Shotgunning

No, This Isn't All About The Hazardous Drinking Method

Though we will cover it en route.  You see, Conrad utilised the time taken during his trip into  Lesser Sodom - 'Royton' if we're being formal - on foot to think about the next day's Intro, because rust never sleeps nor does my mind.  What I wanted to get to eventually was clear, we just needed a couple of tangential stops on the way there.  Art!

     Yes yes yes, that is Marilyn Monroe but she's not the object of the exercise here, because holding her hand is Layne Britton, better known to all and sundry as 'Shotgun' Britton, for reasons that remain obscure to me even now.  His principal role in film and television was as a makeup artist, though he cameoed in "The Blues Brothers" as the 'Cheese Whiz Guy'.

     O apparently the name was bestowed on him by his father, who claimed he resembled a 'sawn-off shotgun' when wearing short trousers as a child.  Thanks, Dad.  Art!

     Yes, meet the phenomenon of a 'Shotgun wedding'.  This is where the groom gets married to the bride will-he nil-he, most commonly because she's pregnant, and the wedding vows are taken under the watchful eyes of the bride's family, who tote shotguns to emphasise the alternative to holy matrimony.  I have not seen the film and do not intend to do so, I can tell that the plot involves The Bride sticking it to The Man and taking on The Patriarchy etcetera, just by the poster.  O and he'll be Prince Harming.  I made that up all by myself, aren't I clever!  Art!

NOW the drinking

     This is 'Shotgunning' and once again I've no idea why it gets called that.  The goal is to sink a can of beer as fast as possible and it can only be done with cans.  To achieve it successfully, one lays a can of beer horizontally and pokes a small hole near the base.  This ought to be over the ullage, so there is no leak or spray.  Next, you the user (or abuser) apply the small hole to your gaping piehole and pull the ring, which causes the beer to be pushed from can and into you at a high rate of knots.  To Your Humble Scribe this seems to be a recipe for gagging, choking, getting a beer shower or shampoo and all round liable to lead to severe wind.  Art!

     

     This, ladies and gentlemen and any other categories, is where the South Canadian term 'Riding shotgun' comes from.  A coach like this would have a driver, which role in this case is carried out by a winsome maiden, and alongside them sat a guard, frequently armed with a shotgun.  Why so?  Conrad presumes because it's easier to hit a moving target when firing from a moving vehicle using a weapon that fires shot, not a single bullet.  This traditional role has now been subsumed into the front passenger seat of a car, and young South Canadians can be heard stating their intent to 'ride shotgun'.  Art!

     No, it's not Jesus, it's Jamie McCollom of "Forgotten Weapons" and that savage tool is a Winchester 1897 Trench Shotgun.  When the South Canadians arrived in Europe during the First Unpleasantness, they brought many thousands of these weapons, which were a very unwelcome novelty to the Teutons.  The South Canadians, you see, had practical experience of using shotguns in wartime, where they were loaded with buckshot - not birdshot, as was typical in Europe.  Art!

     Buckshot to port.  These shells are normally loaded with nine lead shot, and have sufficient stopping power to take down a large animal such as a buck.  Or a Hom. Sap.  The shell to starboard is birdshot, because if you're hunting wild birds for the table, you don't really want them torn apart.

     The 1897 gun was a lot handier in trench warfare than a standard infantry rifle, especially if you left the bayonet off, and was a lot quicker to reload.  The Teutons were so unamused by their appearance on the battlefield that they filed a protest with the South Canadians, claiming that they were a cruel and barbarous weapon that had no place on the modern battlefield, and that poison gas and flamethrowers were different because.  Besides which, they would execute any South Canadians caught using 1897s.

     The South Canadians gave them short shrift, and explained that they, too, would start executing Teuton PoWs, and that they had an awful lot more Teuton PoWs than the Teutons had South Canadian PoWs, after which the matter was allowed to quietly die out.   Art!

     This is a shot from "The Pacific" where the chap wielding a gun is indeed wielding an 1897.  It was short enough that it didn't get caught up in the jungle, where engagements were at such close range that it's lack of effectiveness beyond 30 yards wasn't an issue, and when loaded with buckshot would stop the hardest-charging Jap trooper.

