023, thanks to Sam Bankman-Fried, and what a gift of a middle name.

     ANYWAY I have news of another crypto-crook who is now paying the price for running the money-launderers favourite kind of specie.  Art!

     This is CZ, who has also been hit with a $4.3 billion fine.  Apparently he completely and deliberately ignored counter-money laundering measures and protocols, in order to get as much $$$ as quickly as possible.  It worked, as he is said to be worth $33 billion.  Yeah, well, that still wasn't enough to keep you out of the clink, mate.  If he has any sense he'll vanish into obscurity once he gets out of gaol.

"City In The Sky"

Our terrestrial spies have seen enough.

     Within an hour Ace witnessed two more Lithoi casualties; one, splashed by a tractor, went berserk and danced around in writhing circles before a cluster of other aliens lasered it apart.  The second lasered itself apart after crawling into a shallow puddle concealed by the platform’s shadow.

     ‘They really, really can’t stand water,’ she murmured to Kirwin.  ‘Listen, I’d better call the Doctor.  He’ll need to know about what they’re building.’

     At that point Kirwin decided that the platform constituted a launch site for missiles.

     ‘Gotta be,’ she said to Ace and dingo.  To Ace it looked like an inverted wire basket, with cabling, but she passed on the warning to her travelling companion, who sternly forbade them to carry out anything dramatic and in fact to head back to New Eucla and his collection of party favours.

     The trio waited until dark before heading back, their dingo escort happy to lead them for an occasional reward of jelly-baby.  They finally arrived at the township’s outskirts near mid-day, tired, dirty, dusty and thirsty.  Kirwin had lost her slight stoop of the day before, and had gained an appreciation of how big her new home was.

     ‘Back on Washington you’re never more that six minutes walk from anywhere else.  Down here – I mean, we’ve been walking for hours!’

     It's a big country**.

Finally -

You what?  Art!

     Is the organiser drunk, drugged or both?  "Western vehicles" might stretch to what you see in this picture if you allow those to do lifting as heavy as the background crane.  Art!

     Compare the two.  That second one is a Teuton Marder II of the Second Unpleasantness, a tank-destroyer based on the Czech Pz38t chassis, armed believe it or not, with a Sinister 76 mm high-velocity gun.  The Teutons captured thousands of them and put them to use, as they were always short of kit.

     Did the Ruffians steal it out of the Kherson Museum that they looted before running away?  Because I can't think of any other reason it's going to be displayed.

*  The Smiths reference for you there.

**  Classic Western reference for you there.  Also the band.