Still On The Boil

To Recap

I have, for the past few weeks, been reading a compilation of three novels by Raymond Chandler, namely "The Big Sleep", "Farewell, My Lovely" and "The Long Goodbye", which are classics in the detective genre, and also absolutely definitive examples of 'Hard-boiled' fiction.  This is stuff where the protagonist not only does not take any nonsense, they are adept at dishing it out with fists, feet, knives, blackjacks or guns.  Especially guns.  They are cynical, worldly and over-fond of alcohol.  Philip Marlowe, Chandler's shamus of choice, indulges in alcohol to an extent that nowadays he'd be seen as an alcoholic.  The tobacco bit is a little more nuanced, as he smokes a pipe by preference.  Art!

An example of a long musical goodbye

     Which is where all these titles about 'Boiling' come in.  I'm not going to whang on about distillation today, and still less about boils, because I can't think of much else that would put an audience off.  If you're still here, congratulations.

     One thing - okay, maybe two - that I'd like to address here is a phrase Phil describes: " - melted ice in a bowl".  Think about it.  If it's melted ice, then it's water.  How can you tell it was ever ice?  If it's not all melted then it's still ice.  Then there's the character 'Roger Wade', an alcoholic - I mean the genuine boozehound who cannot live without imbibing a pint of whisky for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, late lunch, dinner, supper and any other excuse - author, whom is supposedly a spiteful skit of Raymond Chandler.  Which is a bit puzzling, as Raymond Chandler is the author of TLG.  Authors, hmmm?  What can I say.  Art!

PIPE!  And cat.  But, primarily, pipe.

     So!  Let us continue with my annotations from TLG, which you may look upon as a public service, Conrad doing the hard work so you don't have to.

MOZO: A term used of a member of staff at a rather shabby and down-at-heel Mexican hotel.  Once again, not a word Conrad had ever heard of before.  With a little digging on Google, it turns out to be a servant or housekeeper, which matters because Terry Lennox uses them to pass on a letter to Phil.  Art!

MADISON: A portrait of which was sent by Terry to Phil.  Marlowe, you see, had been diligent in not asking awkward questions about why Terry needed a lift to the airport at Tijuana, because if he didn't know then he wasn't either a material witness or an accomplice.  Art!

     Yes, a 'Madison' is a $5,000 bill, of which Phil reckons there were only about 900 in circulation at the time.  Trying to spend one of these would probably be very difficult, because which kind of business keeps a float of four thousand and five hundred dollars, at the least? and any bank would immediately be verrrrry suspicious about who you are and how you had one of these.  In fact they are so rare there is probably an established paper trail for each and every one.

     Thanks, Terry.

HATTIE CARNEGIE 'CAREER GIRLS SPECIAL': From the context, Conrad suspects this is about fashion, which is a closed book to him.  A bit of digging reveals that Hattie Carnegie was indeed a fashion and clothes designer.  Art!

     Yes yes yes, she designed clothes, that's as much as we need to know here.

MONOGRAM: At one point in the narrative, Ol' Phil - who doesn't age according to the calendar so I'm not sure I should be calling him 'Old' - mentions watching a television programme about crime and detectives.  He finds it risible, stating that the dialogue was so bad " - even Monogram wouldn't have used it."  Art!

     

     Monogram Studios, you see, were one of the 'Poverty Row' studios that made films on a shoestring and thus couldn't afford scripts or scriptwriters of any talent.  They existed alongside other studios such as Republic, Mascot and PRC.  All long gone, to no great regrets.  One supposes that their equivalent nowadays would be the direct-to-DVD market.
     Right, I think that's enough cultural comparisons for one Intro, we shall move swiftly along as I tackle this rather disgusting-looking pizza.  That remaindered halal pastrami has turned black after being baked and then microwaved.

"The War Illustrated Edition 190"

Once again, a caveat.  The photographs that were published in TWI were deliberately not up-to-date, and indeed might be as much as four weeks old.  This was to prevent the enemy from gaining any important tactical information from them.  Whilst the war had been fought in North Africa there was also an element of timing, because negatives had to find their way back home across the Mediterranean and to Perfidious Albion.  Not so with France, where transit to the UK might take only a few hours.  Art!

     This, in response to anyone who thinks the British observe the rules of war as they do with cricket.  Not remotely.  In the upper two photos you can see the 'Lifebuoy' man-portable flamethrower, a horrid little weapon issued to specialist troops for the clearing of fortifications and the like.  The limitations are a relatively short range and only having a certain number of 'shots'.

     Below that, to port you can see one of the Teuton's least favourite weapon-systems of the entire Second Unpleasantness, a Crocodile flame-throwing Churchill tank.  Teuton infantry hated hated hated these things, because they were incredibly hard to stop and the flame-gun had a range of about 120 yards.  This meant all their hand-held anti-tank weapons were outranged.  Ooops.

     To starboard is another weapon the Teuton's grew to hate: a Wasp flamethrower, which was the old Universal Carrier with a double-barrelled flame projector.  The Carrier was up-armoured with extra protection so that it could bear the brunt of an assault.  Art!

More boiling references

     That final photo shows Wasps carrying out an assault, and if you're having trouble making sense out of all the smoke and flame, imagine how the party on the receiving end feels.

     Perfidious Albion is - perfidious.

Well, that item above means no Roy Cross on this blog.

Whilst On That Subject

Conrad noticed an item on the feed that mentioned war films, and I began to wonder how many of them I've seen, how many I actually have in my inordinately large DVD collection, and how many I've not yet seen.  Art!

     I ought to track down my copy of "Brassey's Book Of War Films" which is absolutely magisterial and definitive on the subject, up until the year it was published.  Which was 2000, so it's now 24 years out of date <sighs heavily at the glory of the world passing>.

I Did Warn You

As a contrast to all the text above, allow me to include a picture of the remaindered pizza adorned with remaindered halal pastrami, after being microwaved after being baked in an oven.  Art!

     It tastes about as good as you'd expect, and the only fan of it was Edna, who loitered hopefully in the expectation of a bit of crust.  Art!

     That's the halal pastrami, which I bought and will eat because it was only £0.20 per pack, instead of £2.80.  

Let The Rage Commence!

There have been, apparently, a lot of offended people who were outraged about a recent sporting event's opening, because they deem anything they don't understand at being THE SPAWN OF SATAN, which must include an awful lot of things including quantum mechanics and how a car engine works.  Art!

     This is a whole family turning up to ComicCon 2024 in costume as X-Men.  More power to their elbow, I hope they enjoy it, they're not harming anyone and if you feel critically offended THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY.  

     You do know that there are entire events where men dress up as women and slather on makeup?