     I also recall reading about the British army using combat shotguns in the Malayan Emergency, for the same reasons as in the paragraph above.  Art!

Shotgun Briton?

     Which is where we came in.

Further To Virgil

No!  This is nothing to do with the unglamourous flying truck-driver from "Thunderbirds".  We are talking about the Roman poet and his work "The Aeneid", which Conrad had wit sufficient to look up in his "Brewer's".  Art!

Aeneas at the office Monday morning

     "Virgil's epic poem (1st Century BC) in 12 books, accounting for the settlement of Aeneas in Italy and thus claiming Trojan origins for the Roman state.  The story tells of how Aeneas escaped from the flames of Troy, carrying his father Anchises to Mount Ida."

     There's a couple of hundred words more that I don't think I'll add in, since that would be Padding, and a ton of it.  And we don't want Paddington, do we?

We've Not Had Anything About A Gent Orange For A While

I made that description up all by myself.  Aren't I clever!

     Well, during the current criminal trial, Donald Judas Trump has brayed loudly about how he so, so, so wanted to testify but the state of the pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar was preventing him.  Now his legal reps are making noises about how they don't ever, ever, EVER plan on having him testify in court.  This is sound tactics because Pumpkinhead will perjure himself within 30 seconds, and continue to perjure himself whilst talking.

     As wiser legal minds have counselled, calling a defendant to the stand is very ill-advised, because they can sink themselves within minutes.  Or seconds.

     On the other hand, Pimpkinhead is firmly - this is how delusional the man is - of the belief that he is the smartest guy in the room, and he doesn't like being described in verrry unflattering terms where he just has to sit there and take it.  The judge has taken umbrage at his venomous mutterings, so The Donald now has to suffer in silence.

     Meaning he may indeed take the stand despite his legal counsels wanting to avoid it at all costs, because he's paying them, so they do as he says.  Or he will be paying up until the Guilty verdict, at which point they'll get stiffed because they didn't get him off.  Art!

The Trump in it's natural state

"City In The Sky"

Ace and Captain Kirwin have apparently fallen into a barrel of Trouble.

     Ace fumbled the box’s clips open and threw the lid back, revealing the sleek and well-engineered lines of the missile launcher.  She plucked it from the restraining memory-foam, with the nearest missile, too.

     Kirwin muttered a string of curses under her breath: the flying eye was growing larger in her vision, which meant it was approaching.  At speed.  There wouldn’t be time to hand the bins to Ace, then take up the missile launcher herself, because in that time they’d have lost the alien craft and at that speed they’d not get a first chance to relocate it, let alone a second.

     All this went across her mind in approximately one quarter of a second.

     ‘Ace, you need to load the missile and fire it, because if I lose this thing in the bins, we’re dead.’

     Gloating at getting her hands on a Real Live Missile Launcher, because the Prof would probably drop down dead rather than let her manage such a feat whilst under his beady eyes, Ace got recalled to the real world with uncomfortable speed.

     ‘Rip off the plastic seal over the missile’s docking tube,’ called Kirwin.  ‘That’s the ass-end of the missile.’

     She hastily dialled back on the binocular’s gain, lost the eye for a split-second, panned back and forth and caught it again, now much closer.  Two klicks, at the furthest: her digital ranging readout scrolled down too rapidly to check properly.

     Scrunching sounds came as Ace ripped the plastic seal away with such force that she cut her finger.

     ‘Now insert into the launcher’s docking unit.  Rotate counter-clockwise until it clicks and stops moving.’

     It would have been better planned if it had already been prepped.  Just saying.

Justice Prevails!

You may not be aware, but Steve Buscemi was a fireman in New York for four years, and on 9/11 he went back to his old station to volunteer for duty with them.  You won't get him to talk about this unless at gunpoint, as he's not a boastful chap.

     So, I take great satisfaction in posting the following:

     If this goes to trial in New York, expect Idiot Assailant to experience a miserable time in court.  Ha!

Finally -

Gin o'clock has rolled around, time for a snifter or ten!