I Am Also Including "Donkey"
I know, I know, shockingly inaccurate of me, but here at BOOJUM! you get what you pay for.
Now, if you're of a certain mentality, the word 'Mule' will conjure up the bane of Hari Sheldon's psychohistoric calculations in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy, which I guarantee is not a sentence you were expecting to read today. Art!
Apparently this is he
The Mule, you see, is a telepathic mutant, who messes up all the carefully-laid plans and plots of Sheldon, because a random factor like him had never been allowed for.
Those of another mental bent will read "Mule" and immediately picture these - Art!
Not just fashion, but shoe fashion, which is inherently boring, so we shall move swiftly on, to my 'Collins Concise Dictionary', which states: "The sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, used as a beast of burden". A donkey is just a donkey. Away with you, donkey!
ANYWAY today's Intro derives from a description in Janet MacDonald's epic work "Supplying the British Army in the Second World War", where she leavens the dry factual accounts with flashes of humour. Thus she gave the account of 'Nina', an ambulance mule serving with the Coldstream Guards in Italy. Nina had gotten used to being fed chocolate rations as more the rule than the exception. Art!
I can't find a photo of a mule with medical litters on either side, so that will have to do. Nina vanished during an attack on Borgo Tossinago and was given up as both missing and dead.
Don't underestimate the attraction of chocolate to those who have come to see it as their divine right. Two nights later there was a banging at the door of a billet, and who should be outside but Nina, with both litters occupied by unconscious wounded men. The presumption is that the Teutons had loaded the injured into the litters and turned Nina loose, and she had tracked down her unit in darkness over the mountains, motivated no doubt by chocolate. Art!
These are French colonial troops of 8th Army, leading a mule train of supplies on the road to Florence. Sorry, still no ambulance litters.
"But Conrad, o you white-haired savant you, why are modern mechanised armies of the twentieth century using pack mules for transport?" I hear you quibble.
Well, rather than put myself to any effort, I'm going to quote from Peter Caddick-Adams "Monte Cassino: Ten Armies In Hell", which goes into detail about Why Mules? " - the technology-dependent armies had not quite appreciated the advantages of mules over motorised vehicles on tracks and off-road in the unforgiving Italian mountains."
Ol' Pete then goes into details about the advantages of mules over horses or donkeys. Get out of here, donkey! Mules are stronger than horses yet have the endurance of a donkey, are more patient when fully-loaded - which can mean up to 200 pounds - and have harder hooves. They are a lot more resistant to illness or insects and consume less fodder than either horses or donkeys. Art!
Thus they were used extensively in Italy, where they could traverse narrow mountain tracks or mud deep enough to stop traffic with no problems. The picture above shows their use in the Far East, where terrain mitigated against using vehicles. General Mark Clark, commander of the South Canadian 5th Army in Italy, who could be quite perceptive at times, realised after campaigning in Sicily that he needed mules for mainland Italy. This eventually necessitated the South Canadians buying 900 mules per month.
One thing I also learned from Ol' Pete's account of military mules, is that 'tibben' is a fodder for livestock made of chopped straw and hay. It was mentioned frequently in "Official History Of Australia In The War 1914 - 1918 Volume VII Egypt And Palestine" but they seemed to assume readers would already know what it was. Art!
Brazilian troops in Italy - yes, there was a force from Brazil fighting in Italy in the latter part of the war - are retrieving a Teuton anti-tank gun, with the help of a mule. It seems to be a tad reluctant, doesn't it? Hence that saying "Stubborn as a mule".
O Great
The rains held off until late yesterday afternoon, and then made up for their absence and then some. Art!
I guess now is the time to take madam for a trot, before the heavens re-open, as they were throwing down sheets of water earlier this morning. Conrad needs to earn a few brownie points in case the others return with more of those delicious Posh Dogs. Plus I need to get a few steps in for fear of my stroll into Lesser Sodom becoming more of a swim.
I'd make a terrible secret agent, wouldn't I? Victim of the first trap baited with food <sigh>.
Sanity Prevails Over Flattery
Yes, we are back on the topic of Blogger's traffic algorithm, which seems to go through spasms of wildly boosting my visitor numbers before returning to common sense and reality, meaning actual live human visitors are tracked, not 5,389 from Singapore, which isn't even present on the World Traffic Map. Art!
'Last Month' being August. There's just no way BOOJUM! appeals to that many people. Art!
We do seem popular in South Canada, and there are still viewers in Modern-day Mordor, to the total of 19, who would get into very hot water if the FSB ever found out. Thankfully for those 19 Ruffians with excellent taste, the FSB doesn't seem to bother with Ruffians who communicate in English, as Misha Firer over on Quora is still alive and not in prison.
Thinking Time
Also known as 'Taking Edna For A Trot', where there are no other distractions and Conrad can constructively cogitate, which was fruitful today as I'd had an idea for a blog item or even a whole Intro, and had then forgotten it.
Well, it came back to me: "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" by that well-known literary misanthrope Ambrose G. Bierce, and the parallels it had with a film, which I'm not going to go into here, as it would spoil the surprise. Art!
Of course - obviously! - I'm going to have to re-read the short story, as it's decades since I last perused it. That covers my homework for today.
Kyle's Isles
Continuing with the South Canadian theme we seem to have going here, it's time to select another in the list of Kyle "Geography King"'s interesting or unusual islands. This time it is Assateague Island. Art!
Kyle describes it as a 'barrier island', being 37 miles long but only 1 mile across. It is split across state boundaries, being partly in Maryland and partly in Virginia. Art!
The eastern shore of the island, facing the Atlantic, has sandy beaches, whilst the interior is swampy marshland. The most unusual residents are herds of feral horses, which have been living here for centuries. Art!
They arrived with the Spanish so have been living on the island for perhaps five hundred years. And! there's a bridge connecting the island with the mainland, titled the 'Verrazzano Bridge'. Art!
I was going to end with the horses because we began with mules, but had to add on another piece to hit the word count.
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